A Waterford man has been jailed for 3 years for sexually assaulting a teenage boy in the city more than 40 years ago.
Thomas "Terry" Cummins, who’s now 85 years of age, had an address at Hillview and formerly of the Cork Road in Waterford.
He was sentenced at Waterford Circuit Court this afternoon.
Terry Cummins was found unanimously guilty of 12 counts of indecent or sexual assault on a boy by a jury last summer.
He had denied the charges at a trial at the Circuit Criminal Court which heard the assaults took place at a bookmakers in the city centre in the 1980s.
He’s been in jail since last May and appeared by video link for today’s sentencing hearing.
Judge Eugene O’Kelly praised Cummin’s victim for coming forward and recounted some of the harrowing evidence given during the trial.
He said the then 15-year-old boy had his teenage life destroyed by Cummins with persistent and prolonged abuse which happened once or twice a week for a year, leading the boy to suffer from gambling and alcohol addictions later in life.
He also outlined how Cummins had been convicted of abusing another boy twenty years ago.
Judge O’Kelly handed down an eight-year sentence to Cummins this afternoon, but taking into account his age and a number of factors, reduced the sentence to 5 years, suspending the final 2, meaning Cummins was sentenced to 3 years in prison, starting when he went to jail first last May.
The court also heard Cummins has colon cancer.
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