A NOTORIOUS paedophile priest was returned to prison just hours after
being slashed across the face while walking to his cell from Mass.
Tony Walsh -- who has been defrocked -- was attacked at the Midlands Prison in Portlaoise, Co Laois, on Sunday morning.
The
attack occurred exactly one month after the 56-year-old was jailed for
16 years following sexual attacks on three young children more than 20
years ago.
Walsh -- who was the focus of one chapter in the
Murphy Report into the handling of priests' sexual abuse by the Catholic
Church -- was also jailed for 10 years in 1997 for indecently
assaulting young boys in the 1980s.
It is understood that he
needed up to 12 stitches following the attack but was returned to his
cell after a short stay in the Midlands Regional Hospital.
Both the Prison Service and the gardai have begun separate investigations into the attack.
"He wasn't able to identify his attacker, so that will make the investigation more difficult," a prison source said last night.
CCTV footage will be examined in an attempt to identify the attacker.
Chapter
19 of the Murphy Report, which was published last month, described
Walsh as probably the most notorious sex abuser to come to the attention
of the Commission of Inquiry into allegations of child sexual abuse in
the Dublin Archdiocese.
It detailed incidents of abuse over 15
years and concluded that he was moved from parishes in Ballyfermot to
Westland Row to avoid further scandal.
It outlined how Walsh
abused children in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, even though priests,
canons, monsignors, bishops and the Archbishop in Dublin knew about it.
Ten years after the first complaint, the church authorities sent him to Britain for treatment.
Disturbed
The
report from that treatment described Walsh as "a very disturbed man"
who "is always going to be dangerous" and "could not be let near
schools, children, confession etc".
But Walsh continued as a priest and continued to abuse.
In January 1996 -- 16 years after the first complaint -- he was finally dismissed as a priest.
He was given €10,500 severance pay but continued to represent himself as a priest.
At
Dublin Circuit Criminal Court last month he pleaded guilty to two
counts of assaulting a male in a west Dublin church in the late 1970s,
and indecently assaulting a male at a school in the mid-1980s.
He was jailed for 16 years with the final four years suspended. Leave to appeal the sentence was refused.
SIC: II/IE