IRELAND
Herald
Sonya McLean and Fiona Ferguson – 11 November 2016
A former lay worker with the Church of Ireland has been jailed for 13 years for the rape and molestation of 14 young boys over the course of 40 years.
Patrick O’Brien (76) pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to 48 sample counts of indecent assault and three of sexual assault of the boys.
O’Brien, of Knocklyon Road, Templeogue, Dublin, received a one-year suspended sentence in 1989 for sexually assaulting a 10-year-old boy, leaving him free to continue a litany of horror crimes for another 24 years.
The offending took place between 1974 and 2013 at numerous locations, including Kildare, Westmeath, and at St Patrick’s Cathedral in Dublin, where he worked as a volunteer.
He would abuse his victims in various locations, including:
* Bringing boys to his yacht.
* Taking them for driving lessons or to the office where he worked.
* He abused one boy once a week in a car wash after they were hidden from view when the vehicle was covered in foam.
* He organised games of hide and seek to be alone with a victim.
* He abused a boy in a kitchen while the child’s parents and grandmother were in the sitting room.
* Another boy was abused in the electrical room of St Patrick’s Cathedral while people were in the body of the church.
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