Former priest and school principal sentenced to 10 years in prison for child abuse

A former teacher and school principal convicted of historic child sexual abuse has been sentenced to an additional 10 years in prison.

Former Christian Brother Paul Dunleavy, 89, with an address in Glen Road, Belfast, was found guilty of 36 historical charges of sexual abuse against nine boys in September.

The charges included indecent assault and gross indecency with or towards a child.

The offenses were committed between 1964 and 1991, when Dunleavy was working at four schools in Belfast, Newry and Armagh.

The victims were between seven and 14 years old at the time.

Dunleavy bowed his head briefly in the dock at Belfast Crown Court during sentencing on Thursday afternoon.

He is currently serving a prison sentence for two previous convictions for sexual offenses against children in his care.

There were nine more victims in these two cases and 36 other crimes; This means Dunleavy was convicted of a total of 72 crimes involving 18 victims.

Imposing the sentence, Crown Court judge Patrick Lynch KC said his prison sentence would begin at the end of his current sentence in May 2026.

Judge Lynch said he felt Dunleavy, who the court heard had a life expectancy of about four years, could continue his predatory behavior with impunity.

“In this case, if he had not spent a lifetime of religious and public service, the world would have been in a better place,” he said.

“His teaching career is filled with the shattered psyches of his victims.

“The church he claims to serve has been denigrated by the actions of this man and others like him, characterized by loss of religious faith, loss of trust, and mass desertion of the formerly religious population of this island.”

The judge added: “The court received a graphic picture of the defendant at trial as a large, sturdy man, nothing like the reduced figure now before the court.

“He is an intimidating figure due to his physical presence, dressed all in black, wandering the school corridors and rooms, possessing the dual authority of teacher/principal and priest.

“A tyrant confident in his own position who assumes that no one will dare to report his crimes.

“It is a sad reflection of those times that he felt able to carry out his predatory behavior with impunity.”

The judge attributed Dunleavy’s ongoing “persistent denial of guilt” to his “malicious stubbornness” to admit to those who still supported him, including some members of his family, that he was a “child molester”.