Judge halts trial of retired parish priest on abuse charges

Share Button

irishtimes.com

07 October 2011

The High Court has halted the trial of a retired parish priest accused of sexually assaulting a young boy more than 40 years ago.

The 78-year-old priest had applied to stop his trial on four counts of indecent assault and eight counts of buggery against the then 11-year-old boy.

Mr Justice John Hedigan said the case fell into the “wholly exceptional” category of cases in which prohibiting a prosecution was justified due to “missing evidence and the antiquity of the events”.

All of the alleged acts were stated to have been committed between November 1967 and October 1969.

______________________________

Retired priest will not face trial

Irish Examiner (irishexaminer.com)

Friday, October 07, 2011

By Vivion Kilfeather

A RETIRED parish priest accused of sexually assaulting a young boy over 40 years ago will not face trial due to a lack of evidence and the passage of time.

The 78-year-old priest made a successful application before the High Court to stop the DPP from pursuing his prosecution for allegedly committing four counts of indecent assault and eight counts of buggery against the then 11-year-old boy.

Mr Justice John Hedigan said that this fell into the “wholly exception” category of cases in which prohibiting prosecution was justified due to the “missing evidence and the antiquity of the events”.

The now 55-year-old man made his first complaint to gardaí in relation to the abuse in November 2008.

All of the alleged acts of abuse were stated to have been committed in the presbytery of a Dublin church between 1967 and 1969.

In April 2009, the priest stated he did not know the young boy and that he did not attend the Dublin school, only perhaps for a short time. However, gardaí discovered the school’s register and rollbook confirmed that the youth had attended the school over an eight-year period in the 1960s.

Justice Hedigan pointed out there was a risk of an unfair trial as it boiled down to an “unsupported assertion” and a “bare denial” of the allegations.

He said “prohibition” of the prosecution was justified by the priest’s old age, poor health and recent admission to a nursing home, in addition to the lack of evidence and the passage of time.

This appeared in the printed version of the Irish Examiner Friday, October 07, 2011

2 Responses to Judge halts trial of retired parish priest on abuse charges

  1. Sylvia says:

    A judicial blind eye to eight charges of buggery. In large part because of the “antiquity of events.” And, oh yes, “missing evidence.”

    And, oh yes, the priest’s old age and poor health.

    And, oh yes, an “unsupported assertion” and a “bare denial” of the allegations.

    The gardai found enough evidence to lay the charges did they not?

    And the gardai confirmed that the complainant had attended the school for eight years, did they not?

    We have little knowledge of the facts here, and no idea if there were siblings and/or other family members, friends and staff who could corroborate the complainant’s allegations, but, I do believe that it should have gone to trial , and that a judge should have heard the evidence and the allegations of the complainant first-hand.

    • 1 abandoned sheep says:

      Sylvia, you and i suffer from the same delusion- that Justice is blind, and also fair !!!
      We forget about the human factors which get between Justice and the truth. These factors are relationship to the accused, or old friendships with the same, or just plain simple (and grossly unfair) prejudice in favour of the Church or the accused.
      There seems to be a great deal of the latter with Irish, Canadian, and U S Judges of late. A lot of the ‘Oh! you naughty boy you’ admonishments, and do not do this again..wink-wink. In canada we are flummexed by the judges who wish to get their names in the record books by writing new laws, in Ireland and the U S it is by ignoring existing laws.
      Whenever that day of reckoning comes we will be surprised (or will we ?) by the number of judges who do not make to a Heavenly home.

Leave a Reply