Publicity surrounding a former Christian Brother who pleaded guilty to indecent assault last year resulted in more victims coming forward, a court was told yesterday.
Donal Dunne, Patrick's Avenue, Portarlington, Co Laois, was sentenced to two years' imprisonment at Tullamore Circuit Court for indecently assaulting boys at Walsh Island National School on various dates between 1965 and 1969.
He admitted the offences last November, and at the same time admitted two charges of indecently assaulting a boy at a school in Co Kilkenny between 1969 and the early 1970s.
Judge Anthony Kennedy heard yesterday that media coverage of Dunne's guilty plea resulted in a former pupil at two schools in Dublin and another in Co Longford making allegations against him.
These victims told of abuse perpetrated by Dunne earlier in his teaching career from about 1948 onwards. While no new charges were brought as a result of these victims' statements, the defendant, who will be 79 later his month, accepted his involvement, the court was told.
Sgt Michael Dalton, who investigated the case, said a victim at the school in Co Longford told of being abused by the then schoolmaster, Dunne, between 1957 and 1961. The pupil was asked to go to a church next door to pick up some items. Sexual abuse would then take place in the choir loft, the court heard.
Another victim told gardai of similar assaults and physical abuse at a school in Dublin when he was 12 and 13.
The court also heard of a Garda investigation into why Dunne was told £10,000 was to be lodged with a county registrar in the Midlands by way of compensation for the injured parties.
Mr William Fennelly, defending, said his client had been targeted for a "considered prank".
Sgt Dalton said he was alerted when the accused rang him apologising about his failure to keep an appointment to discuss the compensation.
Mr Fennelly appealed to the judge not to impose a custodial sentence. He submitted that apart from one incident in 1995, when his client was convicted of indecent assault at Portarlington District Court, there had been no offences since the mid-1970s, when Dunne began teaching at a girls' school.
He asked the judge to take Dunne's guilty plea into account as well as his admission of responsibility in the additional cases which had come to light.
Mr Fennelly also said that Dr Brian McCaffrey, Eastern Health Board consultant psychiatrist, believed if a custodial sentence was imposed, the defendant would not survive long in prison. He had a plethora of medical ailments and had been diagnosed as suffering from Parkinson's Disease.
Judge Kennedy rejected the plea for leniency and condemned Dunne's activities as a premeditated campaign of sexual molestation by a teacher in a position of trust.
According to a probation report, the accused did not appear to accept his behaviour was as outlined by his victims and he appeared to have a limited understanding of the impact he had on them. "The thoroughly alarming feature of this case is his conviction in 1995 when he was 75 for a similar offence, which indicates recidivism 25 years later," said the judge.
For most of his life he had harboured a sexual attraction to boys of a certain age and research suggested there remained a risk of re-offending in such cases.
The only real mitigating factor, added Judge Kennedy, was the plea of guilty, but the accused had little option but to plead, as a conviction would be fairly inevitable.
Judge Kennedy imposed a two-year sentence on each of 17 counts, ruling that they run concurrently. He refused an application to appeal against severity.