A former Circuit Court judge has failed in a bid to overturn his conviction for attempted rape and the sexual abuse of six young men when he was a teacher 30 years ago.<\/p>\n
In December 2023 Gerard O\u2019Brien (61), of Old School House, Slievenamon Road, Thurles, Co Tipperary, was convicted by a Central Criminal Court jury of one count of attempted anal rape and eight counts of sexual assault in relation to six victims.<\/p>\n
The Court of Appeal heard that when O\u2019Brien was interviewed on a voluntary basis by investigating garda\u00ed, he initially denied the allegations.<\/p>\n
However, he subsequently provided pre-prepared statements in which he acknowledged sexual activity with two of the complainants but asserted that this was consensual.<\/p>\n
He also accepted that he had performed oral sex on another of the complainants, but said he had a mistaken belief with respect to the young man\u2019s consent to this. He denied that he attempted to perform anal sex on this victim. In his direct evidence to the trial, O\u2019Brien said he had \u201clied\u201d to garda\u00ed initially because of \u201cshame\u201d. \u201cThe idea of being charged with a sexual assault frightened me beyond reason. I went into a sort of blind panic about it all,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
O\u2019Brien acknowledged that having students at his home and in his bed was \u201cinappropriate\u201d and \u201cshould not have happened\u201d.<\/p>\n
O\u2019Brien had appealed against his conviction, arguing the trial judge\u2019s instructions were \u201cconfusing\u201d and \u201cweighted against the defence\u201d.<\/p>\n
His senior counsel Hugh Hartnett told the Court of Appeal that the tone of the charge \u201cstrayed into conveying the impression\u201d that the judge held a view in respect of the charges.<\/p>\n
However, Anne-Marie Lawlor SC, for the Director of Public Prosecutions, said the suggestion that there were personal views expressed in the trial judge\u2019s charge was \u201cmisconceived\u201d.<\/p>\n
Presiding judge Ms Justice Tara Burns said on Friday that the appeal court rejected the suggestion that the portion of the charge referred to was \u201cimbalanced\u201d or legally incorrect.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe trial judge made it clear, as he did on several occasions throughout his charge, that decisions on all factual matters, together with the outcome of the trial, fell within the remit of the jury and that he had no role whatsoever in this regard,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
She said the court was of the view that the jury were \u201cclearly instructed\u201d and that no error of law or misdirection arose.<\/p>\n
In his submissions, Hartnett had also suggested a comment made to the jury that it was important they did not \u201center into a parallel universe of make-belief in relation to matters\u201d had the effect of discrediting O\u2019Brien\u2019s evidence.<\/p>\n
He noted the trial judge told the panel that no jury is obliged to accept testimony or accounts given to garda\u00ed which they consider \u201cincredible\u201d or \u201coutlandish\u201d.<\/p>\n
Burns said it was clear the judge\u2019s comments were not limited to the appellant\u2019s evidence.<\/p>\n
\u201cRather, the trial judge was referring to evidence from all witnesses, including that of the appellant,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Hartnett also suggested the judge invited the jury to give less weight to O\u2019Brien\u2019s interviews and statements when he asked them to consider his legal knowledge as a judge when assessing what he had said to gardai.<\/p>\n
Burns said the fact O\u2019Brien was a member of the legal profession clearly may have had an impact on the jury\u2019s assessment of his \u201cuntruthful memorandum of interview\u201d with garda\u00ed and his \u201crevisiting of that untruthfulness in his pre-prepared statements\u201d.<\/p>\n
She said this was a matter of \u201ccommon sense\u201d.<\/p>\n
She rejected a further argument that the trial judge erred in refusing an application for separate trials.<\/p>\n
Burns also dismissed an argument that the judge gave a \u201cconfusing\u201d warning to the jury regarding the legal principle that lies told by a defendant do not automatically indicate guilt.<\/p>\n
The judge said in circumstances where none of the grounds advanced were being upheld, O\u2019Brien\u2019s appeal against his conviction was dismissed.<\/p>\n
The offences occurred at locations in Dublin between March 1991 and November 1997 when O\u2019Brien was aged between 27 and 33 and working as a teacher at CBC Monkstown. The victims – four of whom were students or former students of O\u2019Brien – were then aged between 17 and 24.<\/p>\n
The six victims previously indicated they wish for O\u2019Brien to be named but want to maintain their anonymity.<\/p>\n
O\u2019Brien had pleaded not guilty to all the charges.<\/p>\n
He resigned as a Circuit Court judge, having been appointed in 2015, but had been on leave since the allegations came to light. He was jailed for four years in June 2024 by Mr Justice Alexander Owens.<\/p>\n
O\u2019Brien\u2019s legal team submitted at his sentencing hearing that a psychological report stated the now 61-year-old was psychologically vulnerable, has limited coping skills, has suffered episodes of major depressive disorder and has \u201cunmet sexual needs due to being gay in a homophobic society and his disability\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A former Circuit Court judge has failed in a bid to overturn his conviction for attempted rape and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":340548,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,60,43],"class_list":["post-543079","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/543079","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=543079"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/543079\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/340548"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=543079"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=543079"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=543079"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}