Former priest who raped and sexually abused numerous young boys has most recent jail term halved on appeal

A former priest who was sentenced to an additional five years for the "predatory" rape and abuse of a schoolboy over 20 years ago - having previously been jailed for 19 years for similar offences relating to three other victims - has had his most recent jail term halved on appeal.

Denis Nolan (71) formerly of The Presbytery, Rathnew, Co Wicklow, pleaded guilty at the Central Criminal Court to one count of oral rape and 36 counts of sexual assault on dates between 1994 and 2000 at locations in Dublin and Wicklow. Nolan was aged between 42 and 48 at the time of the offending, while the victim was between 11 and 17 years old.

The court heard the abuse included inappropriate touching, fondling, masturbation and oral rape.

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Nolan has been in custody since 2014 and was serving three sentences totalling 19 years for sexual offending against three other complainants when the additional five-year term was imposed, giving an anticipated release date of March 2032.

Mr Justice Paul McDermott had set a headline sentence of eight years in respect of the rape charge but reduced this to five years to run consecutive to his other sentences, noting that the court had to "face the reality" of the offender's age and recognise that a sentence of eight years would see Nolan in his early 80s upon his eventual release.

He also handed Nolan concurrent sentences of three years on the sexual assault charges and directed Nolan to undergo five years post-release supervision.

Quashing the five-year sentence at the Court of Appeal yesterday and proceeding to re-sentence Nolan to two and a half years imprisonment, Mr Justice John Edwards described Nolan’s offending as "egregious" and said it had had a "highly destructive impact" on the victim’s life.

He said the court agreed with the trial judge that the offending against the victim should be "separately and individually" marked and that there could be no question of Nolan receiving a "free pass" in respect of it.

What the three-judge court had to consider, he said, was whether the "add-on" of five years was an appropriate one.

He said a "significant factor"in the court’s consideration was that had Nolan been sentenced "all at the one time" for this matter and the matters for which he is already serving a jail term, it was unlikely that the cumulative sentence would have been five years greater than the 19-year aggregate term he is currently serving.

Mr Justice Edwards said the court was of the view that the sentencing judge’s adjustment for proportionality in the application of the totality principle was "somewhat insufficient" and represented an error in the circumstances of the case.

He found that while there would have been "some uplift" in the overall sentence, the ultimate aggregate sentence, however structured, would not have been as high as 24 years and would have been closer to 21 or 22 years.

In re-sentencing Nolan, the judge nominated a headline sentence of 12 years with a discount of one third leaving a post-mitigation sentence of eight years in prison.

Having regard to the totality principle and also showing "some modest mercy" towards Nolan, although he had shown "little enough to his victims", Mr Justice Edwards said the court would adjust the eight-year term downwards by five and a half years, meaning Nolan will be required to serve an additional two and a half years in prison.

He said this gave an adjusted overall sentence of 21 and a half years imprisonment with the two and a half year "add-on" to commence from when the 19-year sentence finishes.

The court previously heard that the complainant encountered Nolan for the first time in the summer of 1994 when he was in sixth class. Nolan invited the boy to earn some money by carrying out gardening work.

In the first incident, Nolan touched the boy's thigh while they were in the sitting room of the parochial house. He told the boy "there was no point telling the grown-ups as sometimes this is what grown-ups do".

The abuse escalated and continued over a six-year period, including after Nolan moved to Rathnew in 1998.

The victim made a statement to gardai in 2022 and the investigating garda said the injured party knew particular identifying personal details about Nolan. Nolan was interviewed by gardai in June 2022, when he confirmed certain information about his background and told gardai he recalled the victim's name, but couldn't say why.

Nolan was handed a seven-year sentence in 2014 for the sexual abuse of a boy in Co Wicklow over a five-year period beginning in 2009 when the boy was 12.

He received a prison term of six years in 2017 for the rape and sexual abuse of another young boy, this time in the years 2006 to 2012, consecutive to his first sentence.

Nolan was then jailed in 2022 for the rape and sexual abuse of a third young boy on dates between 2001 and 2005. The Central Criminal Court initially imposed a sentence of nine years with the final seven and a half years suspended.

This was appealed on the grounds of undue leniency by the Director of Public Prosecutions and the Court of Appeal quashed this sentence and substituted a consecutive six-year term of imprisonment.

In his victim impact statement, the injured party told how his "world fell apart" in 1994 at the hands of Nolan and described himself as an "11-year-old boy in the body of a 41-year man". He said he has spent "30 years wandering around this world waiting for someone to unlock his shackles".

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