Former pupil settles for €20k against school that had branded him 'suspect thief'

The boy missed 10 weeks of classes and a much-anticipated school graduation.

Judge Karen Fergus described Luke’s treatment by the school’s headmaster and board of management as unbelievable and appalling.

For 10 weeks humiliated 12-year-old schoolboy Luke Hanlon could not face his classmates after they branded him the “suspect thief” when money went missing from the staff room at St Joseph’s National School in Borris-in-Ossory, County Laois, in April 2018.

His headmaster asked four senior classes to mark on a piece of paper who they thought the culprit was for having taken significant amounts of money missing from purses belonging to two teachers.