DPP urged to meet Cloyne victims

THE Rape Crisis Centre has said the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) should meet the victims of clerical abuse in Cloyne to discuss his decision not to seek prosecution against the alleged serial paedophile in the 2008 Cloyne report.

The victims, who are all adults, are “livid” at this latest refusal, as they say “there are such clear similarities between all their cases”.

A Rape Crisis Centre spokeswoman last night said it is “most unfortunate” that the DPP does not give reasons for his decision not to prosecute. “The DPP has spoken in the past about testing the concept of giving reasons to sexual assault and rape victims. He is already testing this concept with murder victims. We think that, in the Cloyne case, he needs to talk to these women urgently. His latest decision has caused huge anxiety again for them.”

One of the victims last night said the women wanted to meet with the DPP. “Words cannot express our anger at the thought that this priest, who has been protected for so long by the diocese, will get away with even more injustice. We are considering joining all the cases together as a type of test case,” she said.

Last month, the DPP informed two more victims that he would not be seeking a prosecution against Father B. Six more files sent to the DPP’s office in recent years have all been sent back without prosecution.

The list of complaints lodged against Father B, for the rape and sexual assault of children, will also be examined by the Dublin Archdiocese Commission of Investigation in its report into the diocese of Cloyne which is due to go the Department of Justice before Christmas.

Two years ago, the National Board for Safeguarding Children (NBSC) report on the Cloyne diocese detailed how four separate allegations of child abuse were levelled at Father B between 1995 and 2005.

Its author said the policy of the diocese in relation to these complaints was “minimal” information was to be given to gardaí. They also discovered that the diocese’s senior priests made clear that “no information was to be volunteered in respect of any previous complaints involving this priest”.

The Catholic Church also began a secret canonical court hearing against the priest last year. The court was established, by order of the Vatican, to hear evidence against Father B and could have led to his defrocking. However, having met with the three canonical judges, all priests, his victims refused to co-operate with the trial until their criminal cases had been dealt with and the archdiocese report published.