IRELAND
Sunday Word
By Ruaidhrí Giblin
A retired priest jailed for indecently assaulting a schoolboy in the 1970s has had his conviction quashed over a trial judge’s decision not to warn the jury about the dangers of convicting in the absence of corroboration.
Tadhg O’Dalaigh (73), of Woodview, Mount Merrion Avenue, Blackrock, had pleaded not guilty at Cork Circuit Criminal Court to one count of indecently assaulting a 16-year-old boy at Colaiste Chroi Naofa in Carrignavar, Co Cork on a date unknown in 1979.
He was found guilty by a jury and sentenced to five years imprisonment with the final two suspended by Judge Donagh McDonagh on December 18, 2014.
O’Dalaigh successfully appealed his conviction today with the Court of Appeal holding that the trial judge erred in refusing to give the jury a corroboration warning, in a case which lacked corroborative evidence.
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