Judge lashes out after being forced to delay decision
A JUDGE yesterday accused a pensioner of using his hearing problems to avoid a sentence for sexually assaulting a man in his 80s on a bus.
The attack on a West Clare service last June was videoed by a third party on his smartphone.
At Kilrush District Court yesterday, Judge Patrick Durcan expressed his frustration that the 70-year-old accused is using his hearing difficulties to not engage with the Probation Service, resulting in the delay in sentencing over the attack.
The judge said: “This is an not an excuse. If someone is deaf, blind or dumb there are still methods of communication.
“This man is simply trying to avoid dealing with the sentencing.”
Addressing the man’s solicitor, Patrick Moylan, Judge Durcan said the guilty plea “didn’t emerge out of thin air, it emerged out of lengthy consultation and he was able to consult with you or your colleagues”.
Mr Moylan said his client “can’t hear a thing” and he had to write words on a pad yesterday for his client in court to inform him of what the judge was saying.
Judge Durcan said: “This is a serious case of the two men travelling on the bus. Both are elderly and one man puts his hand down in a rather forceful and encompassing way on the private parts of the other man.”
Mr Moylan said his client “is a 70-year-old man and has never been in trouble before anytime in his life”.
He added: “It is the embarrassment of this and I know there is embarrassment of the victim here as well – there is absolutely an appreciation of that. But he has never been in difficulty – he is now in difficulty.”
Insp Tom Kennedy yesterday handed in a victim impact statement and Judge Durcan said he would deal with the case as sensitively as he can.
He added he would adjourn the case to June 19.
A condition of bail is that the accused – who can’t be identified by court order – is to have no contact with the injured party. Mirror story
He is a 70-year-old man and has never been in trouble PATRICK MOYLAN
COURT YESTERDAY