Accused teacher received anonymous calls, court hears

The wife of a north Dublin teacher accused of unlawful carnal knowledge of one of his pupils has told a jury they received anonymous phone calls after he was suspended from his job in the face of the allegations.

The 48-year-old man, who cannot be named for legal reasons, has pleaded not guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to two counts of unlawful carnal knowledge of a then 16-year-old transition year student at the school on dates in March 2002.

The man's wife told Mr Feargal Kavanagh SC (with Mr Ronan Kennedy BL), defending, that the calls started on the evening of the day he was suspended from his job. She agreed that she had reported these calls to her local Garda station.

She also told Mr Kavanagh that she and her husband shared one mobile phone and she would answer his calls and had full access to his text messages.

However she agreed with prosecuting counsel, Mr Vincent Heneghan BL, that text messages could be deleted although she said she "wasn't great with mobile phones".

Detective Sergeant Patrick Marry told Mr Heneghan that mobile phone records obtained by gardaí showed that the complainant had texted the accused 145 times in the 12 months from September 2001.

Det Sgt Marry said the accused had texted her 85 times over the same period, including on 26 occasions in September 2002.

Det Sgt Marry agreed with Mr Kavanagh that most of these exchanges were started by the complainant.

The trial continues in its final stages tomorrow before Judge Frank O'Donnell and a jury of eight men and four women.