A WELL-KNOWN businessman in Tralee, Co Kerry was yesterday sentenced to three years in prison for the indecent assault of two young brothers 30 years ago.
Jerome Baily (75) Bayview, Ballyard, Tralee, had pleaded not guilty to 27 offences but was found guilty of four charges by a jury after a four-day trial last November.
Seventeen charges did not go to the jury because of lack of evidence, and the accused was acquitted of six charges, including one count of buggery.
The offences, relating to dates between the mid-1970s and early 1980s, began with one of the victims when he had made his first Holy Communion. After the assault Baily put £20 next to the boy’s wallet and said it was for his first communion, the court heard.
An incident involving the second victim took place in a hotel outside the county.
During the two-week hearing, the accused, who said he was bisexual and attracted to boys and girls of 14 or 15 years, admitted only to touching one of the boys “inappropriately”, and to tickling him after a night out in Dingle.
At the sentence hearing yesterday, Det Garda Martin O’Riordan said both victims had been “scarred” by the abuse. The victim whose abuse started after his first communion felt the memory of most of his childhood holidays had been “contaminated”, and he had been deprived of a normal childhood and felt isolated from his family, a statement read in court by the garda said.
The second victim, who did not wish to make a victim impact statement, told Det Garda O’Riordan his whole life had been affected and “the scars will never go”.
The allegations came to light in 2003 when Baily was not invited to a wedding and queried why this was so. He had run a cash-and-carry business and was well known in Tralee.
Det Garda O’Riordan agreed with Denis Vaughan Buckley SC, for the accused, that Baily was a “substantial” businessman. In 2003 he had made out a cheque for €75,000 to be divided between the victims, one to receive €50,000, the other €25,000.
The court also heard how Baily and his sister had sold land in Tralee for €3.5 million in 2001.
Judge Carroll Moran accepted prison would be very harsh for a man aged 75. He had no previous convictions and had not been convicted of the more serious charge of buggery. There was no hint he would reoffend, the judge said.
He sentenced Baily to two periods of 18 months on the charges, to run consecutively, and refused leave to appeal.