Court orders extradition of child abuser Oliver O'Grady to serve prison sentence in Portugal
O'Grady (80) of Rostrevor Court, Mackin Street, Dublin 2 was arrested on 21 January 2025 on foot of a European Arrest Warrant issued by a court in Faro in Portugal.
The warrant states that O'Grady was tried on a charge of possession of 'pornography of minors', convicted and sentenced to one year in prison in his absence by a Portuguese court after he failed to attend his trial on 7 May 2024.
In opposing his surrender to Portugal, O'Grady complained that his fair trial rights were not adequately protected in the process that led to his conviction. He said that he had been unable to contact a lawyer appointed to defend him in Portugal.
He further complained that his surrender would be incompatible with the European Convention on Human Rights and the Charter of Fundamental Rights and Freedoms because of a real risk of inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment in the Portuguese prison system.
To bolster his claim, he said he spent time in the Prisional de Setubal in Portugal in October 2019 after he was arrested on foot of a European Arrest Warrant from Ireland.
He maintained that while incarcerated there he was not provided with medication, the facilities were unhygienic and, as a segregated prisoner on remand in respect of sexual offences, he was abused and had apples thrown at him.
However, Justice Patrick McGrath at the High Court in Dublin found O'Grady's evidence relating to the trial process to be 'disingenuous and self-serving'.
The judge found that O'Grady had tried to control the proceedings.
Portuguese authorities, through An Garda Siochána, notified O'Grady of his obligation to attend his trial and the consequences of failure to attend, the judge said.
There was no impediment to him travelling for his trial and, being a man familiar with the court system, he knew his inability to contact a lawyer did not excuse him from attendance, Justice McGrath said.
O'Grady revealed his true mindset in an email he sent to the Portuguese prosecutor on 11 April 2024, the judge said. In the email, O'Grady showed that he knew of the impending hearing date but suggested he might not attend unless he could be assured of being admitted to bail.
Advertisement
Justice McGrath said: 'This is not the mindset of a person who is unaware of a duty to attend at court and of the possible consequences of non-attendance, but rather shows a person who is trying to control the outcome of proceedings.'
Justice McGrath added that O'Grady was 'clearly trying to manipulate the system to try to secure a certain outcome'.
Had he attended his trial, as he was required to do, he would have been given proper legal assistance before entering a plea, the judge said. His failure to obtain effective legal assistance flows from his failure to attend, Justice McGrath added.
In relation to the risk of inhuman or degrading treatment, Justice McGrath said the conditions at the Carreguiera prison in which O'Grady will be housed in Portugal have not been criticised.
He said he is satisfied from assurances given by the Portuguese authorities that no such risk exists.
O'Grady has a long history of sexual offences against children.
Originally from Limerick, O'Grady emigrated to America after joining the priesthood. In 1993 he was convicted in California of lewd acts against children for repeatedly molesting two brothers. He was released after serving seven years in prison before being deported to Ireland in 2001.
His crimes in California were the subject of a 2006 documentary titled 'Deliver us From Evil', in which O'Grady gave an account of his offending.
In January 2012, he was jailed in Ireland for three years for possessing hundreds of thousands of images of child pornography.
The images were discovered after he left his computer on an Aer Lingus flight in February 2010 and a staff member who discovered the files on the device alerted gardaí. 280,000 images showing children in sexual poses and 1,000 video files of child abuse material, known in law as 'child pornography', were discovered on the device.
He moved to Amsterdam where he lived for several years before returning to Ireland. It was on this flight back to his home country that he left his laptop behind.
In 2020, he was sentenced to 22 months in prison at Waterford Circuit Court for possessing child pornography.
He had pleaded not guilty to one charge of possessing a video of an underage girl engaging in a sexual act on a date between December 2015 and March 2016 at St Otteran's Place, South Parade, Waterford city but was convicted by a jury.
A former housemate reported O'Grady to gardaí after discovering a sexually explicit video on the computer.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
RTÉ News
2 hours ago
- RTÉ News
Bafta-nominated actor Micheal Ward charged with rape and sexual assault
Bafta-nominated actor Micheal Ward has been charged with rape and sexual assault. The 27-year-old, who has starred in Blue Story and Top Boy, is accused of offences against one woman in January 2023, the Metropolitan Police in London said. The force said he is charged with two counts of rape and three counts of sexual assault. Ward, of Cheshunt, Hertfordshire, will appear at Thames Magistrates' Court on 28 August, the Crown Prosecution Service said. Following the charges, Detective Superintendent Scott Ware said: "Our specialist officers continue to support the woman who has come forward - we know investigations of this nature can have significant impact on those who make reports." The Jamaican-born actor was awarded the Bafta Rising Star honour in 2020 and was nominated for the Best Supporting Actor Bafta for his role in BBC's Small Axe in 2021 and the 2022 film Empire Of Light. Ward, who has 1.2 million followers on Instagram, played in the Soccer Aid match at Stamford Bridge last year and gave a reading at the Christmas Eve carol service hosted by the Princess of Wales in 2023. He is due to star in the American film Eddington alongside Joaquin Phoenix and Pedro Pascal, which is due to be released in the UK next month.
