Former Christian Brother ‘likely to die in prison’ after being jailed for five years

A former Christian Brother already in prison for sexually abusing school pupils in Kilkenny in the 1970s is “likely to die in prison”, a judge said on Friday, as he sentenced him to five years for sexual assaults on nine boys in a primary school in Portarlington in the 1980s.

Liam Coughlan (90), a former teacher and principal of the primary school on Patrick Street, Portarlington, Co Offaly , was found guilty earlier this month to 31 counts of indecent assault on nine former pupils in the 1980s.

Coughlan created a “false, distorted and evil reality” in the school, the president of the Circuit Court , Judge Keenan Johnson, said after noting evidence that Coughlan would bring boys to the front of his class on an almost daily basis and sexually interfere with them while continuing to address the classroom.