prison death | 

Paedo ex-bookie who sexually abused teen dies of cancer halfway through jail sentence

Pervert forced teenager into vile sex acts after he ran up gambling debts

Today at 10:51

A paedophile ex-bookie who repeatedly sexually abused a 15-year-old boy in his betting shop more than 40 years ago has died of colon cancer halfway through his three-year jail sentence.

Beast Thomas ‘Terry’ Cummins passed away in the medical unit in the Midlands Prison on Sunday last following a lengthy battle with cancer.

A source confirmed the 86-year-old child abuser had been receiving the equivalent of palliative care within the prison setting for several months.

“He was receiving end of life care,” the source said.

“The medical unit in the prison is equipped with all the same equipment a patient in the same circumstances would have access to in a hospital setting.”

Cummins, who had an address at Hillview in Waterford City, was jailed for three years in January last year after he was convicted of 12 counts of indecent or sexual assault on a boy.

The victim, then aged 15, was assaulted multiple times weekly over a period of six months at the betting office in John Street, Waterford City, by Cummins, who he worked alongside in the early 1980s.

It was the second occasion on which Cummins was convicted of abusing a young teenage boy.

In 2002, he was convicted of sexual offences against a 13-year-old in the betting office in the 1980s.

During the more recent case, State prosecutor Conor O’Doherty said Mr Cummins had “groomed and coerced” his victim — describing the matter as “shocking”.

During Cummins’ trial, the victim told how he was employed in the betting office as a 15-year-old when Cummins began to encourage him to place bets, resulting in him becoming indebted to the pervert.

Cummins then used this debt to coerce the victim, who was 25 years his junior, into masturbating in front of him in exchange for a reduction in the amount he owed.

The situation escalated after this incident with Cummins assaulting the youth twice and sometimes three times a week.

Cummins also tried to involve another man in the abuse but the victim refused and quit his job.

Cummins, who had been in jail since May 2022 when he was initially convicted of the offences, appeared at his sentencing hearing by video link.

Judge Eugene O’Kelly praised Cummins’ 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 victim to suffer from gambling and alcohol addictions later in life.

He also outlined how Cummins had been convicted of abusing another boy 20 years earlier.

The court heard the methods employed by Cummins to groom and abuse his victims were “strikingly similar.”

The victim in the earlier case addressed the jury via video link, telling them the offences also happened in the early 1980s, progressed to anal sex and that, later, a second man took part in the assaults.

Judge O’Kelly initially handed down an eight-year sentence to Cummins but taking into account his age and a number of factors, he reduced the sentence to five years, suspending the final two, meaning Cummins was sentenced to three years in prison, starting when he went to jail first in May 2022.