Febuary 2009 Teacher convicted for indecent assault on pupil A national teacher who was jailed previously for sexual offences on pupils has been given a three year sentence by Mr Justice Paul Carney for indecently assaulting another female pupil 26 years ago.  Patrick O’Connell (aged 54), a native of Limerick with an address at Seacrest, Galway, pleaded guilty at the Central Criminal Court to indecently assaulting a then 12-year-old girl on a date between April 1 and June 30, 1982. The now 39-year-old married mother of three told that Mr Justice Carney that she suffers regular nightmares of O’Connell being on top of her eldest daughter.  She said that she since the assault she is afraid to be left alone with any man, apart from her husband and her father. She said that she felt that while this matter was now over for O’Connell, it wasn’t for her.  “It will stay with me my whole life,” she said. “I reported his assault for my own sake, my family’s sake and for all other innocent children.” Mr Justice Carney imposed a three-year sentence which he back dated for two weeks. Detective Garda Annalise Hannigan told Mr Gerard Clarke SC, prosecuting, that the victim had been attending a sports event with her other classmates and O’Connell when he reprimanded her for “messing on the bus” and told her to stay back after school to fill out some forms. She later told gardaí that she was worried he would tell her parents about her bad behaviour and she was nervous and apprehensive about being told to stay back. She said that O’Connell made her lie down on the ground telling her that he was going to relax her legs. He then performed a sex act on her using his hands. She said she had not fully appreciated at the time what had happened and it was not until she got sex education at school as a 15-year-old that she realised it was a criminal offence.  Det Gda Hannigan agreed with defence counsel, Mr Peter Finlay SC, that O’Connell was a divorced man with one child who had not come to garda attention since his release from custody in June 2003. She accepted that since then he had regularly gone to France with his French partner and on each occasion surrendered his passport to gardaí on his return. Mr Finlay submitted that O’Connell had tried “to rebuild his life” since his earlier convictions and marriage breakdown and that a probation report indicated he now represented a “low risk to society”. He asked Mr Justice Carney to take into account that O’Connell’s registration as a sex offender had a massive implication for someone like him.  “He now just wants to live a meaningful and productive life having paid his debt to society.” O’Connell was jailed at the Central Criminal Court for four years on June 8, 2000 by Mr Justice Aindrias O Caoimh and given a similar sentence on July 25, 2000 by Mr Justice Joseph Finnegan for indecently assaulting two other female pupils in the same west Dublin school. The court was told then that he had a glittering international athletic career and also was an U-21 All-Ireland football medal winner with Kerry. He was convicted by a jury following a four-day trial in April 2000 in the first case and the second four-year sentence followed his conviction by another jury after a 10-day trial in June, 2000. The jury in this case took just more than four hours find him guilty on five charges of indecent assault Mr Justice Finnegan suspended the final year of the sentence on condition that O’Connell kept the peace for five years from his release. Det Garda Hannigan told the July 2000 hearing that O’Connell received the Probation Act after he appeared on a false pretences charge in Dublin District Court in 1979.