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Former Willow Park Teacher Peter Kelly Jailed for 10 Years for Indecent Assaults

The 73-year-old’s sentencing follows convictions on 28 counts involving eight boys at a Spiritan-run primary school decades after a 2001 complaint brought no charges.

Overview

  • Judge Elma Sheahan imposed the ten-year prison term following jury convictions returned earlier this year.
  • The convictions cover 28 indecent assaults against eight boys at Willow Park in the 1970s and 1980s.
  • Victims, then aged about 10 to 13, testified that assaults occurred in classrooms and changing rooms.
  • One victim told the court Kelly was "one cog in a machine of systematic abuse" linked to Willow Park and Blackrock College.
  • Kelly began teaching at Willow Park in 1977, resigned in 2004 after a 2001 complaint when the DPP chose not to prosecute, and he does not accept the jury’s verdicts.