DPP to get file on sex abuse claims

A file will be sent this week to the Director of Public Prosecutions arising from allegations of sex abuse in a Co Sligo national…

A file will be sent this week to the Director of Public Prosecutions arising from allegations of sex abuse in a Co Sligo national school for boys.

This follows the sending of a file some weeks ago relating to similar allegations in the school.

Supt John Fitzgerald of Sligo said yesterday that the investigation had been going on for a year, and was continuing. A third file may be sent to the DPP. The offences were allegedly committed in the 1960s and 1970s.

Up to four teachers at the school at that time are the subject of the allegations. None of them is still teaching there. Another former teacher at the school was convicted recently of a sexual offence.

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The investigation has been described as the largest of this nature ever undertaken in the Sligo-Leitrim division of the Garda, and past pupils of the school were contacted in the US and Australia as well as in the Republic. A team of gardai travelled to the US to interview alleged victims.

The school would have had a large annual intake and the number of potential victims is therefore large.