A former childcare worker walked free from the Court of Criminal Appeal yesterday after his conviction for the alleged buggery and indecent assault of a 14-year-old boy was quashed.
In 2001, David Murray (63) was sentenced to jail for 10 years for indecent assault and buggery of a 14-year-old boy during a camping trip in Glendalough, Co Wicklow, 25 years ago.
Murray, with a County Dublin address, had appealed both the sentence and the conviction.
The Appeal Court ruled that, on grounds of failure to disclose documents which were said to contain material new evidence, the conviction of Murray was unsafe.
The appeal against conviction had not been opposed by the Director of Public Prosecutions and when the Court of Criminal Appeal said yesterday it would order a retrial in the case, counsel for the DPP said he was not seeking a retrial because of passage of time since the alleged offences.
The conviction which was set aside yesterday related to offences alleged to have occurred between October 1980 and September 1981, when Murray worked at Scoil Ard Mhuire, Oberstown, which closed in 1985.
Presenting Murray's appeal, Feargal Kavanagh said that log books in relation to the running of the school and the employment records of the school were not disclosed to the defence until the morning of the first day of the trial in 2001.
Other material was also not provided to the defence and this had limited its ability to more extensively cross-examine the complainant, Mr Kavanagh said.
When all the documents were fully disclosed, new material came to light, counsel said.
The result of this was that Murray had been prejudiced. Murray, counsel added, had served almost six years of his sentence.
Ms Justice Fidelma Macken, presiding, over the three-judge Court of Criminal Appeal, said that she and her fellow judges believed that the conviction was "unsafe" and should be set aside.