GARDAÍ IN Cork have forwarded a file to the Director of Public
Prosecutions following a complaint by a seventh woman that she was
sexually abused by a priest in the Diocese of Cloyne more than 20 years
ago.
The woman contacted gardaí investigating allegations of
sexual abuse by a number of priests in the Diocese of Cloyne and gave a
detailed statement in which she alleged she was sexually assaulted by a
priest while he was a curate in north Cork.
The woman complained
that the priest sexually assaulted her in the early 1980s, when she was
in her early teens.
Detectives have since interviewed the priest by
arrangement and put the allegations to him.
A file has now been
forwarded to the DPP in relation to the complaint.
It brings to seven
the number of women who have made complaints against the priest who is
now in his early 70s and no longer involved in active ministry in the
diocese.
To date, the DPP has decided in four of these cases that
there should be no prosecution against the priest while a decision is
pending in a further two cases.
No decision is expected on the latest
complaint for a number of months.
Meanwhile, the DPP has decided
against a prosecution following a complaint against former bishop of
Cloyne Dr John Magee that he endangered children by withholding
information from gardaí examining allegations of child sexual abuse by
another priest in the diocese.
The complaint was made in January
2009 by a retired north Cork teacher after reading a report by the
National Board for Safeguarding Children in the Catholic Church that
examined the diocese’s handling of complaints against two priests
identified as Fr A and Fr B.
The retired teacher made a formal
complaint on foot of that report in which he alleged that Bishop Magee
had endangered children by withholding information on Fr A from an
earlier Garda investigation which he later made available to the board’s
inquiry.
The complaint relates to diocesan files into an
investigation carried out by Bishop Magee in February 2005 into a
complaint by a priest in the diocese that he had been sexually abused as
a teenager by another priest in the diocese whom he named as Fr A.
The
teacher alleged that Bishop Magee’s failure to name Fr A and to make
full diocesan files on the matter available to gardaí in November 2005
had effectively endangered children and that it was not until April 2008
that he made full files available to the board’s inquiry.
In
December 2008, the board’s chief executive, Ian Elliott, published his
report into the Diocese of Cloyne and criticised child protection
practices in the diocese as inadequate and dangerous in that they
potentially exposed vulnerable children to further harm.
However,
the DPP has expressed reservations about the feasibility of proving
beyond reasonable doubt the endangerment allegations against Bishop
Magee and has decided against prosecuting the bishop, who retired from
his position in March 2009.
SIC: IT/IE