It took fifty years, but on Tuesday in a Galway courthouse Paul Grealish finally got justice.
“I was in court to get justice for my 10-year-old self. And I think we achieved that,” he told Prime Time.
Earlier in the day, he had watched as his former Christian Brother teacher, 77-year-old Thomas Caulfield, was sentenced to 27 months in prison for sexually abusing Mr Grealish when he was a 4th class pupil at Tuam CBS in 1972 and 1973. The final seven months of Mr Caulfield’s sentence were suspended.
Mr Grealish remembers Mr Caulfield as “an absolute tyrant” with a penchant for violence. “The big guys got hit, the small guys got hit… everyone got hit,” he said, “but in my case, it got much worse than that.”
Mr Caulfield began to regularly sexually abuse Paul Grealish when he was correcting his homework at the front of the class.
“He would have my copybook on the desk in front of him and he would put his arm around my waist. And then he would put his hand down my trousers.”
Mr Grealish came from a loving family that was “full of music,” but Mr Caulfield’s frequent abuse had a profound effect. “It destroyed my childhood,” he said.
And it lasted beyond his childhood. It damaged his education and he “emerged into the world” as “a very confused young guy.” There were times when he abused alcohol and would have been “a difficult guy” to work with, he said.
Mr Grealish gets emotional when, as an adult, he recalls how he deliberately avoided former pupils from his school in case one of them alluded in conversation to Caulfield’s abuse of him as had happened on one occasion.
However, confiding in his wife, Mary, in 1995 about the trauma he had suffered was a huge step towards helping him to deal with his pain. He began to attend counselling and in 2005 he took a civil case against Caulfield, which was settled.
Then in 2013, Mr Grealish was shocked when got a call from a state agency which was vetting Mr Caulfield for a teaching position. Some “red flags had been raised and my name had come up due to the civil case,” Mr Grealish said.
“I couldn’t believe” he was alive and that he was looking for a teaching job, Mr Grealish said.
He gave a formal statement to gardai soon afterwards. However, it took another decade for Mr Caulfield to be convicted and sentenced. For Mr Grealish, the delay was a “blessing in disguise” because he believes, thanks to counselling, he is now stronger and better equipped to handle the demands of dealing with the case.
But, and while he praises how gardaí dealt with his case, he says there is “something seriously wrong with the criminal justice system” if it takes ten years from making a formal statement to sentencing.
Nonetheless, the jailing, finally, of Thomas Caulfield was “a great result”, he said.
“I know that this is the end of the road in terms of my journey towards justice. And I’m hugely thankful for all the support I’ve gotten from my wife, Mary and my kids, and all of my friends and family.” Today represents a victory, he said, “we’ve achieved what we set out to do.”
Paul Grealish speaks on the day his abuser is jailed
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