A DONEGAL caretaker who kept his job at a school despite a conviction for sexually assaulting a pupil has been sentenced to 18 years for the rape and sexual assault of four more boys.
Michael Ferry (55) abused the four boys on an almost weekly basis, some for as long as four years. He groomed them by supplying them with alcohol, cigarettes and money. He would also make them watch pornography with him, with one boy reporting to gardaí that the man had shown him child pornography.
The judge said the authorities must have been aware Ferry had a conviction for a similar offence, yet he continued working in the school.
“A disturbing feature of this case is that the outrages perpetrated in the school predate and postdate the sexual assault of a pupil in the same school, for which he was placed on the sex offenders’ register for five years,” Mr Justice Paul Carney commented.
“Despite the fact that he pleaded guilty to sexual assault in 2002, he remained working in the school to continue to engage in the stalking and grooming with which we are concerned with today,” he said. “This must have been known to the local gardaí and presumably the school authorities.”
Mr Justice Carney noted Ferry had been identified in media reports of the 2002 conviction because the District Court judge at the time ordered he remain anonymous. This was because the victim knew Ferry’s mother was ill, and did not want to upset her.
Following yesterday’s sentencing, Mr Justice Carney refused to make an order that Ferry not be identified in reports.
“Look what happened the last time,” he told defence counsel. “I don’t see how publication of his name could identify any particular victim.” Mr Justice Carney took into account Ferry’s guilty plea and “genuine remorse”, but noted he had abused a position of trust and engaged in the “systematic grooming of the boys”.
He imposed an 18-year sentence with four years suspended. He ordered Ferry be registered as a sex offender, and never again have contact with his victims.
Ferry, of Bunbeg, Gweedore, Co Donegal, pleaded guilty at the Central Criminal Court to 38 sample charges including 17 oral and anal rapes, 18 sex assaults, one indecent assault and two charges of production of child pornography on dates between July 1st, 1990 and September 31st, 2005.
The charges in relation to production of child pornography related to Ferry taking photographs of two of the boys together.
The abuse took place at Ard Scoil Mhuire, Derrybeg, which is a former school building that is used for Irish language courses in summer.
Ferry told one victim to imagine it was “a girl doing it to you” while he masturbated him, after having supplied him with whiskey.
Two of the boys later told gardaí Ferry abused them in the school after he got them so drunk they were afraid to go home to their parents. Another said he woke up from a vodka-induced sleep to find himself lying naked and with his back passage sore and bleeding.
Ferry had been earlier convicted in a District Court in Donegal for two incidents of indecent assault at the same school in 1985 and 1986. He was registered as a sex offender and received a six-month suspended sentence.
Garda Denise Casserly told Patricia McLaughlin, prosecuting, that Ferry was not identified in the local papers at the time and he returned to work in the school.
Each of the men, now aged between 24 and 30, stated in victim impact statements that they turned to alcohol, drug and solvent abuse to escape from the reality of their situation. Some of them had tried to take their own lives, with one saying he had deliberately crashed his car and later his motorbike.
Garda Casserly said Ferry was a caretaker in a summer school in the area, but that he worked in the building all year round. The local boys would regularly go to the school to play football and hang around, and he would invite them to have tea and give them alcohol and cigarettes.
She said Ferry was arrested in June 2010 after one of the victims reported the abuse to his doctor.
An incident room was then set up in the local Garda station. Ferry admitted the offences and said he had shown the teenagers pornography “to get them in the mood”. He told gardaí he was sorry he ever set foot in the place because there were temptations.
He asked gardaí why the boys had not come forward earlier or told him to stop at the time. He said he would plead guilty to the charges because he wanted “closure” for the victims and families.
Desmond Murphy SC, defending, told Mr Justice Carney his client expressed his regret and asked for forgiveness but did not expect it. He said he had studied for the priesthood but there was “a disagreeable event” and he left college without his degree. Mr Murphy said Ferry never set out to hurt anyone and told gardaí there was no logic to his actions. “He made the wrong choice which led him into this descent into evil.”