Former teacher jailed for abuse of 19 boys

Chris McNulty

A former schoolteacher who sexually abused 19 young boys in Donegal over 25 years has been jailed for six-and-a-half years.

Patrick Sharkey, now 83, stood emotionless in the dock as he was put behind bars for a total of 132 charges on Thursday.

Some victims waved at their attacker as he was led away by prison officers.

Sharkey, originally from the Clonmany area in Donegal and most recently with an address in Belfast, abused his victims in Co Donegal over a period from 1970 to 1995 - during which time he was a teacher at St Joseph’s High School in Coleraine.

Many of the victims were students at the school when Sharkey preyed on them, with one victim just seven years of age when the abuse began.

In sentencing Sharkey at Donegal Circuit Court, Judge John Aylmer said the offending, which he described as “very invasive”, represented “a gross breach of trust on all occasions”.

Judge Aylmer said that a further aggravating feature was the length, the extended period of time and the age of his victims, who were between seven and 16 years old.

“The offences can only be described as very calculated, premeditated and predatory in nature,” Judge Aylmer said.

“It involved a significant amount of grooming of the victims.”

Signed guilty pleas

Sharkey was before the court on signed guilty pleas for all 132 charges, which were a mixture of indecent assault and sexual assault.

One of the complainants was the subject of 59 of the charges.

Some offending occurred when children travelled from school to take part in extracurricular activities and stayed in Sharkey’s parents’ house in Clonmany, Co Donegal, while other offences took place when they were on trips to Dublin.

Judge Aylmer told Sharkey: “You took advantage of the modest social circumstances of a significant number of victims and took advantage of their families in luring the children away from their families to your family home in Donegal, where they were delighted to go at the opportunity of a holiday.”

Judge Aylmer said the number of complainants and large number of offences took it into the upper end for sentencing.

Sharkey was previously handed a two-year sentence in Northern Ireland and served one year in prison. Three of the victims in that case overlapped into the matter before the Circuit Court in Donegal.

Judge Aylmer said that a total appropriate headline sentence was one of 14 years in prison “to capture the totality of the offending”.

The signed guilty plea offered significant mitigation, while Judge Aylmer noted that Sharkey did cooperate with the investigation by travelling to this jurisdiction and making “albeit limited” admissions.

Judge Aylmer reduced the sentence to one of nine years and three months in prison with the final six months suspended. That term was further reduced on account of Sharkey’s poor state of health and advanced years.

“There is a significant risk that by imposing a prison sentence that you might die in prison,” Judge Aylmer said.

In all, Judge Aylmer sentenced Sharkey to seven years in prison with the last six months suspended.

Sharkey’s barrister, Eugene Grant, with Maddie Grant, instructed by solicitor Patsy Gallagher, advised the court that Sharkey recently spent 10 days in hospital due to heart and lung conditions.

At an earlier court hearing, Grant said that “the prospect of dying in prison is real” for Sharkey.

Previous hearing

At a sentencing hearing in May, Detective Garda Johnny Gallagher outlined the evidence in the case to Barrister for the State, Fiona Crawford.

One victim, who was the subject of 59 counts, told detectives: “Pretty much every night I was in Clonmany with Patrick Sharkey, he sexually abused me”. He said he was “so shocked” and said that he “didn’t know what to do.”

Another person was just seven years old when Sharkey began to sexually abuse him, while another told how Sharkey was “all over me” when they were in the shower, while the victim also remembered Sharkey placing his hand inside his underwear and sexually assaulting him.

One man recalled how he was just 13 when Sharkey plied him with cider before he started to kiss him on the back and then sexually assaulted him.

He told how he closed his eyes and “just waited for it to stop”. “I was in shock or fear,” he told detectives.

“I was petrified and didn’t sleep,” he said.

Another man said he saw media reports regarding Sharkey in Northern Ireland when he decided to make a complaint.

A man told investigators that Sharkey attempted to penetrate him but he picked up a shoe and hit Sharkey before fleeing from the room while another remembered how he tried to push Sharkey away but said “he was too big and he was too strong”.

“Patrick Sharkey took something out of me that never returned,” a further victim had said.

Another of Sharkey’s victims said he has been trying to block out the incidents for 40 years, while another victim told gardaí: “I was just terrified and I pretended to be asleep.”

A couple of the injured parties remembered how Sharkey would sometimes drive a car and allow them to sit on his lap but as the boys held the steering wheel they were sexually assaulted by Sharkey.

'Partial admissions'

Sharkey was interviewed on three occasions by detectives and made only “partial admissions”, the court heard.

The court heard that Sharkey later told investigators: “Some time in the last six months I’ve come to the conclusion that I shouldn’t have touched those people at all”.

Some victim impact statements were read out at a previous hearing, with one man turning to Sharkey and saying: “I hope you rot in hell.”

Another victim of Sharkey’s recalled how the predator used power and control to prey on his victims. He told how Sharkey had befriended his family and would often call into his home before he “robbed me of my safe place”.

“He was only there planning his next move,” the man said in a moving victim impact statement. “This wasn’t a one-off action, but a cold, callous, planned attack, right down to infiltrating my family circle”

Looking down at his attacker, the man said: “I want to thank you for staying alive long enough for this day to happen, My biggest fear was that you would die long before this day... Feel free to check out now anytime.”

The school was challenged about the incidents, but it was “swept under the carpet” and this led to him losing respect for figures of authority.

He recalled that he left school early due to the “taunting” he received after people heard about what had happened.

“That one act of betrayal wrecked my future,” he said. “My foundation was shattered…I felt so isolated and silenced. It was like my pain didn’t matter. It created a loneliness that I have never fully escaped. It robbed me of my self-confidence and my self-worth.”

Another victim said that other people “couldn’t live” with what had happened and are no longer here.

He told Sharkey: “That is on you. You need to know that.”

The man told the court that he was “so grateful for the lads who spoke up” and said: “They gave the rest of us the courage to do the same. I hope when more people hear what happened that others will find the courage so that real justice can be served.”

If you have been affected by any of the issues raised in this article, you can call the national 24-hour Rape Crisis Helpline at 1800-77 8888, access text service and webchat options at drcc.ie/services/helpline/ or visit Rape Crisis Help. In the case of an emergency, always dial 999/112.