A MAN with a mental age of 12, who was sentenced to 18 months in jail two weeks ago for sex abuse, is to remain in a mental institution as a voluntary patient for another week.
The 33-year-old man, who was abused as a child by his father and later by a Kilkenny priest to whom he was entrusted by the Probation Services, is not a suitable candidate for prison, Judge Sean O'Leary said at Waterford Circuit Court yesterday.
The defendant's sentence was postponed while an alternative to prison was considered. He is currently a voluntary patient in St Canice's psychiatric hospital in Kilkenny.
Counsel for the South Eastern Health Board, Mr John O'Kelly SC, said the hospital would be agreeable to him staying for another two weeks.
The judge said he was gravely disturbed by the case. He said the health board will not continue to provide facilities for the defendant until January, when a High Court hearing to determine the South Eastern Health Board's responsibility for providing accommodation for the defendant will conclude.
"I couldn't be more sympathetically disposed to your client," Judge O'Leary told Mr Jeremy Maher BL, counsel for the defendant.
"He pleaded guilty to a number of offences of sexual misbehaviour. His background is such that the court is satisfied he needs care and attention in equal parts to punishment."
He added he accepted the defendant had some control over his actions.
The judge, noting the defendant's mental capacity, went on: "I take the view that it is difficult for me to treat him as anything other than a child and, as a child, it is the responsibility of the State to look after him in his child-like condition."
He said he was not satisfied that the State had put forward to him a scheme for the defendant's care and attention over a long period of time and that he could do three things: give the defendant a suspended sentence, "and send him on his way - but these offences are too serious"; send him to prison or, if he could find an alternative to prison it was his duty to explore that avenue.
"If he had a prudent parent, that parent would be in a position to look after him and it wouldn't be necessary to send him to prison."
"The State should take the place of the prudent parent and present a scheme to me which would be for the long-term benefit of the defendant as an alternative to custody."
The case was adjourned until next Wednesday.