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	Child Molester Walks Free after Conviction Is Quashed Kilkenny People [Ireland] February 7, 2007 http://www.kilkennypeople.ie/ViewArticle2.aspx?SectionID=2594&ArticleID=2028815 A paedophile who was convicted of 25 counts of child abuse in Kilkenny walked from prison earlier this week after the Court of Criminal Appeal in Dublin quashed a separate conviction for abuse. David Murray was freed on Monday after the court ruled that Murray's convictions in connection with a 14-year-old boy were "unsafe". The convictions were in connection with alleged wrong doing during a camping trip in Glendalough in Wicklow in 1980. Murray was convicted in 2001 and sentenced to ten years in jail. The prosecution did not contest the arguement that the conviction was unsafe. Judge Fidelma Macken ordered that a re-trial take place but that will not happen because it would be difficult for Murray to get a fair trial after all these years. Kilkenny link Murray was given a ten-year sentence in 1997 for crimes committed while he was employed in St Joseph's orphanage in Kilkenny. Murray pleaded guilty to 34 sample charges, including 25 relating to ten boys who lived in the city which was under the control of the Sisters of Charity. The married father-of-one originally faced 271 charges of buggery, indecent assault and gross indecency. The judge who heard that case imposed nine terms of ten years in jail for buggery, 17 terms of four years for indecent assault and eight terms of one year for gross indecency. Abuse hidden for years The nuns who ran St Joseph's orphanage knew as far back as 1954 that children in their care were being abused but did nothing to stop it, the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse was told in June. The revelations came after the head of the order refused to apologise to those who suffered sexual abuse in the order's orphanage. Department of education inspector Anna McCabe reported in 1954 that nine girls had been abused by a painter employed by the Sisters of Charity. At the time it was argued by a priest that a court case would bring the convent into disrepute and that the experience would mark the children for life if they were called to give evidence. Following his advice, Ms McCabe agreed no prosecution should be taken.
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