A retired school teacher has been jailed for 12 months for sexually assaulting a boy at a school in Co Cork more than 25 years ago.
Leo Hickey (77), of Realt na Mara, Skevanish, Innishannon, denied eight counts of sexual assaulting Daniel Kelleher while teaching at Scoil Eoin Boys National School in Ballincollig between November 1991 and June 1992.
A jury at Cork Circuit Criminal Court unanimously convicted Hickey in February and Judge Sean O Donnabhain on Tuesday sentenced him to three years in jail with the final two years suspended.
Hickey had previous convictions from 1998 when he pleaded guilty to 21 sample counts from a total of 378 charges of indecently assaulting 21 girls between 1964 and 1973 when he was principal in Dunderrow National School .
Det Garda Donal O’Connell told the court the abuse began when Mr Kelleher was just nine and Hickey was his fourth class teacher.
Mr Kelleher told how Hickey used to send him out with notes for other teachers and then follow him and make him go into the toilet where he would touch the boy’s penis and make the boy touch his.
He said that giving him the note was Hickey’s way of getting him out the classroom and it tended to happen in the morning when the caretaker was on his rounds and although it lasted only a few minutes, it seemed to go on forever.
Tin whistle
The court heard that on one occasion Hickey took Mr Kelleher's tin whistle and shoved it down inside his trousers before giving it back to the pupil and asking him to play Amazing Grace. When the pupil refused to do so, Hickey gave him lines.
He also told of another instance where Hickey abused him one evening after hurling training when he put his hands on his private parts. Mr Kelleher recalled dropping a bunch of hurleys he had been carrying and running back to the classroom with Hickey blowing a whistle to get him to stop .
In his victim impact statement, Mr Kelleher said Hickey’s abuse had ruined his childhood and that the devastating impact had continued into adulthood when he rebelled against all authority figures and began to abuse drugs before telling his mother.
“To this point, I had portrayed a front of being a hard man but the relief of admitting what had been done to me and reporting it to Det Garda Donal O’Connell lifted the burden of shame that led me on that awful dark road of 27 years of what was my life.”
Defence barrister John Devlin BL said his client had achieved “national notoriety” over the previous case but he pointed out he had not come to garda attention since Mr Kelleher’s case. He was the primary carer for his elderly wife and asked Judge O’Donnabhain to be as lenient as possible.
Judge O Donnabhain said that the abuse of Mr Kelleher was “disgraceful” and a shocking breach of trust by Hickey who had effectively removed any possibility of a discount by his decision to fight the case.
