Court closer to hearing in school abuse case

THE European Court of Human Rights has moved a step closer to launching a full hearing into a Cork woman’s appeal against a ruling the state was not legally liable for the sexual abuse she suffered at the hands of a primary school teacher.

Louise O’Keeffe, a 46-year-old mother of two from Bandon, is challenging a Supreme Court ruling from 2009 that the Department of Education was not liable for the abuse she suffered when a pupil at Dunderrow National School, near Kinsale, in 1973.

Ms O’Keeffe has lodged papers with the Strasbourg-based European Court of Human Rights against that ruling on the basis the state is vicariously liable for the abuse at the hands of school principal, Leo Hickey, whom she argues was an employee of the Department of Education.