A former Christian Brother had shown not a shred of remorse for his victims, a judge said yesterday as he jailed him for five years for indecently assaulting three boys in the North Monastery secondary school in Cork in the 1980s.
Judge Seán Ó Donnabháin noted Edward Bryan (59), formerly Br Bryan, Martinvilla, Athboy Road, Trim, Co Meath, had been convicted following the most careful, prolonged and exhaustive consideration of the evidence by a jury at Cork Circuit Criminal Court.
He said there were several aggravating factors to the case including the fact that there were multiple victims, that they were all young boys at the time while he was an adult and a teacher in a position of trust, and the fact that the abuse went on over a prolonged period.
Bryan, who became deputy director of Oberstown Juvenile Detention Centre after he left the Christian Brothers, was convicted of one count in June 2012, retried in October 2012 only for the trial to collapse, and then convicted of seven more counts following another retrial.
The judge said: “What I do note and what the victims have noted is that there isn’t a shred of remorse from this man and I find that alarming.”