DUBLIN (IRELAND)
Irish Times
July 9, 2020
By Declan Brennan and Brion Hoban
Priest said the abuse had ‘a paralysing effect’ on his life and prevented him from achieving so many things in life
A child sex abuse victim of a former school principal has said he had no idea his abuser was attacking other boys in the school.
After a trial at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court last March, Patrick Harte (78) was convicted of 11 counts of indecently assaulting seven pupils at the Sancta Maria Christian Brothers primary school on Synge Street, Dublin between September 1968 and September 1970.
At his sentence hearing on Thursday the court heard that when gardaí put the victims’ allegations to Harte in 2015, the former teacher claimed they had “a vendetta against him”.
Anne Rowland SC, prosecuting, told the court that there is no evidence that any of the victims were ever in contact with each other since the offending took place. Detective Garda Garvan Ware said “as far as I’m concerned, they are all independent”.
Harte, of Glendown Park, Templeogue, Dublin had denied the charges and in a speech to the court he claimed that the State had “validated” his teaching at the time and could not now “invalidate it”.
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