Irish Examiner
5 hours ago
- Irish Examiner
Enoch Burke wins court appeal over disciplinary panel bias in dismissal case
Teacher Enoch Burke has won an appeal over the composition of a disciplinary panel set up to hear his appeal against his dismissal from Wilson's Hospital school. Mr Burke claimed a member of the three-person appeals panel, Association of Secondary Teachers in Ireland (ASTI) general secretary Kieran Christie, was a 'promoter of transgenderism'. The appeals panel denied his claim. Ms Justice Mary Faherty, on behalf of the three-judge Court of Appeal, said with "a great deal of reluctance", she would grant an injunction to Mr Burke restraining the appeals panel, as presently constituted, from from holding a hearing. Mr Burke spent more than 500 days in prison for repeatedly disobeying High Court orders not to attend at Wilson's Hospital school in Co Westmeath, where he had been employed as a history and German teacher. When he was dismissed in 2023, he sought an appeal through the normal employment process but then brought a High Court challenge claiming appeals panel member, Mr Christie, was an activist for transgenderism within the ASTI and was personally or objectively biased. In December 2023, the High Court rejected his challenge, saying Mr Burke had not discharged the burden on him of establishing there was a fair question to be tried of a reasonable apprehension of bias. He appealed to the Court of Appeal and the panel opposed his appeal. On Friday, Ms Justice Faherty, for the Court of Appeal, said while accepting Mr Christie does not sit on the appeals panel in his capacity as general secretary of the ASTI, it must nevertheless be the case that Mr Christie's role in the ASTI, which has advised schools to use a transitioning student's preferred choice of pronoun, would be influential to the reasonable independent observer. In those circumstances, she could not agree with the High Court judge that there was not a fair question to be tried in relation to any issue of which it was claimed the ASTI had taken a position. She rejected Mr Burke's suggestion that if his objection to Mr Christie was well-founded, the objection must similarly be well-founded in relation to any other person nominated by the ASTI. The judge said there remained the question as to whether Mr Burke, with his history of contempt of court, "gets to pick and choose how and when he gets to invoke the court's protection and jurisdiction'. Mr Burke, apart from spending more than 500 days in prison over a number of periods, was also the subject of daily €700 and later €1,400 fines for every time he turned up at the school. Recently, the High Court made orders permitting the seizure of money to pay the fines from the bank account into which his school salary continued to be paid pending the Court of Appeal decision. Ms Justice Faherty said she considered his contempt no less egregious now than when he was before the High Court challenging the appeals panel. However, the distinguishing feature of the present case was the spectre of unfairness that will hover over the disciplinary appeal process if he has to face that body as presently constituted given he has made out a case of a reasonable apprehension of objective bias, she said. While it was normal for the loser in a case to pay the winner's costs, the court was "not in normal territory" here. The judge said there would be no costs order in Mr Burke's favour, save an order setting aside the costs order made against him in the High Court.
Irish Independent
15 hours ago
- Irish Independent
High Court refuses judicial review of case against the producers of ‘Normal People'
This follows the High Court refusing leave to Thomas John Arkins for a High Court judicial review challenge of a Labour Court dismissal of his case against Element Pictures Ltd. Mr Arkins worked on the firm's production of the show Ripper Street. Mr Justice Garrett Simons said Mr Arkins 'has expressed a longstanding concern as to the manner in which production workers – to use a neutral term – are treated in the film industry'. The judge said: '[Mr Arkins' case is] that production workers have wrongfully been characterised as independent self-employed contractors rather than employees. Second, it is said that the use of individual companies for each film project obscures the identity of the actual employer.' Mr Arkins first took a case to the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC)| against Element Pictures Ltd in 2019 and his claim was dismissed in 2020. Mr Arkins' case was heard before the Labour Court on two occasions and at the second hearing on April 4, 2024, Element Pictures Ltd opposed the complaints by asserting that Mr Arkins had never been employed by the company. In May last year, the Labour Court dismissed Mr Arkins' unfair dismissal claim and minimum notice claim against Element Pictures Ltd. Mr Justice Simons said Mr Arkins' claim was dismissed on the narrowest of grounds, that Mr Arkins had failed to establish he had at any time been employed by Element Pictures Ltd. In dismissing Mr Arkins application for a High Court judicial review, the judge said 'the leave application fails to meet the low threshold of an arguable case'. 'The central issue in contention before the Labour Court had been a factual issue, namely whether Mr Arkins had ever been engaged by or paid by Element Pictures Ltd,' the judge said. 'The Labour Court is much better placed than the court of judicial review to determine such a factual issue. 'The leave application in this case comes nowhere close to reaching the standard for intervention.' The judge said he has provided a written judgment which gives time to Mr Arkins to lodge an appeal to the Court of Appeal or an application for leave to appeal to the Supreme Court.
