Former Circuit Court judge Mr Gerard O’Brien has lost an appeal seeking to overturn his convictions for attempted rape and the sexual assault of six young men while he was working as a secondary-school teacher in Dublin during the 1990s.
Mr O’Brien, aged 61years with an address at The Old School House, Slievenamon Road, Thurles, Co Tipperary, was convicted by a Central Criminal Court jury in December 2023 of one count of attempted anal rape and eight counts of sexual assault. He had denied all nine charges.
During Garda interviews, Mr O’Brien initially denied the allegations. He later supplied prepared statements acknowledging sexual activity with two complainants but maintaining that it had been consensual.
He also admitted performing oral sex on another complainant, claiming that he had mistakenly believed the young man was consenting. However, he denied attempting to have anal sex with him.
The offences are understood to have occurred at locations in Dublin between March 1991 and November 1997, when Mr O’Brien was aged between 27 years and 33 years and teaching at CBC Monkstown. Four of the six complainants were students or former students of his. The men were aged between 17 years and 24 years when the offences took place.
Giving evidence at his trial, O’Brien said he initially lied to Gardaí because he felt ashamed and panicked at the possibility of being charged with a sexual offence. He accepted that allowing students to visit his home and share his bed had been inappropriate and should never have happened.
O’Brien’s appeal centred largely on the trial judge’s directions to the jury. His senior counsel, Mr Hugh Hartnett, argued that the instructions were confusing, unfairly weighted against the defence and capable of suggesting that the judge had formed a personal view of the evidence. The Court of Appeal however rejected those arguments.
Delivering the court’s decision, presiding judge Ms Tara Burns said the jury had been repeatedly reminded that all factual decisions, including whether O’Brien was guilty, were exclusively matters for its members.
The appeal court also rejected criticism of the trial judge’s warning that jurors should not enter a “parallel universe of make-belief”, when considering the evidence. Judge Burns said those remarks applied to all witnesses and were not directed solely at Mr O’Brien.
The court found no error in asking jurors to consider Mr O’Brien’s legal knowledge when evaluating his initial false account and his later prepared statements. Ms Justice Burns said his professional background could reasonably have influenced the jury’s assessment of those accounts.
Further grounds concerning the refusal to hold separate trials for the six complainants and the directions given about lies told by a defendant were also dismissed.As none of the grounds of appeal succeeded, the convictions were upheld.
Mr O’Brien resigned from the Circuit Court after his conviction. He had been appointed to the judiciary in 2015 but had been on leave after the allegations emerged.
On May 31st, 2024, Mr Justice Alexander Owens had imposed a sentence of five years and nine months, suspending the final 21 months. O’Brien therefore received an effective four-year prison term.
The sentencing judge said Mr O’Brien had been unsuitable to hold judicial office and criticised what he described as his tendency to blame others for his situation.
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