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Eight Cloyne Clerical Abuse Files to be Resent to DPP
Added to www.alliancesupport.org on January 21, 2011Irish Examiner January 21, 2011 by Claire O'Sullivan
AT least eight files on clerical abuse in Cloyne, which were sent to the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) and returned without prosecution, are to be resent to the DPP's office as one large file.
The files all relate to abuse alleged to have been carried out by the notorious Father B, who systematically assaulted and raped girls in North Cork.
The files were all returned in recent years -- to the outrage of the victims who have said the files all show remarkable similarities.
When the two latest files were returned in the Autumn, the victims mounted a public campaign seeking answers as to why their criminal cases were being repeatedly returned.
Many of the women whose files were returned have received compensation from the diocese for their abuse and written apologies have also been handed over to the women.
"The archbishop has repeatedly said that if there are any more victims out there, they should come forward and lodge complaints.
"Our fear is that if they hear of all these cases being rejected, they won't see the point of going to the gardaí," said one victim.
A ninth single file outlining abuse by Father B is at the DPP's office at present. This victim came forward for the first time last year.
In recent months, the Rape Crisis Centre urged the DPP to meet the victims in Cloyne to discuss his decision not to prosecute.
This story appeared in the printed version of the Irish Examiner Friday, January 21, 2011
http://examiner.ie/ireland/eight-cloyne-clerical-abuse-files-to-be-resent-to-dpp-142801.html
http://www.alliancesupport.org/news/archives/003992.html
Gardaí Resubmit Files on Sex Abuse
Irish Times, January 20, 2011 by Barry Roche Southern Correspondent
GARDAÍ IN Cork have resubmitted eight files to the Director of Public Prosecutions relating to complaints by seven women and a man that they were sexually assaulted as children by a priest in the Diocese of Cloyne.
The complaints against the now elderly cleric in the new combined file allege that he sexually assaulted the women and the man when they were teenagers at locations in north and mid-Cork in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s.
Seven of the eight files had already been submitted to the DPP who decided against a prosecution of the cleric, who is now in his early 70s, but gardaí have since resubmitted the seven files along with an eighth file where a decision is still pending.
The priest, who was identified by Ian Elliott, the chief executive of the National Board for Safeguarding Children in the Catholic Church, as Fr B, has been interviewed by gardaí in relation to each of the complaints and has denied that he ever abused any of the complainants.
However, gardaí, in their combined file which was was resubmitted to the DPP earlier this month, have pointed out the similarities in terms of the complaints made by the women with regard to opportunity and the type of sexual assault that they allege he perpetrated on them.
It is understood gardaí have pointed to what they believe is a pattern of behaviour by the priest who would have come in contact with the women when they were as young as 14 years of age in the 1970s and 1980s at locations in north Cork.
The complaint made by the man relates to an allegation that he was sexually assaulted by the priest when he was just 12 in the early 1990s at a location in mid-Cork after the priest befriended his mother.
It is understood that all eight complainants have made statements to the commission of investigation chaired by Ms Justice Yvonne Murphy into clerical sexual abuse in the Diocese of Cloyne and that a chapter of a 400-page report relates to Fr B and the allegations made against him.
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2011/0120/1224287942348.html