A court appeal has ruled that a teacher's claims of sexual assault to groom a 13-year-old student were inappropriate and constituted a grooming process.
A secondary school teacher, Jacinta McSherry O'Connor (64), who 40 years ago told a 13-year-old pupil she indecently assaulted that she was herself a victim of sexual assault , did so as part of a “grooming” process, the Court of Appeal has ruled.
“Whatever way one looks at this, the evidence disclosed inappropriate and continuing conduct,” said Ms Justice Isobel Kennedy today, rejecting an argument by McSherry O'Connor that the jury in her trial should not have heard that she told the 13-year-old boy about her own assault. McSherry O’Connor, from The Mullins, Donegal Town, pleaded not guilty to two counts of indecently assaulting a male student in 1985, but she was found guilty following a Dublin Circuit Criminal Court trial in October 2023. The court heard that she indecently assaulted the boy on two occasions in his home on dates between June 1 and September 1, 1985, while giving him grinds. She was aged 24 at the time and the boy was 13. At a previous hearing, the man, now in his fifties, stated in a victim impact statement that McSherry O'Connor had been like a 'spectre' hanging over him his whole life. He said she took his innocence away and that what happened was “deeply and morally wrong”. McSherry O'Connor was sentenced by Judge Elma Sheahan to three years on each count concurrently, with the final six months suspended. Launching an appeal against her conviction, McSherry O'Connor's legal team asserted that the trial judge erred by refusing to accede to an application to exclude portions of her interview with gardaí, in which she referenced an alleged incident with another senior teacher where she said she was the victim of a sexual assault
TEACHER GROOMING SEXUAL ASSAULT COURT OF APPEAL CONVICTION
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