Priest felt confusion and guilt over sex, court told

A former Catholic archbishop has told the High Court he had an “inappropriate” sexual relationship with a woman in Nigeria which began in 1989 when she was aged 20 and he was 40.

Tipperary-born Richard Burke, aged 66, was ordained a priest in 1975. He said he felt “uneasy” by the demeanour of then 20-year-old Dolores Atwood, which “gave an impression of being flirtatious”, when she came unexpectedly to his apartment on a Sunday afternoon in Warri City in Nigeria in September or October 1989.

They went to his bedroom where they “made love, including full sexual intercourse”. He later felt a mix of confusion and guilt, knew what had happened was wrong; believed she was falling in love with him; and told her he was leaving for Ireland in spring 1990, he outlined to the court, where he allege he was defamed in the May 2011 Prime Time Investigates: Mission to Prey programme. He alleges it wrongly depicted him as a paedophile. RTÉ denies defamation.