{"id":526018,"date":"2026-06-30T15:26:12","date_gmt":"2026-06-30T15:26:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/526018\/"},"modified":"2026-06-30T15:26:12","modified_gmt":"2026-06-30T15:26:12","slug":"take-him-down-brother-of-sex-offender-patrick-sharkey-reveals-mums-deathbed-plea","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/526018\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Take Him Down\u2019: Brother of sex offender Patrick Sharkey reveals mum’s deathbed plea"},"content":{"rendered":"

A brother of convicted sex offender Patrick Sharkey says his mother told him on her death bed: \u201cI want you to take him down\u201d.<\/p>\n

Colm Sharkey features in an episode of Spotlight on BBC tonight focussing on the depraved former schoolteacher, who was jailed for six-and-a-half years<\/a> at Donegal Circuit Court earlier this month.<\/p>\n

Colm Sharkey has told \u2018Spotlight: Old Boys United\u2019 how his mother asked him to do something about his brother.<\/p>\n

“As far as I was concerned, everybody looked at me as the black sheep of the family,\u201d Colm Sharkey said. “And she said, ‘No. You’re not the trouble in this family. Paddy is the trouble in this family. And you know what I’m on about’. And she said, ‘You’re the only one and I want you to take him down’.”<\/p>\n

Five of Sharkey\u2019s victims have waived their anonymity to speak to the programme.<\/p>\n

\u201cPast pupils join forces to face down and jail the tutor who abused boys for decades,\u201d a description of the show, which airs at 10.40pm on BBC One Northern Ireland, says.<\/p>\n

Sharkey, now 83, stood emotionless in the dock as he was put behind bars for a total of 132 charges.<\/p>\n

Originally from the Clonmany area in Donegal and most recently with an address in Belfast, Sharkey abused his victims in Co Donegal over a period from 1970 to 1995 – during which time he was a teacher at St Joseph\u2019s High School in Coleraine.<\/p>\n

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Many of the victims were students at the school when Sharkey preyed on them with one victim just seven years of age when the abuse began.<\/p>\n

In sentencing Sharkey, Judge John Aylmer said: \u201cThe offences can only be described as very calculated, premeditated and predatory in nature. It involved a significant amount of grooming of the victims.\u201d<\/p>\n

One victim, Michael Bacon, spoke outside Letterkenny courthouse just minutes after Sharkey was sentenced. He said that the sentencing of the former teacher should be the start of a wider process.<\/p>\n

Mr Bacon said that there remain significant questions as to how Sharkey was able to wage terror over decades.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He said: \u201cSignificant questions remain unanswered. It is deeply troubling that a serial abuser was able to offend for decades without effective intervention. we are aware, along with other victims, that allegations were raised as far back as the 1980s but were not acted upon. Had those concerns been properly addressed at the time, many people may have been spared the suffering they later endured.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe do not see today as the end of this journey. Rather, we see it as the beginning of a wider process of accountability and acknowledgement by those who were entrusted with safeguarding and protecting children at St Joseph\u2019s.\u201d<\/p>\n

Spotlight: Old Boys United airs on BBC One Northern Ireland at 10.40pm tonight.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A brother of convicted sex offender Patrick Sharkey says his mother told him on her death bed: \u201cI…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":526019,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-526018","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/526018","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=526018"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/526018\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/526019"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=526018"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=526018"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=526018"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}