Priest dances a jig after he is cleared of indecency

A ROMAN Catholic priest danced a jig outside London’s Old Bailey yesterday after being cleared of a sex charge.

Neil Horan, 57, was dressed in his ‘national’ costume of brown kilt, green beret and the green underpants featured in the case.

He pranced around for several minutes to a cassette recording of Kerry Fiddles under the gaze of bemused policemen, lawyers and onlookers.

The jury took only an hour to clear him of indecency with a seven-year-old girl in 1991.

Horan, originally from Scartaglin, Co Kerry, has not worked in a church for 10 years and stages stunts to publicise his beliefs about the second coming and the end of the world.

He shocked millions of people around the world this year when he stepped in front of Olympic marathon leader, Vanderlei de Lima, possibly costing him the gold medal. Last year he was jailed for two months for disrupting the British Grand Prix race at Silverstone by running on to the track in front of speeding cars.

Horan, of Nunhead, south London, had been accused of letting the girl touch his penis after taking off his green underpants.

But Horan said the incident in his bedsit attached to St Anthony’s Church, Penge, south London, was not sexual.

He had taken the mother literally when she told him sarcastically that he might as well take all his clothes off when he answered the door in his underwear. They played hide-and-seek but the girl had not touched his private parts, he said.

He showed the jury the pants and said he had kept them for 13 years because they were the ones he used for his dancing and protests. He also wore them when he performed his dance for the Pope, he said.

Horan broke down after calling on God to “strike me down” if he was lying.

After being cleared, he said: “It is the happiest day of my life. As for the women who accused me, I wish them well. I would not have stripped in front of other women but I was very close to the girl’s mother - it was a unique relationship.

“But there is a lesson to be learned for other priests, who should be careful not to get too close to women they deal with,” he said.

Horan said he would not be disrupting any more sporting events.

A statement by the Archdiocese of Southwark said: “Neil Horan’s faculties to practise as a priest were formally withdrawn on health grounds. It was in February 2004 that the allegation for which he has been found not guilty was first reported to the Archdiocese. This allegation was immediately reported to the police.”