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.

The farmer's paedophile offences dated back to the 1970s and Judge Curtin's sentencing drew harsh criticism from, among others, the families of the victims.

Judge Curtin anticipated the reaction and addressed the matter in court, referring to the medical evidence that the accused was mentally immature and explaining that judges sometimes displeased injured parties, sometimes defendants and sometimes both.

The 52-year-old judge has been making the headlines a lot since then for reasons of a very different nature, as the highest profile target in Operation Amethyst, a nationwide trawl of people alleged to have been found in possession of child pornography.

Earlier this year he was reportedly punched in the face in the Greyhound Bar in Tralee, Co Kerry, and sustained cuts to his nose.

Gardaí received no reports of the assault on Mr Curtin on that date.

In June, 2003 photographs of Judge Curtin at Tralee races were syndicated in the media. Earlier that year there were reports of him having a pint in a Tralee pub two days after his solicitor sought an adjournment of his case on health grounds.

His Tralee home was one of 110 houses and business addresses raided by gardaí during Operation Amethyst in May 2002.

Judge Curtin stepped down from the bench on the instructions of Circuit Court president Esmond Smyth at a time when he was said to be undergoing medical treatment for a heart condition.

Born in London to Kerry parents, he completed his secondary education at the Salesian College in Battersea.

He sat a bachelor of arts degree at Trinity College after which he attended Kings Inns, where he qualified as a barrister in 1976.

He then moved to Tralee and established a lucrative practice taking in Kerry, Limerick and Clare.

His legal reputation was enhanced during the Kerry Babies Tribunal in the early 1980s when he acted for Joanne Hayes.

An early convert to the Progressive Democrats, he ran unsuccessfully in the local elections for Tralee Town Council in the early 1990s.

His estranged wife is Miriam McGillycuddy, a Legal Aid Board solicitor, who contested those same elections unsuccessfully on a Labour ticket. In the 1999 elections she won a seat on the council for her party and was chairperson in 2001.

The couple have one teenage daughter and both have been in other relationships Judge Curtin, who separated from his wife over 10 years ago, made no secret of his teenage girlfriend whom he dated when in his late 40s. Their relationship caused considerable anguish to the girl's parents, who were anxious about the age difference a difference much emphasised when Judge Curtin used to drop the girl off at school when she was in Leaving Certificate year.

They are no longer in a relationship, and the girl is believed to be studying in Galway. However, they were briefly engaged, having committed to each other in the months immediately after he was charged. She was 19 at the time.

It was believed he met her through his association with a Tralee theatre group.

His interests have included horse racing, football, rugby and amateur dramatics. More than 100 people were targeted in Operation Amethyst, including the judge; school principals; a former high-profile company manager and celebrity chef Tim Allen.