A former priest has secured a High Court order halting his trial on a charge of sexually abusing a 12-year-old altar boy 27 years ago. Mr Justice John MacMenamin ruled the man’s right to a fair trial was prejudiced by a combination of factors, including culpable delays of some four and half years in the investigation and prosecution of the abuse allegations and in disclosing important evidence.
These factors, plus prejudicial media coverage, created a real risk of an unfair trial, the judge said.
The slow progress of the Garda investigation into the allegations was “in strong contrast” with “leaked media coverage” regarding the case which could only have come from gardaí.
The applicant brought his judicial review proceedings over an allegation he abused the boy between 1981 and 1982 in a church sacristy.
The complainant and a brother of his were both altar boys and both claimed to have been abused by the priest.
The priest was convicted in 1990 for assaulting a minor and received a suspended sentence. He went to England after that but returned here some years later when he was involved in a “homosexual affair” with the younger brother, then 20 years of age.
The priest was not involved in a parish at that stage.
In 2003, after the brothers revealed to one another what had happened to them as children, they made complaints to the gardai of alleged abuse by the applicant. In August 2006, he was charged with 35 counts of abuse in relation to the younger brother and one count concerning the older.
Separate trials were ordered relating to both brothers. In October 2007, the ex-priest was acquitted by direction of the trial judge on the basis of the unsafe nature of the younger brother’s testimony. It emerged from that trial there had been a psychiatric report on the younger brother stating he had apparently been abused as a youth by his older brother.
The priest then took his High Court action to stop his trial on the count of abuse of the older brother, relating to a single alleged incident in which the former priest allegedly pulled the boy’s shirt out from under his jeans and sexually assaulted him in the sacristy.
The judge said this allegation had little or no corroborative detail, there was no witness to the incident and the older brother made no complaint at the time to members of his family or anyone else.
Mr Justice MacMenamin said the delay in disclosing the psychiatric report should not have occurred and was “one of the many unexplained features” of this “unfortunate saga”.
There were a number of unexplained delay periods during this time and the disclosures of the younger brother’s allegations indicated, if the Garda investigation was pursued with reasonable diligence, the psychiatric evidence would have been available four years earlier, he said. There was a total delay of four and a half years between when the brothers’ complaints were first made to gardai and when the ex-priest went on trial.
There was also “the unresolved issue” of the brothers’ motivation in making the complaints and whether there was an agreement between them to do so.
The judge said detailed information about the case which were given to local and national newspapers could only have emanated from gardaí. As a result, the trial had to be moved to another court area and the trial judge imposed media restrictions. The publicity contributed to ongoing distress and reduced income for the priest.
While not in itself sufficient to halt a trial, this publicity, combined with the often unexplained investigatory and prosecutorial delays, the delay in disclosing psychiatric reports and the credibility of the older brother in any potential trial, created a real risk of an unfair trial which could not be obviated by directions from the trial judge.
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(Source: IT)