A MAN described as a "Walter Mitty type" apologised in court yesterday after he admitted concocting allegations that he was sexually assaulted by X-Factorjudge Louis Walsh.
Leonard Watters (24), a father-of-two, from Navan, Co Meath, will be sentenced in January for making unfounded claims that the pop guru sexually assaulted him in the toilets of the Krystle nightclub, in Dublin.
He pleaded guilty at Dublin District Court yesterday to two charges of making false reports to gardaí at Harcourt Terrace Garda station, on June 20th last and at his home on June 28th last.
Det Insp Michael Cryan told Judge Dermot Dempsey that on April 9th last Watters had been socialising in Dublin and met Louis Walsh and friends in a bar in the city centre. “He travelled with them to Krystle nightclub on Harcourt Street,” Det Insp Cryan said.
At about 4.30am Watters approached a garda on Harcourt Street and “alleged he had been sexually assaulted by Mr Walsh”.
Watters then went to the Mater hospital to be examined. Two gardaí spoke to him there where he “made the same allegation to them”. CCTV footage did not support his allegations, Det Insp Cryan said, adding that Watters then “admitted that the allegation was false”.
During a series of interviews at Pearse Street Garda station, Watters claimed he had been assaulted in the toilets at Krystle nightclub but not by Louis Walsh.
Defence solicitor Cahir O’Higgins said his client has been “rendered something of a pariah in his community”, is now seen “as a Walter Mitty type” and is characterised as a “fantasist or a liar”. He has been rendered jobless as a result of the claims he has made.
In the witness box, Watters said: “I would like to apologise to Mr Louis Walsh for all the stuff I put him through and the allegations were false.”
Mr O’Higgins said his client received a large settlement as a result of an accident but “worked his way through it in a staggeringly quick period of time”.
The judge described Watters’s offences as serious. “I am considering a custodial sentence given the gravity of matters,” he said. However, he adjourned sentencing for a probation report to be obtained.