Drama teacher gets 10 years for raping 7-year-old pupil

A drama teacher who raped a student when she was around seven years old has been jailed for 10 years.

Kevin Carroll, 56, raped the girl in an Offaly school when he held her back after drama class nearly 20 years ago. The victim gave evidence that, after the incident, a woman at the school told her not to upset her mother by telling her about the rape.

Carroll, of Hawthorne Drive, Birr, Offaly pleaded not guilty at the Central Criminal Court to rape and anal rape at the Offaly school on a date between 1996 and 1998 when the girl was between six and eight. He was convicted on both counts.