‘He changed my life. I live with the nightmares’

THE woman who accuses a retired parish priest of indecently assaulting her at the age of 14 turned directly to him and said from the witness box yesterday: “I live with those nightmares, look at what you have done to my life.”

Retired Fr Daniel Duane, aged 73, was also in the witness box yesterday at Cork Circuit Criminal Court, where he denies indecently assaulting a female on a date between April and September 1980 at his house at the time in Belleview, Mallow. The defendant now resides at Cecilstown, Mallow, Co Cork.

James O’Mahony, for the defendant, put it to the accused: “She said in the summer of 1980 you indecently assaulted her.”