A former Christian Brother has been remanded for sentencing after he pleaded guilty yesterday to sexually assaulting a nine-year-old while drying him after a swimming class more than 30 years ago.
The 56-year-old defendant, who has since left the order, was teaching in a primary school in Cork when he committed the offence in the early 1970s, when the injured party was in fourth or fifth class.
Yesterday, the injured party, now aged 42, told Cork District Court that he had so dreaded having to face the same brother every day in school he would soil himself.
"I didn't know what I had done to deserve this. I felt an immense sense of terror at having to go to this class. I have not been able to live a normal life. I have had difficulties with people in authority, difficulties with alcohol. I found it difficult to hold down a job.
"I feel a sense of underachievement and growing up, I had problems with sexual identity, a feeling that real men don't get abused," said the man, adding that he had a fear of intimacy and had become a loner and still felt "a bit of a loner".
"I get recurring dreams about it. I was trying to put it away and make it go away. I have been getting counselling for a number of years. It is a crime, it is appalling for a young child to be put through that," he said.
Det Sgt John Quilter said that when he put it to the accused that he had sexually assaulted the boy while drying him down after a swimming class, he admitted he had abused two or three boys and accepted that the injured party must have been one of them.
Det Sgt Quilter said the defendant seemed genuinely remorseful and co-operated fully with the inquiry. He indicated at the outset he would plead guilty to the charge.
The injured party did not want to see the defendant jailed and Judge Con O'Leary, who ordered that the accused not be identified other than as a former Christian Brother who taught in a Cork primary school, remanded him for sentence on November 25th.
The judge also ordered that a victim impact statement be prepared on the injured party. He also ordered a probation and welfare report on the defendant who is no longer involved in teaching.
