A former County Clare School teacher has been jailed for three years for commiting sexual offences against a teenage girl at a local school.
At Ennis Circuit Court today Judge Carroll Moran imposed the sentence on the father of four, for each of the 14 counts against him and also refused an appeal to suspend any part of it.
Most of the offences took place at a County Clare school over a 14 week period in September and October of 2009 when the teenage girl was 15 years old and in November of that year when she turned 16.
During sentencing today Judge Carroll Moran told Ennis Circuit Court that four of the charges carried a maxium term of ten years imprisonment while a life sentence was the maxium that could be imposed on the remaining ten.
He said that there were a number of mitigating factors in the case that had to be taken into account including that the 61 year old pleaded guilty at the earliest opportunity, had no previous convictions was obliged to retire from teaching, had suffered severe disgracee within his own community and that there was no coersion or violence in the incidents.
However Judge Carroll Moran added that he must also take several agrrevating factors into account as well , including that the offences displayed a serious breach of trust, the accused was always aware of the schoolgirls’s age and that it comes at a time when there’s a hightened awarness of such offences.
Council for the 61 year old had appealed for a non custodial setence but Judge Moran said that he had to jail the man and sentenced him to three years for each of the 14 offences – with the term to run concurrently.
He also refused a request to have a portion of the prison term suspended.
