A priest and former school principal has lost a High Court attempt to prevent his trial on 85 charges of indecent assault against a schoolboy.
However, the court granted him an injunction preventing his trial on one count of gross indecency against the boy's brother.
Both brothers allege the offences took place in the 1980s in a school where the applicant, then a brother with a religious order, was principal.
The first brother, A, alleged he was indecently assaulted while they were in his car on the way to hurling matches. He claimed he was also assaulted in his office and that the assaults stopped when he struck him with a hurl.
The second brother, B, claimed he was indecently assaulted once after the now 70-year-old priest placed him on his knee while sitting on a stairs in the school.
Mr Justice John Quirke yesterday rejected the application for an injunction restraining the DPP from taking any further steps in his prosecution in relation to the charges involving A.
The judge found the priest had failed to establish his right to a fair and speedy trial had been prejudiced as a result of delay of some 20 years in making formal complaints or because of the deaths of witnesses.
It was claimed the alleged 85 indecent assaults were committed between January 1982 and September 1983 when A was aged between 10 and 12 years. In relation to B, the offence of gross indecency was alleged to have been committed between September 1983 and June 1984 when B was aged between nine and 10 years.
The two brothers made their first formal complaints to the Garda in November 2002. The claims were denied. After a Garda investigation, he was charged in October 2004.
Mr Justice Quirke said he had heard evidence from a clinical psychologist in relation to the delay by A in reporting the alleged abuse and was satisfied that A did not report it as a child because he feared he would not be believed.
On the basis of the psychologist's evidence, the judge said he was satisfied the factor which caused A to report the abuse in 2002 was his conclusion that the psychological, sexual and other difficulties he was experiencing between 1996 and 2002 could not be resolved until he confronted and resolved the effects of the alleged abuse.
Because he found that A's delay in reporting the alleged abuse was the result of the applicant's own conduct, the applicant's constitutional right to a speedy trial was not breached, the judge held.
However, dealing with the case regarding B, the judge said no evidence had been adduced to explain B's delay in reporting the alleged offence.