A SECONDARY school teacher has told a court that his life was made “a living nightmare” by “fictitious allegations” made up by a colleague who sent two anonymous handwritten letters to the Gardaí and their school principal.
At Ennis District Court, Detective Garda Joe Cusack, of Henry Street Garda Station in Limerick City, told the court that the letters purporting to be from students of an all-girls school made reference to a named teacher, “alleging that he was looking at inappropriate content, including pictures of naked women on his phone, while teaching in the classroom”.
Contemplating sentence in the case of the accused man, the judge in the case said “there is no question that someone who sets about to destroy someone’s life with an anonymous letter should be punished”.
The judge in the case ordered that the accused and the school not be named in order to preserve the anonymity of the victim. The judge also stated that he himself should not be identified.
The judge imposed reporting restrictions following an application by the solicitor for the accused.
In the case, accused pleaded guilty to sending a grossly offensive communication to another person with intent to cause harm when sending a letter to Henry Street Garda Station on March 30, 2022, and when sending a second letter on May 25, 2022, to the school.
Both charges are contrary to Section 4 of the Harassment, Harmful Communications, and Related Offences Act 2020.
Detective Garda Cusack said that the accused told Gardaí at interview that he overheard students express concerns over the conduct of a teacher and he sent the anonymous letters, rather than going down the formal route of contacting TUSLA or the school principal as he felt this would ostracise him from his teaching colleagues.
Detective Garda Cusack said that he was able to identify the accused from CCTV at a local post office from which he sent one of the letters.
The judge said that the “fantastic Garda investigation” is a salutary lesson to those who send anonymous letters and who believe they won’t be caught.
The judge added that “tracking and tracing the author of these letters was an amazing feat – extraordinary”.
The court heard excerpts from the victim impact statement where the victim said that his life was made “a living nightmare” by the “fictitious allegations” made up by the accused.
The accused’s solicitor said what his client did was “despicable” and “reprehensible” but told the judge that a conviction “would be career-ending”.
Asking that his client not be convicted, the solicitor said: “I know it is a big ask”.
The solicitor said that his client has written a letter of apology to the victim and has no previous convictions.
The defence said that, as a result of sending the letters, his client lost his job after he and the principal agreed that he would effectively “walk away” from the school.
The solicitor said that his client is now teaching in another school “and a conviction against him would make him unemployable because of Garda vetting requirements”.
“He is a very good and well regarded teacher and wants to stay in that space. He is extremely sorry for what happened and will regret it for the rest of his life. His career now hangs in the balance.”
The solicitor said that his client was not well from a mental health point of view when sending the letters.
“These were the actions of someone who was not well and sick. Something clearly went awry,” he told the court.
The solicitor said that the probation report on his client “was as good a probation report I have ever seen” which said that there was really “nil risk” of his client re-offending.
He said that his client had €5,000 compensation in court for the victim that could be paid over immediately.
The judge said that the court had received “a big bundle” of testimonials from people writing on behalf of the accused.
He said: “There is a huge network of people who have all stumped up to write letters for him.”
“I am not totally convinced that a conviction will serve a purpose here other than lose a man his job and three children would suffer.”
However, the judge said that he was “very conscious of the victim and the public at large and there is no question that someone who sets about to destroy someone’s life with an anonymous letter should be punished – that is the issue”.
The judge said that he had in mind a three-month suspended sentence for two years but would adjourn imposing sentence to allow further monitoring in the case until June.
The judge said he was “not bottling” his decision.
“There is a character trait here that troubles me and it plays out in the number of testimonials I have. He must be very capable to get all these people to support him.”
