Former brother pleads guilty

A former Christian brother at Cork’s North Mon who had been convicted for indecently assaulting several schoolboys — despite his strenuous denials — pleaded guilty for the first time to two more offences yesterday.

When sentenced two years ago Edward Bryan was described as showing not one shred of remorse for his victims and during the trial he said of the abuse, “I deny it emphatically”. When it was put to him that if the allegations by the boys were untrue then he must feel like the unluckiest man in Ireland, he replied, “I certainly feel that way.”

That was in February 2013. He was convicted and jailed for five years. He appealed the convictions and the severity of the sentence. The Court of Criminal Appeal ruled against him on all but one of the convictions and he will be re-sentenced at the appeal court in Dublin tomorrow.

Yesterday, at Cork Circuit Criminal Court he was arraigned on two more indecent assault charges from two other complainants who have come forward.

Bryan was arraigned on the two charges. One related to a schoolboy at the North Monastery secondary school in Cork between September 1979 and June 1981 and the other related to another boy at the school in September 1986. He replied guilty to both charges. In respect of one of those charges a trial by judge and jury had been arranged for Monday next so that case will not need to proceed.

Judge Seán Ó Donnabháin put sentencing of Bryan back to June 16 at Cork Circuit Criminal Court.

He imposed eight concurrent five-year sentences, reflecting the eight counts on which Bryan was convicted for indecently assaulting three boys two years ago.

The judge said at the time that Bryan, 61, of Martinvilla, Athboy Road, Trim, Co Meath, had shown not one shred of remorse for the sexual abuse of the boys.

Aggravating factors in the case, noted by the judge, were the prolonged period of the abuse, the multiple victims and the age difference between Bryan and the boys at the time of the abuse.

The judge was particularly critical of the defendant for the way in which one of the accused was challenged in cross-examination on the basis he was only in it for the money.