Former principal appeals indecent assault conviction

An 80-year-old former principal has appealed his conviction for indecently assaulting 11 women while they were pupils of his in Moyasta National School, west Clare, over three decades.

Patrick Barry, of Well Rd, Kilkee, Co Clare,

was found guilty by a jury of 59 counts of indecent assault and not guilty of the remaining eight counts by direction of Judge Gerald Keyes.

He was sentenced to 11 years imprisonment with the final five suspended by the judge at Ennis Circuit Criminal Court on November 19, 2014.

Barry appealed his conviction yesterday in the Court of Appeal on grounds that particulars on the indictment against him did not correspond to relevant counts.

His barrister, Roderick O’Hanlon, said his client’s defence and cross- examination rights were materially affected by the absence of particulars in the indictment.

Counsel for the DPP, Anthony Sammon, said Barry’s arraignment on the indictment was allowed to take place without any complaint from his legal advisers. It was only in the course of the second witnesses evidence during the trial that a difficulty was alluded to. No application was made at that juncture but a “John the Baptist approach” was taken “that it [the particularisation issue] might be revisited later”.

The court reserved judgment to March 23.