Irish priest may have faked death to escape sex abuse claims

BRITISH police are still hunting an Irish priest accused of sex abuse, believing he may have faked his own death to avoid extradition.

Fr Christopher Clonan, who worked in a parish in Coventry for 20 years, fled to Dublin and then Australia in 1992 after several altar boys made allegations of abuse against him.

Police were unable to trace him, but in 2000 Fr Clonan’s brother, who lives in the small town of Bendigo, near Melbourne, told them he had died of a brain haemorrhage two years earlier and had been cremated.

However, West Midlands police detectives were unconvinced by the death certificate and are seeking authority to travel to Australia to investigate.

“We are still liaising with the Australian Federal Police and enquiries are ongoing,” said a police spokeswoman yesterday.

The death certificate showed that Fr Clonan died on October 22, 1998, and was cremated at Bendigo Crematorium on October 27. He would have been 56.

But the uncertainty over Fr Clonan’s fate meant that his victims were unable to sue him for damages. In January this year, the Catholic Church in Britain finally accepted responsibility and paid damages of £490,000 to a former altar boy abused by Fr Clonan. The out-of-court settlement was the highest amount ever agreed for an individual sex abuse case involving a Catholic priest in Britain.

The victim, Simon Grey, 38, was said in court to have suffered considerable psychological damage as a result of six years of abuse by the priest, becoming an alcoholic, spending time in prison for violent crime and setting fire to himself.

Four more cases against the Church are pending.

Fr Clonan worked as a builder and small-time property developer before entering the priesthood. He was appointed assistant parish priest at Christ the King church in Coundon, Coventry, in the 1970s and became known as ‘Fr Fix It’ for his ability in church construction projects.

The record compensation paid to his victims has recaptured the attention of the British media and last week, one newspaper, the Sunday Mercury, contacted Fr Cloonan’s brother, Andrew, in Australia.

He said his brother was dead and the cremation ceremony had been witnessed by his wife and police.