Jailed child sex abuser fails to prevent trial on more charges

A man serving 14 years imprisonment for child sex abuse has failed in a High Court bid to prevent his trial on further historical abuse charges.

The man faces 270 charges of sexually abusing six boys, mostly when they were teenagers, between December 1978 and March 1993. He is currently serving 14 years after he admitted abuse of a number of other boys in the 1980s.

He claims these latest charges are the second and third prosecutions against him. He says he will be unable to receive a fair trial because of the inordinate delay in prosecuting him.

There had been investigations in 1979, 1987 and 1997 and if any of those had been properly conducted the current prosecutions might have been brought forward at a much earlier time, he claims.

It is impossible, due to the passage of time, for him to establish “islands of fact in order to defend himself”. The case will therefore be just a matter of assertion (by the complainants) and denial, he says.

He also says the alleged offences are not time, date or location specific such that he could defend himself. Several witnesses are now deceased and one potential witness has dementia.

Although he previously pleaded guilty to some charges against him he denied offence after 1987 when some of these latest charges are alleged to have occurred, it is also argued.

The DPP opposed his High Court application to prohibit his trial and denied his claims.

Mr Justice Miriam O’Regan found he had not discharged the burden placed on him to establish there is a real or serious risk, by reason of the individual, or cumulative complaints he was making, that he would not obtain a fair trial. Any possibility of that could be dealt with by directions given by the judge hearing the criminal trial, she said.