A FORMER Kilkenny hurler was sentenced to four years' imprisonment for indecent assault at Kilkenny Circuit Court. The father of one of the victims collapsed and died in court during the hearing yesterday.
Martin Coogan, from Castlecomer, who won All Ireland senior medals on four occasions, was convicted of indecently assaulting two young girls in 1984 and 1988. A jury of nine men and three women took 55 minutes to find him guilty of one of the assaults.
Coogan, who was to have faced a second trial on the other charge, then changed his plea to guilty.
Judge Sean O'Leary sentenced him to four years' imprisonment on each of the charges, but directed that they be served concurrently.
The court was told that the two victims were aged 91/2 and 10 when the assaults took place at a school where the defendant had been employed as a caretaker.
Coogan had denied the first assault, claiming that it had never occurred.
The father of one of the victims collapsed and died on the balcony of the courtroom minutes before the trial concluded. The 43 year old man had just heard his daughter, now aged 21, give evidence of how she had been coping since the assault in 1984.
The man received treatment from two doctors on the balcony of the courtroom before being taken to St Luke's Hospital in Kilkenny, where he was pronounced dead.