A judge yesterday jailed for nine months a sex offender who received character witness testimony from a high profile GAA figure.
At Ennis Circuit Court, Judge Gerald Keys imposed a two year prison term on Peter Power (55) of Lissycasey, Ennis and suspended the final 15 months of the sentence.
Mr Power was convicted in July of indecent assault by a jury of a nine year old girl in 1985 when Mr Power was aged 21.
Judge Keys acceded to a request from Mr Power’s counsel, Patrick Whyms BL to defer Mr Power entering custody for a number of days to allow him to get his affairs in order and he is to go into custody on Monday November 26th next.
In sentencing, Judge Keys told Mr Power that “the court cannot ignore the fact that you have not shown any remorse for your conduct which has had a profound effect on your victim”.
Imposing sentence, Judge Keys said: “I am of the view that a portion of the sentence that should be imposed must be of a custodial nature.”
Mr Power left the court after the hearing with 15 or so supporters including family members – the victim in the case sat with two friends and a Garda liaison officer at the back of the court.
At the sentencing hearing last week, former chairman of the Clare County GAA board and former Fianna Fáil general election candidate, Michael ‘Malty’ McDonagh appeared in the witness box to give character evidence of behalf of Mr Power who was raised in Caherrush, Quilty, west Clare.
A retired Garda detective, Mr McDonagh served two stints as chairman of the Clare County Board between 2003-07 and 2012-15 during which time Clare won the 2013 senior hurling All-Ireland.
The Miltown Malbay man missed out on a seat in the 2016 General Election after receiving 8.29% of vote with 4,726 first preference votes.
Asked to explain why he provided character evidence on behalf of Mr Power after the sentencing hearing, Mr McDonagh said he gave evidence following a request from Mr Power’s family.
He said: “I appeared because the family wanted their thoughts presented to the court and they were too traumatised to give evidence.”
Mr McDonagh was not in court for Judge Keys’s judgement yesterday and Judge Keys did not refer to Mr McDonagh’s character evidence in his judgement.
In sentencing, Judge Keys said that the aggravating factors in the case are that Mr Power was babysitting at the time the offence was committed.
He told Mr Power: “You abused the girl for your own sexual gratification. There was a serious breach of trust and the age of your victim at the time was nine and a half years of age.”
Judge Keys said that the mitigating factors in the case were that Mr Power has no previous convictions; that there is no risk of re-offending mentioned during the sentencing hearing; that he has an unblemished record apart from the incident; that he has lost his good character for good and are registered as a sex offender; that he is convicted of one offence which was 33 years ago and that he has permanently lost his job as a Guest Service Manager in a hotel.
In the case, counsel for the State, Lorcan Connolly BL said that the indecent assault took place in January 1985 when Mr Power was baby-sitting the girl and her siblings.
Mr Connolly said that the girl went upstairs and saw Mr Power sitting on a toilet with his pants down.
The complainant said that Mr Power asked her to take her panties down and sit on his lap.
She did so and said that he touched her private parts with his hands and told her “What I do to you, you have to do to me.”
The woman didn’t recall if she touched the man’s penis or not.
In her victim impact statement, the woman told the court: “I will never forgive him for what he did to me as a child and what he is doing to me as an adult.”
She said: “This man took away my childhood and most of my adult life.”
She said: “To have to see my abuser and his family after all these years made me feel like that vulnerable child all over again.”
She added: “I was relieved that the guilty verdict was given and that 12 strangers believed me. I feel I have been further persecuted because of having to go through this trial.”
