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	Appeal Court Jails Ex-Spiritual Director Irish Times [Ireland] March 5, 2007 http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/breaking/2007/0305/breaking88.htm The Court of Criminal Appeal has jailed a former spiritual director of Gormanston College, who sexually abused four pupils there some 30 years ago "with almost catastrohpic consequences", to two and a half years imprisonment. The three judge appeal court yesterday upheld arguments by the DPP that Fr Ronald Bennett should have received a custodial sentence for the "extremely serious" offences and not the suspended sentence actually imposed. While holding that Circuit Court Judge Desmond Hogan had correctly imposed a five year sentence for the offences in July 2006, the CCA said Judge Hogan had erred in suspending that entire term amd had given too much weight to mitigating factors in favour of Bennett, including his being considered by a clinicla psychologist at the Granada Institute as genuinely remorseful and at low risk of re-offending. It directed that Bennett should serve two and half years, with the remaining term suspended. A Franciscan priest, Bennett (72), Dun Mhuire, Seafield Road, Killinet, Co Dublin, who was also sports master at Gormanston, had pleaded guilty to six sample charges of assault against four pupils from 1974-81. He was ordained in 1961 and appointed to Gormanston as spiritual adviser and sports master in 1963. He became bursar in 1969 and was involved in the Irish Swimming Association from 1974. A Garda investigation was launched in 1999 after one of Bennett's victims complained of being sexually assaulted at Gormanston while he was a boarder there from 1974.
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