Christian Brother given 10 years for abusing children

A Christian Brother, who was a prolific serial sex offender, has been jailed for abusing children for decades in a series of schools in Northern Ireland.

Paul Dunleavy, 89, whose address was given as Glen Road in Belfast, was described by one of those he abused as a "big dark shadow" who had destroyed his life.

He was jailed for 10 years, but is expected to die in prison as he has been assessed as having a life expectancy of four years.

Dunleavy has now been convicted on three separate occasions, but it is the first time the scale of his offending can be revealed.

Reporting restrictions limited what could be said about the earlier cases in order to protect the integrity of the ones still to be heard.

With the conclusion of this case against him, the full details can be published.

In total, he has now been convicted of 72 offences, involving 18 victims between 1964 and 1991.

The court heard that the offences were amongst the most serious which, under modern sexual offences legislation, would be defined as rape.

The former school principal taught in four primary and secondary schools in Belfast, Newry and Armagh from the 1960s until his retirement in 1997.

The first complaints were made about him in 2010.

A man, who was abused by him as a child, said he knew people who had taken their own lives as a result of what Dunleavy had done.

"There's a lot of ones this happened to. There's a lot of people along the way who didn't make it past their teens and twenties because of it, who took their own lives because of it," he said.

"There was nobody there to guide us. If people know maybe they'll have the courage to come forward, maybe they'll have the courage to tell their story because for along time I hadn't got the courage," he added.

In the latest case for which he has been sentenced, Dunleavy was convicted of 36 offences involving nine victims.

They ranged from multiple accounts of indecent assault, to four of gross indecency and one of attempted buggery of a child.

'Persistent denials of guilt'

Judge Patrick Lynch said Dunleavy had consistently denied responsibility and claimed his victims had been motivated to testify in the hope of receiving compensation.

The judge described this as a "vile accusation".

He said: "His persistent denials of guilt, I can only attribute to a malign stubbornness and an unwillingness to admit to such persons as may have believed in him that he is a child molester.

"Most notably perhaps, members of his family whom I am told are still supportive of him."

A defence lawyer had argued for a lenient sentence on the grounds of his client's age.

Dunleavy's life expectancy has been assessed as being four years.

But the trial judge said Dunleavy had shown no mercy to his victims and had insisted on all nine of them having to give evidence in the course of the trial.

He sentenced Dunleavy to ten years on top of the sentences he is already serving.

Judge Lynch said: "In this case, the world would have been a better place had he not served a lifetime in religious and public service.

"His teaching career had been littered with the shattered psyches of his victims.

"The church he purports to serve has been vilified because of the actions of this man and his ilk characterised by loss of religious faith, of trust and its desertion in droves by the formerly devout people of this island."

The judge said the message should go out that those tempted to molest children should be aware that justice would seek them out despite the passage of years.

He said the courts would hand down sentences that reflected the public's outrage at this type of offending.

Mr Justice Lynch praised the nine complainants in this final case.

"By coming forward and demonstrating that these crimes will not go unpunished, it is to be hoped that you may have contributed in deterring those who may presently be tempted to commit such crimes and thus save children, in the future from having to undergo what you have suffered," he said.

In 2023, Dunleavy got 10 years for 23 offences against four victims.

The previous year he was sentenced to seven years for 13 offences involving five victims.