An unemployed man has been given a seven-year sentence, with two years suspended, for sexually assaulting 16 children over 16 months in fast-food restaurants, swimming pools and sports grounds in Cork.
James Lombard (37), Blarney Street, Cork, was convicted in February of sexually assaulting seven boys. In April he pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting another seven boys and two girls aged between four and 10.
At Cork Circuit Criminal Court yesterday Det Sgt Denis Cahill said the assaults occurred between May 18th, 1993, and August 11th, 1994. Many took place in the toilets of fast-food restaurants in Cork and involved Lombard targeting young boys on their own. In most cases he bundled the boys into cubicles after they had left their parents to go to the toilet.
He also targeted boys as they were changing into their togs at Douglas and Mayfield swimming pools as well as at a GAA pitch on the north side of the city.
Lombard was apprehended on September 4th, 1994, after gardaí received information about another incident from a member of the public. Over the next eight days he made three detailed statements to gardaí in which he admitted abusing the children.
A file was sent to the DPP, but when gardaí went to arrest him in March 1995 he had left Ireland.
Following extensive inquiries through Interpol, gardaí located Lombard in jail in England, where he was serving a sentence for a similar offence under the name John Kelleher.
He was extradited to Ireland in June 2004 and went on trial last February. On the last day of his trial, February 7th, he fled, prompting a major Garda search. He was found and arrested in Carrigaline in south Cork on February 28th.
Det Sgt Cahill said there was a very high probability that Lombard would reoffend and he was very concerned, particularly given the nature of the offences on young children.
Lombard apologised for his actions, including the fact that it had take so long for the case to come to a conclusion.
"I'm very sorry for what I did. If I could turn back the clock . . . I regret very much what I've done," he said.
He said he panicked and fled in February, but that there was no excuse for doing so. He suffered from depression and was on a suicide watch at Cork Prison, but he would be keen to undertake a course to help combat his abusive tendencies.
Judge Seán Ó Donnabháin said he would sentence Lombard to two years concurrent for each of the nine offences to which he pleaded guilty, but would treat the seven contested matters differently as Lombard had obliged his victims to relive their trauma through a trial.
He noted the predatory nature of most of the cases and said Lombard had gone "the length and breadth of the city" preying on and taking advantage of children.
Judge Ó Donnabháin said that, had Lombard come before the courts having gone for treatment, he might take a different view, but he sentenced him to seven years with two years suspended on these contested cases to run concurrently with the two-year sentence. He ordered Lombard to be placed under the supervision of the Probation and Welfare Service upon his release.