Curtin no stranger to public controversy

BRIAN CURTIN had his first brush with public controversy when in 2002 he judged the case of a West Cork farmer who sexually abused three young girls.

Judge Curtin heard the case just six months after being appointed as a Circuit Court judge in November 2001 and was immersed in controversy when he suspended all but six months of the man's two-year custodial sentence.

One of the victims in the case, a mother-of-six, committed suicide a few weeks before the trial opened.