Madam, – What message has Judge Donagh McDonagh sent to all those victims of sexual abuse who are trying to build up the courage to go to the police and describe the abuse that robbed them of their childhood?
Judge McDonagh, when giving serial paedophile priest Ronald Bennett a suspended sentence, stated that the offence was similar to earlier offences and normally all sentences for such offences would be served at the same time (Home News, March 8th).
Paedophiles might conclude from this that once they have abused one child they might as well abuse however many children take their fancy, as the sentence will be the same.
In 1973, management at Gormanston failed to stop abuse when parents told them Bennett was sexually abusing their son.
Now the Irish judiciary can hang its head in shame as one of its judges gives a serial paedophile dressed as a priest no more than a slap on the wrist.
This sentence is also an insult to the brave man who stood in Trim Circuit Court and described what happened to him and many others at the hands of Bennett.
This is the fifth person Bennett has been found guilty of abusing.
Bennett was a bursar at Gormanston College throughout the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. I boarded there for five years during the 1970s, and most evenings boys were called down to his office over the public speaker system. – Yours, etc,