Tony Walsh fails appeals over rape and child abuse sentences

This report is a localnews.ie summary based on public court reporting and records; sources are listed below.

Tony Walsh failed at the Court of Criminal Appeal in challenges to sentences for rape and sexual abuse, with the proceedings reported on 30 July 2014. Presiding judge Mr Justice John Murray delivered the written judgment, and the court refused leave to appeal in each application.

Walsh was serving a 16-year sentence imposed in 2010 for the rape and abuse of three schoolboys. In 2012, 15 months was added after he pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to two counts of indecent assault on 1 January and 4 April 1979. He had also pleaded guilty to two counts of indecently assaulting a male in a west Dublin church between November 1978 and April 1979, and to a further such charge involving a west Dublin school between January 1984 and December 1985. A jury convicted him in November 2010 of nine further counts of indecent assault and five counts of buggery involving a third boy between 1 June 1979 and 30 June 1983; he had denied those charges. The report said the court considered the offences to be of the utmost gravity and described his conduct as depraved.