The Belfast Telegraph
Wednesday, 20 June 2012
By Donna Deeney
Father Eugene Boland outside Londonderry Court on Monday
A Catholic priest got down on his knees, admitted he had feelings for the woman he stands accused of indecently assaulting and begged her to forgive him, a court has heard.
The 37-year-old woman was giving evidence against Omagh Parish Priest Father Eugene Boland in Londonderry’s Crown Court, where he is on trial for five counts of indecently assaulting her when she was a girl aged 14.
The charges relate to incidents alleged to have occurred between June 28 1990 and June 30 1992 at the parochial house in Galliagh in Londonderry where Fr Boland was serving at the time.
The court heard of an incident when the girl asked Fr Boland, whose address given as Parochial House, Killyclogher Road, Omagh, if she and her boyfriend could marry because he had never been confirmed in the Catholic Church.
She said: “He put his arm around my waist. I felt uncomfortable. Slowly he move his hand up and down and then slipped his hand under my jumper.
“I wasn’t wearing anything underneath, except my underwear. I was numb with shock. I wanted to squeal and run out.”
The woman said that she now dreaded going to the parochial house and had asked her friend to accompany her which her friend agreed to.
The court was also told that the two friends were at the house when the alleged victim was taken to a room to help with the parish bulletin.
Fr Boland grabbed her jumper and pulled it up so he could see how the ski pants she was wearing were buttoned, the court heard.
The girl said she was afraid Fr Boland would ask her to stay behind and she made a plan that would allow her to leave at the same time as her friend but she first asked to use the bathroom.
The woman then told the court that when she came out of the bathroom and was making her way out of Fr Boland’s living quarter, he was waiting for her and pinned her against a wall and kissed her passionately.
She pushed him away, ran down stairs and told her friend, ‘Come on, we are going now’.”
The woman said she later confronted Fr Boland at the parochial house, adding that when the priest realised she wasn’t going to let the matter go “he admitted he had feelings for me”.
“We were in the living area. I remember he got down on his knees and was holding my leg, he asked me to forgive him and I told him ‘no’,” she said.
Defence barrister, Brian McCartney, questioned if the woman had ever told her parents. He suggested her mother was a guest at Fr Boland’s 50th birthday party, that he had officiated at her mother’s funeral and gave her the Last Rites before she died.
The woman insisted she did inform her parent and that it was Fr Hegarty, another priest in the parish that gave her mother the Last Rites.
She also dismissed photographs which appeared to show her mother at Fr Boland’s 50th birthday party because her mother was already dead by the time Fr Boland was 50.
The trial continues.
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Witness describes Fr Boland as ‘friendly’ priest
The Ulster Herald
June 19, 2012 at 2:05 pm
Father Eugene Boland.
A FRIEND of the woman who is accusing Killyclogher parish priest Father Eugene Boland of indecently assaulting her says she never saw him doing anything “that would have made her feel uncomfortable.”
Fr Boland of the Parochial House, Killyclogher Road, faces five charges of indecent assault from June 1990 and June 1992.
Fr Boland denies all charges.
The woman, who has accompanied the alleged injured party to the trial at Derry Crown Court, described Fr Boland as “friendly.”
Under cross-examination by defence counsel Brian McCartney, the woman said that she had been “begged” on one occasion to go with the complainant to the parochial house in Derry’s Galliah area.
She went on to tell how she had first become aware of the indecent assaults. The woman said she was told about Fr Boland’s “behaviour” while on a night out with the complainant some years later.
She went on to say that certain incidents from the period of the alleged offences between 1990 and 1992 “then made sense.”
The case continues.
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Priest Fr Eugene Boland accused of Derry teen assaults
BBC News Northern Ireland
18 June 2012

Fr Eugene Boland denies the charges
A parish priest has gone on trial at Londonderry Crown Court charged with sexually abusing a 14-year-old girl.
Fr Eugene Boland, 66, and originally from Moville in County Donegal, denies five charges of indecently assaulting the girl from June 1990 to June 1992.
He is alleged to have committed the offences in a parochial house in Derry’s Galliagh area where the complainant did voluntary work.
The allegations were reported to police in 2010.
Opening the case prosecuting counsel Russell Connell said the alleged indecent assaults involved the defendant rubbing the girl’s waist under her clothes, kissing her on the lips once in a passionate manner and rubbing her leg with his foot under a dining room table.
He is also alleged to have asked her if she was having a sexual relationship with her boyfriend and asking her on one occasion if her trousers were buttoned.
The prosecution barrister said the complainant later confronted him in the confessional where the defendant is alleged to have told her “despite being a priest we are still men underneath and we still think like men”.
The prosecutor said when the complainant wanted to report the matter to a bishop the defendant is alleged to have gone down on his knees and apologised for the hurt he had put her through.
Mr Connell said the allegations were reported to the police in April 2010.
The defendant, of the parochial house at Killyclougher Road in Omagh, was interviewed at Omagh police station and denied the allegations.
When interviewed by Mrs Mary McCafferty, the designated diocesan officer in relation to complaints made against priests – the defendant is alleged to have described himself as a “touchy feely kind of person”.
The trial continues.
So defense tried to imply that the woman’s mother still revered or respected Father Boland and this by producing a picture which presumably ‘suggested’ the mother attended the priest’s 50th birthday party.
It backfired. The woman was dead!
Not that it makes any difference whether she was at the party or not, but these are standard defense tactics and it honestly does my heart good to see them backfire.
As for Boland administering Last Rites and officiating at her mother’s funeral, the complainant has given the name of another priest who did both. I hope she is right there. If yes, another backfire. Again not that it makes any difference whether it was Father Boland who did either or both, it’s just that it would take the wind out of the defence’s sails. I hate to see naive victims/complainants manipulated and confused on the stand with such ‘suggestions.’
*It seems it is the sweet, social, over-the-top affectionate, do-anything-for-you kind of priest with no backbone or no true gospel to preach that we are to be cautious about. Then 50 years ago, it was the harsh, tough, guilt/shame preaching priests that did it, too. They are actors and know their game.