Child abuser, 74, loses appeal

A 74-year-old man convicted of indecently assaulting a boy he routinely paid “a fiver” for sexual acts in the 1980s faces jail after losing an appeal against conviction.

Thomas Mooney, of Belvedere Place, Dublin 1, pleaded not guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to eight counts of indecently assaulting a boy when he was aged from 11 to 13 on dates between October 1983 and June 1985.

He was found guilty by a jury following an eight-day trial and sentenced to four years imprisonment with the final two suspended by Judge Catherine Murphy on July 25, 2014.