A former schoolteacher from Donegal who sexually abused 19 young boys over a 25-year period will be sentenced in June. Patrick Sharkey, now 83, sat emotionless in the dock at Letterkenny Circuit Court, listening with the aid of a court-provided hearing device before he was remanded in custody by Judge John Aylmer.Sharkey, with an address at College Green, Belfast, was before the court on foot of a guilty plea to a total of 132 charges – a mix of indecent assault and sexual assault.The charges related to a total of 19 victims and spanned dates between 1970 and 1995. There were 59 offences in relation to one of the victims while some of the other injured parties were the victims of 15, 14, 10 and six counts. Some offending occurred when children travelled from school to take part in extracurricular activities and they stayed in Sharkey’s parents’ house in Clonmany, Co Donegal, while other offences took place when they were on trips to Dublin. Sharkey had been living in France when he flew into Birmingham in 2022 and was arrested by detectives on foot of warrants that had been issued. Some of his victims, supported by family members, were present for a sentencing hearing at Letterkenny Courthouse. I Sharkey, originally from the Clonmany area, was a teacher at St Joseph’s High School in Coleraine during the time of his offending. Many of the victims were students in the school. The court heard Sharkey was a substitute French teacher who also took care of after-school activities. He was also “very involved” with a youth club and a social club, helped lead a cross-community initiative in the early 1990s and was also involved in canoeing and which he taught regularly. He was interviewed on three occasions by detectives and made only “partial admissions”, the court heard. The court heard that Sharkey later told investigators: “Some time in the last six months I’ve come to the conclusion that I shouldn’t have touched those people at all.”His barrister, Eugene Grant, with Maddie Grant, instructed by solicitor Patsy Gallagher, said “the prospect of dying in prison is real” for Sharkey.Previously, Sharkey served a sentence at Maghaberry Prison in Northern Ireland having been jailed at Antrim Crown Court in 2023. Three of the victims in that case overlapped into the matter before Letterkenny Circuit Court. Det Gda Johnny Gallagher from Buncrana Garda station outlined the evidence.One victim, who was the subject of 59 counts, told detectives: “Pretty much every night I was in Clonmany with Patrick Sharkey, he sexually abused me”.He said he was “so shocked” and that he “didn’t know what to do”. Another person was just seven years old when Sharkey began to sexually abuse him. “I had no idea what he was doing except I didn’t like it,” the victim recalled to detectives. One of the victims outlined that he was 12 and the accused was in his 30s when Sharkey took him on an activity which lasted for three or four hours. They later returned to Sharkey’s house and the court heard that the young victim woke up the following morning and had a pain in his private area.Sharkey told the young boy that “sometimes you get sore in places” after canoeing. Another day, he told how Sharkey was “all over me” when they were in the shower and remembered Sharkey placing his hand inside his underwear and sexually assaulting him. Several people read out victim impact statements, outlining the deep and lasting consequences of the abuse on them. “Finally the victims will get justice after all these decades,” one man said, adding that he has been “mentally and emotionally scarred for 40 years”.Turning to Sharkey the man said: “I hope you rot in hell. This, I hope, is the end of it.”Another victim recalled how the teacher used power and control to prey on his victims. He told how Sharkey had befriended his family and would often call into his home before he “robbed me of my safe place”.“He was only there planning his next move,” the man said. . “This wasn’t a one-off action, but a cold, callous, planned attack, right down to infiltrating my family circle”.Looking down at his attacker, the man said: “I want to thank you for staying alive long enough for this day to happen. My biggest fear was that you would die long before this day ... Feel free to check out now anytime.”Some of the victims spoke of how they have struggled in relationships and have been beset by mental and emotional challenges. Some of the men outlined how they sought solace in alcohol and gambling. Grant said his client, who worked at the Coleraine school from 1966 to 1997, has been residing in a hostel in Northern Ireland and asked the court to consider the signed guilty pleas as well as Sharkey’s advanced years and his history of heart failure.