An English homosexual paedophile is to be deported after he serves a two-year sentence for sexually abusing a boy he was tutoring in mathematics. "It has not gone unnoticed by this court that he is a foreigner who came here to commit this offence. I hope it is not an instance of foreign sexual offenders believing Ireland is fertile ground for them," Judge Cyril Kelly said.
John Charles Paul (40) had five previous sexual abuse convictions in England stretching back to 1971 when he and other family members were charged with abusing each other, Dublin Circuit Criminal Court was told.
Paul pleaded guilty to the sexual assault of the 10-year-old boy in 1996.
Judge Kelly said one of the problems of the type of abuse to which Paul pleaded guilty was that it eroded confidence and trust of parents in tutors. A feeling of security was corroded by this offending.
"The lack of trust can cast a finger of suspicion on people honestly engaged with young children and that is regrettable," he said.
Judge Kelly said there was no sex offenders' treatment course available for people in custody until the end of 1998.
He ordered that Paul be deported after serving a two-year sentence for an offence which the judge said was not as serious as many which come before the court.
Mr Michael O'Higgins, defending, said his client was a confirmed homosexual paedophile and had sought counselling on arrival in Ireland during 1994.
Garda John Butler told Mr Brendan Grehan, prosecuting, that Paul attended the victim's home to give him private tuition. On a number of occasions he touched the boy's trousers in the genital area.
The charge referred to the one occasion he put his hands inside the boy's clothes. The incident was witnessed by the victim's sister who alerted their mother. Paul fled but was arrested in Wexford on August 14th, 1996.
Garda Butler said Paul received a six-month sentence at Bristol Crown Court in March 1992 for an offence of attempted gross indecency. Five years earlier he had been jailed for two years for another sexual offence.
In 1978 Paul was fined £100 for committing an act of gross indecency in a public toilet and in 1975 he had been bound over to the peace for three years in relation to similar charges.
Garda Butler agreed with Mr O'Higgins that Paul had been a victim of sexual abuse himself and other family members also appeared in court in 1971 charged with abusing each other.
The family home had been run along military lines, said counsel.