Former councillor charged with sexual assault on youth

ANNE LUCEY

A FORMER Fianna Fáil councillor and former chairman of Cavan County Council has gone on trial at the Circuit Criminal Court in Tralee, charged with the sexual assault of a teenager under 17 at a Killarney hotel two years ago.

Anthony Vesey (52), Kilconny, Belturbet, Co Cavan, has pleaded not guilty to the sexual assault of a male under 17 at the Malton Hotel, Killarney, in September 2007.

An education conference was taking place in the hotel at the time, prosecutor Tom Rice told the court yesterday. A large number of people had assembled in the hotel and Mr Vesey had some connection with politics. The complainant was an employee of a contract agency providing workers for the hotel industry, not a hotel employee.

Judge Carroll Moran ordered neither the name of the employer (ie the contractor) nor the identity of the youth were to be revealed. However he refused an application by Mark Nichols, defending, not to publish the name of the accused.

Mr Rice said this was not a case where identifying the accused would lead to identifying the victim, nor was it a more serious case where the accused could not be named except at the discretion of the judge.

“I have no discretion as regards identity of accused,” Judge Moran said, “but I am obliged to make an order in respect of the complainant.”

The trial is expected to last three days.

Mr Vesey was elected to what became Belturbet Town Council in 1979 and remains a member of the council. He was elected to Cavan County Council in 1985, and was a member of the county council until last June. He was chairman of Cavan County Council in 1994/95.

He has also been a member of a number of regional authorities, including the Border regional authorities and the EU Committee of the Regions.