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	Convicted Cleric Gets Suspended Sentence By Elaine Keogh Irish Independent March 6, 2010 http://www.independent.ie/national-news/convicted-cleric-gets-suspended-sentence-2090853.html IRELAND -- CONVICTED sex offender Fr Ronald Bennett (75), who admitted he indecently assaulted a schoolboy during 'sex education' lessons, avoided jail yesterday. He was handed a two-and-a- half-year jail sentence, which was suspended with a number of conditions, and his name will be added to the sex offenders' register for 10 years. Bennett was a former sports master and spiritual adviser at Gormanston College in Co Meath, where the boy was a pupil at the time of the offences in 1973 and 1974. Trim Circuit Court had previously heard that Bennett, who now lives in a friary in Killiney, Co Dublin, had been jailed in 2007 for two-and-a-half years by Dublin Circuit Criminal Court for indecently assaulting four other boys at the college. State prosecutor Karl Hanahoe said that the offences had taken place on a weekly basis over a two-year period when the boy was aged 14 and 15. The victim told Judge Donagh McDonagh he made his complaint after reading reports that Bennett had been given a five-year suspended sentence by Dublin Circuit Criminal Court for the offences against the other four boys. "It caused me a lot of anger." The DPP had subsequently appealed the suspended five-year sentence and the Court of Criminal Appeal ordered Bennett to serve two-and-a-half years of it with the balance suspended. Judge McDonagh said that the appropriate sentence in the current case was two-and-a-half years and suspended it on a number of conditions, including that Bennett gave an undertaking to remain within the confines of the Franciscan friary for the next five years.
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