The High Court has dismissed a woman’s civil claim alleging that a school principal sexually assaulted and raped her while giving her lifts to school in 2009 and 2010. The court found she had not established her claims on the balance of probabilities after hearing evidence over five days.
In a judgment delivered on 26 January 2024, Mr Justice Tony O’Connor said the allegations were serious and that the civil standard of proof had to be applied rigorously in light of the consequences. The defendant denied sexually assaulting or raping the plaintiff.
The plaintiff testified that the defendant began giving her lifts in 2009 and that the alleged abuse escalated from inappropriate touching to oral and penetrative sex. She said the assaults stopped when the academic year ended in May or June 2010. She also described an occasion in April 2010 when, she said, the defendant stopped at a farmyard entrance and showed her how to put a condom on him.
The judge said that detail emerged during cross-examination and led him to revisit the plaintiff’s evidence about the frequency and extent of the alleged assaults. He considered her account unreliable on some material issues, including her recollection of the events and whether she was regularly late for school. He also referred to an unexplained delay in providing detailed replies to particulars in the civil proceedings. The judgment noted her PTSD diagnosis and psychiatric and psychological care, but said the medical evidence did not explain the delay.
The defendant gave evidence that the lifts began at the request of the plaintiff’s father and denied all the allegations. The judge said the defendant’s evidence was clear and that cross-examination had not undermined his credibility or reliability. Two members of staff at the defendant’s school supported his evidence that he was on time during the relevant school year. The court was not satisfied that the plaintiff was regularly late for school, an issue the judge said underpinned part of her account.
The judgment also addressed the plaintiff’s disclosures and a proposed meeting in Kinnegad. The judge said he drew no adverse inference from either the disclosures or the unusual meeting request. He said those events did not assist or damage the plaintiff’s effort to prove her claims.
The court did not decide criminal liability. It found the civil claims had not been established and dismissed the plaintiff’s claim. As a result, it did not assess damages; the judgment said the medical evidence on condition and prognosis was relevant only to that assessment.