A FORMER pupil at a Limerick primary school has told a court how he was raped in the toilets of the school after he was caught smoking by his teacher who then burned his genitalia with a cigarette.
The harrowing evidence was given at the trial of a retried 74-year-old teacher who denies charges of indecent assault at the school between September 1978 and July 1979.
The past pupil, who was in fifth class and aged just ten at the time, told the jury of six men and six women that the teacher often beat the boys in his class.
He too was beaten and he recalled one occasion where the teacher was beating him around the head, legs and arms.
“I remember one time, he was beating me and the next thing I knew his hand went down the inside of my pants. I bit him on his left arm. He stopped and left me alone for a while, probably surprised that someone stood up to him.
“Another time, I was smoking in the toilets with two lads, I was near the urinals and the next thing I looked and he (the accused man) was there.
“He dismissed the other lads and said he would deal with them later.
“I was then beaten around the face and head again and slapped on the legs and backside.
“It was like he had 12 or 15 hands because I was spinning around, being hit and he had my pants open.
The victim recalled that a bar of soap was shoved in his mouth “then I was bent over and he (the accused man) penetrated me”.
The jury heard graphic details of how the boy was pinned against the urinals “and the next thing I felt a burning on my testicles and penis. He was burning me with a cigarette he had taken off the other two lads”.
“He raped me and then he cleaned me up, and threw my shoe at me like a dog when he was finished. He kept on telling me it was my fault.”
Later the same day, the teacher told him to stay back after class when further sexual abuse occurred.
“He told me not to tell anyone. My mother was sick at the time and he told me that if I told anyone “God would take my mother”.
“I was in complete and utter fear”.
The trial continues before Judge Tom O’Donnell at Limerick Circuit Criminal Court.
