A former headmaster of a Christian Brothers national school who admitted sexually abusing two pupils has received a suspended prison sentence and a fine yesterday at Dublin District Court.
Judge Desmond Hogan also ordered that the teacher's name be withheld after hearing testimony from a victim who did not want the man's family to suffer.
But the victim, now aged 32, told the man: "I do not want the sympathy I feel for your family confused with sympathy for you. I hold you in total contempt." He also criticised the DPP for refusing to prosecute originally on the grounds that the offence was minor.
He said he had made a complaint because the Christian Brothers did not respond to his concerns about the man being in charge of 600 pupils.
Det Sgt Matt Murphy said the former headmaster indecently assaulted the victim, when he was 12, in a stationery office at the school in 1978. Two years earlier he had also indecently assaulted another 12-year-old boy in the school sweet shop.
The court was told the defendant, now aged 51, had left the Christian Brothers and had married in 1983. He had two children aged 12 and 13 years.
Mr Bobby Eagar, defending, said his client was receiving treatment at the Granada Institute. Counsellors did not classify him as a paedophile and considered the chance of reoffending low.
Mr Eagar said prison could make sex offenders regress because of the lack of treatment. There were only 20 treatment places for more than 200 inmates and he asked that his client be allowed to continue his therapy.
The judge heard the man was responding well to treatment and had left the teaching profession. He had informed his sons of his difficulties and experts were satisfied his children were not at risk from him.
Judge Hogan imposed a 12month sentence suspended for five years on one charge of indecent assault in 1978 and imposed a £1,000 fine on the other.