Thursday, January 06, 2011

Walsh provides description of prisoner who slashed him

NOTORIOUS convicted paedophile Tony Walsh has given a description of the inmate who knifed him in the face in prison on Sunday. 

The 56-year-old former priest was jailed last month for 16 years, with four years suspended, for sexually abusing three young altar boys more than 20 years ago.

He was returning from Sunday Mass at the Midlands Prison to his cell when he was slashed across the face by an inmate using a makeshift knife.

Gardaí and the Prison Service are investigating the incident and are examining the description of the attacker given by Walsh.

Walsh, who was well-known in the 1980s as "Elvis" in the All Priests Show with Fr Michael Cleary, is suspected of having sexually abused up to 100 children while serving as a priest in Dublin.

His reign of abuse was detailed in a chapter of the Murphy Report into the Dublin Catholic Archdiocese’s handling of a sample batch of clerical abuse cases between 1974 and 2004.

Walsh, with an address at Bunratty Road, Coolock, north Dublin, presented himself to prison officers after making his way back to his cell on Sunday morning.

He told them he had been attacked on a stairwell and was taken to Portlaoise General Hospital for treatment. He was slashed from his ear to the top of his cheek and received up to 12 stitches. He was returned to prison later on Sunday.

Sources said he gave a statement with a description of his attacker.

Detectives at Portlaoise Garda Station are investigating the assault, while the Prison Service is also conducting its own security investigation.

Gardaí and prison officers are trying to match the description to possible suspects and will try and narrow that down to who could have been on the stairwell at the time. They will also examine CCTV footage from the area before, during and after the incident. Sources said the assault was not witnessed by a third person.

No weapon has been recovered. Most likely it was a sharpened object, such as a toothbrush with a blade attached, known as ‘shivs’ in prisons.

Prison sources said they were examining Walsh’s security, but indicated there were no plans to move him to another prison at present.

While Arbour Hill Prison in Dublin is the main prison for clerical sex offenders, it is full and entire wings of the Midlands Prison and Wheatfield Prison in west Dublin hold sex offenders.

In 1988, a psychiatrist said the then priest was "a very disturbed man who is always going to be dangerous" and should not be let near children, schools or confession boxes.

Yet it was not until 1996 that the Pope eventually defrocked him as a priest.

SIC: IEX/IE