Long struggle to bring Lombard to justice

GARDAÍ spent years looking for James Lombard to bring him to trial for sexually assaulting 16 children in Cork city in the mid-1990s.

They finally tracked him down to an English prison where he was serving time for a similar crime but under a false name.

Detective Garda Vincent O’Sullivan discovered that a man fitting Lombard’s description was behind bars in England.

Lombard had been processed through the British legal system under the assumed name of John Kelleher.

Detective Sergeant Denis Cahill said the detective guard made the crucial discovery and verified it through fingerprinting and photographs before gardaí went to England to extradite Lombard to face trial on the Cork charges.

Then last year when Lombard, under the Kelleher alias, finished his sentence in England, British police handed him over to Inspector Denis O’Shea and Detective Sergeant Denis Cahill, both of whom headed up the extensive investigation in Cork.

Back in 1994, it was a case that seemed to be heading towards a successful prosecution within a relatively short time of the offences being committed.

A key witness came forward and told gardaí the man they were looking for in relation to a sexual assault at a Gaelic field in the city could be found in a house in Farranree.

Lombard was arrested and taken to Gurranabraher Garda Station.

He confessed to the crime at the pitch and also admitted several more offences that were under investigation in various parts of the city.

A lot of statements made in stations all over the city had to be cross-referenced and checked.

Det Sgt Cahill made the point yesterday that this was 10 years ago when computers were not being used to the same extent as nowadays.

But by the time charges were brought against Lombard, he was living in England.

Defence senior counsel Blaise O’Carroll said it was not the case that Lombard had fled because he had not been charged with anything at that point.

Having been located and brought back for trial for his offences in Cork, he was granted bail and went on trial last February.

The end of the trial was bizarre. Lombard was denying the charges and pleading not guilty but he got into the witness box and admitted he did it.

That was on a Friday. By Monday, when the case was due to end, Lombard had disappeared.

The trial concluded in his absence and he was convicted but was said to be unlawfully at large.

However because of the nature of the case, he could not be identified.

But the gardaí were so concerned about him being at large they went to court and got permission to have him identified by the media.

Recognising a picture on the front of the Irish Examiner, a woman in Carrigaline told gardaí she had seen him in a shop.

Garda Ian Breen arrested him in Carrigaline on February 28, after three weeks on the run.

Det Sgt Cahill said yesterday that most of the three weeks was spent in a shed in Youghal.

Lombard conned a number of people by telling them he caught his wife (he was never married) with another man and he ran away because he was upset.

The people he fooled with this story gave him three meals a day for over a fortnight.

At the end of this protracted investigation, Lombard is at last facing into five years behind bars.