A Circuit Court judge who resigned previously this year after being founded guilty of sexually attacking 6 males on dates in the 1990s is because of be sentenced today.
Gerard O’Brien was founded guilty by a jury at the Central Criminal Court last December of sexually attacking 6 males, aged in between 17 and 24 at the time of the offenses. He was likewise founded guilty of tried rape of among the 6.
The offenses took place on dates in between 1991 and 1997 when O’Brien worked as an instructor at a 2nd level school in Co Dublin. 4 of the males were his students or previous students.
As an outcome of phocomelia, an uncommon abnormality, O’Brien, now aged 59 and with an address in Thurles, Co Tipperary, was born without arms and with simply one leg and requires help dressing and going to the toilet.
Throughout the 4 week trial, 5 plaintiffs provided proof they had, on different events, remained over night in his house to assist him in the early morning with dressing and going to the toilet. They stated they had actually been consuming, as had O’Brien, and woke to discover him carrying out sexual act upon them to which they had actually not consented.
One plaintiff stated O’Brien sexually attacked him while he was bringing him to the toilet in a club.
O’Brien, who rejected the charges, was founded guilty by consentaneous jury decision on December 22nd last.
Mr Justice Alexander Owens adjourned sentence to March 4th however sentencing was more adjourned since a mental report on O’Brien was waited for.
At the time of conviction, the judge stated he would have remanded O’Brien in custody however for the unique scenarios surrounding him.
O’Brien was remanded on bail pending sentence and his name immediately went on the register of sex wrongdoers following his conviction.
The judge is anticipated to enforce sentence after hearing victim effect declarations today from 3 of the survivors and thinking about the mental report.
In case of a custodial sentence, the Irish Prison Service, which has services for handicapped detainees, is anticipated to put a strategy in location to attend to O’Brien’s circumstance.
Right away following O’Brien’s conviction in late December, the Minister for Justice, Helen McEntee, stated these were “terrible cases of sexual attack” and stated she was consulting from the Attorney General about the alternatives available to Government and the Oireachtas worrying the matter.
Repeating her objective of “no tolerance” for all kinds of domestic, sexual and gender-based violence here, the Minister stated O’Brien’s conviction was “clear evidence” that no one is above the law or immune from prosecution for such criminal activities.
On January 6th last, the Minister revealed O’Brien had actually sent his resignation as a judge with instant impact.
Before starting a mentor profession, O’Brien certified as a lawyer. Having actually been not successful in getting work as an attorney, he protected mentor hours at a secondary school in Dublin throughout the 1990s. After he stopped mentor in the late 1990s, he went back to a legal profession and developed his own company, Gerard O’Brien Solicitors, in 2006.
Running for Fianna Fáil, he was chosen to Thurles Urban District Council in 2009 however resigned as a councillor in 2012 upon his consultation as State Solicitor for North Tipperary. In 2014, he was designated to the Circuit Court bench.
Protests were made to gardaí in 2019 about the supposed offenses in the 1990s and, after an examination led by Inspector Jonathan Hayes of the Garda National Protection Services Bureau, O’Brien was charged in 2021.
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