December 2014

Man convicted of indecent assault on boy (12) 

A man convicted of indecent assault, who has been taking “libido repressant” medicine for 25 years, will not face a more severe sentence as had been sought by prosecutors.

Cyril Maxwell (69), with an address in Co Clare, had pleaded guilty to a number of counts of indecent assault which took place between 1968 and 1970 on a 12-year-old boy.

Maxwell was given a four year suspended sentence by Judge Carroll Moran at Ennis Circuit Criminal Court on May 14 2012.

The Director of Public Prosecutions unsuccessfully applied for a review of his sentence yesterday in the Court of Appeal.

Mr Justice Seán Ryan said Maxwell was between the ages of 23 and 25 when the offences took place. Between 1968 and 1970 the abuse began and intensified, he said.

It’s clear the abuse reached a serious level and the nature of the indecent assault was grave, Mr Justice Ryan said.

There was also a legal complication because of litigation that concerned the crime of buggery. Mr Justice Ryan said it was not necessary to deal with that because sentencing proceeded on the basis of indecent assault.

Mr Justice Ryan said Maxwell had a physical idiosyncrasy in having a chromosome abnormality which affected his sex drive or libido. The judge said Maxwell had addressed this physical feature, he had been taking medication and continued to do so 25 years before the matter came to light.

The court heard Maxwell had been taking “libido repressant medication”.

Mr Justice Ryan said there was evidence that Maxwell himself had been sexually abused at the age of nine. “It is a ghastly feature of some of our history that this is not a unique occurrence,” the judge said.

The DPP had appealed Maxwell’s sentence on grounds that the sentencing judge did not give enough attention to the aggravating factors and gave too much attention to the mitigating factors.

Mr Justice Ryan said the victim’s impact statement given in court ended “poignantly” with the following statement: ‘Whatever sentence Cyril Maxwell gets today I have to live with what he has done to me for the rest of my life’.

Mr Justice Ryan said the trial judge gave the matter detailed and earnest consideration and arrived at a view which was within his competence to decide.

He said the court had to apply the legal test to whether the sentence represented a significant departure from the norm. Consequently the Court of Appeal did not believe Maxwell’s sentence should be quashed and replaced with a new one. Mr Justice Ryan refused the DPP’s application.

May 2012

Pervert’s trip near to creche

PAEDOPHILE Cyril Maxwell was hanging around a family centre with a CRECHE before he was convicted of indecently assaulting a boy last week.

Depraved Maxwell, 67, got a four-year suspended sentence last week for nine assaults on the lad between 1968 and 1970.

He pleaded guilty to nine indecent assaults on his victim — then aged 12 to 14 — over a two-year period.

He was handed a four-year suspended sentence yesterday at Ennis Circuit Court.

The sex beast’s conviction on Thursday followed Maxwell admitting, in September 2010, that he buggered the boy, 12, during the same period.

But up until Thursday’s conviction the sicko was going to active retirement events in the Family Centre in Newmarket on Fergus, Co Clare.

The centre is also home to a creche, an after school project and a youth cafe.

Concerned locals had made complaints to management, the gardai and the HSE over his presence.

But it was felt that because he was not then convicted of any offence the married dad-of-two couldn’t be ousted. At the Family Centre yesterday, Maxwell didn’t turn up for the weekly meeting of the Going Strong group as he had done for three or four weeks.

A member said: “He didn’t come today and quite frankly we were relieved.

“People were worried about him coming to the centre where there are so manyactivities and services for children. We do not want him here.

“We had to wait until after the court case and his conviction before we could tell him to leave if he turned up.”

In September 2010, the fiend admitted buggering the boy in the late Sixties. But following a test case earlier this year, the Supreme Court ruled the offence of buggery prior to 1993 no longer existed.

As a result of that he is a free man.

Maxwell’s front garden is adorned with a life-size statue of two young children, a boy and a girl.