Teacher convicted of indecent assault
A 62-year-old school teacher has been convicted at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court of indecently assaulting a pupil over 40 years ago.
The jury of seven women and five men took more than four hours to return their majority verdict of guilty on all 12 counts against the teacher on day three of the trial.
The man had pleaded not guilty to indecently assaulting the boy at a Dublin primary school on numerous occasions between July 1966 and June 1970.
Judge Martin Nolan thanked the jurors for completing their civic duty.
The now 49-year-old complainant told prosecuting counsel, Ms Roisin Lacey BL, that the teacher would take his hand and put it on his crotch outside his clothes for a few moments as he sat at his desk.
He said the teacher put his hands up his shorts legs and fondled him several times over the three years he was the man's pupil in first, second and fourth class.
The man said the teacher also took his hand and put it on his private area.
He said the incidents left him "stunned and unhappy" but didn't make a complaint till 2002 because he "found it difficult to put words on it" and because otherwise he had liked his teacher.
He said that he felt returning to the accused man's class after having a different teacher for third class was "a mixed bag", in that he liked the teachers "style" but did not like "what he was doing".
He told defence counsel, Mr Paul McDermott SC, he could not give specific dates for the alleged abuse and that there was no pattern or predictability to the incidents.
He agreed that the entrance door lead straight into the classroom and there would not be any time for the accused man to "undo the damage" if he was abusing the boy when another person walked in.
The man told Ms Lacey in re-examination that although he could not remember specific dates he was certain that abuse had occurred throughout his time in first, second and third class.
Detective Garda David Nolan said the elderly man denied in a 2002 garda interview that he touched the boy's penis or made the boy touch his penis at the Dublin school.
He said the man added that the allegations were "untrue" and that he did not know whether the complainant had made them up or imagined them.
