Ex-Terenure College rugby coach has sentence for abusing 22 pupils reduced to two and a half years

Former Terenure College rugby coach John McClean will now serve a reduced sentence of two and a half years for sexually abusing 22 pupils, after the Court of Appeal found that the “global” structure imposed on him at his second sentencing hearing did not stand up to “rigorous analysis”.

McClean (79) was convicted of sexually abusing a total of 45 pupils – the highest number of complainants in a case before the Irish courts – over a period of more than 20 years but had complained that the decision by Judge Martin Nolan to impose a sentence of four years consecutive to a previous eight-year prison term was too severe.

The State had countered that 22 new people came forward after McClean’s first sentence hearing in 2021 and asked if it would have been fair and just to them if the new sentence had been run concurrently.

“It would not have been a reflection of their suffering, of their lifelong memories,” Paul Murray SC had argued.

After McClean was first sentenced in 2021,…

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