Ex-priest gets four years in jail for abuse

A former priest and music teacher who told the Pope last year he had a history of “abusing young boys” has been given a four-year prison term for indecently assaulting a secondary school student in the 1980s.

Henry Moloney, aged 77, with an address at Kimmage Manor in Dublin, was led away from Clonmel Circuit Court yesterday by prison staff after being handed down the sentence for abuse, which had a “devastating” impact on his victim.

He was given consecutive sentences of 18 months, 18 months, and 12 months, with the last of those four years suspended, as well as four concurrent sentences.

The only time Moloney spoke during the sentencing hearing was when asked at the very end if he acknowledged that he will be bound to the peace for a year upon his release in prison, and he replied: “I do indeed.”

Moloney had denied all charges against him in a trial earlier this month but was found guilty of seven counts of indecent assault, an eighth charge having been withdrawn.

The court heard yesterday that Moloney had previous convictions for indecent assault and was given a 15-month prison sentence in 2000 after pleading guilty at Dublin Circuit Court to three counts dating back to between 1970 and 1972; and was given an 18-month suspended sentence in 2009 after admitting six counts which arose from a period between 1968 and 1974.

In a victim impact statement read in court yesterday on his behalf, the victim said the abuse “blighted my life” and that his childhood was robbed by Moloney.

“Sometimes because of the nightmares and cold sweats, anxiousness and panic, I feel that death would be a release,” the victim said.

However, he accepted there are “a lot of good people” in Moloney’s order and good people at the school and said “I do not wish for any of this to reflect upon them”.

A “simple apology” from Moloney at any stage during the intervening years would have been a comfort, he said, but instead he was subjected to a very difficult trial which has left him suffering nightmares and cold sweats, not dissimilar to how he felt as a student when the abuse was going on.

“I will never forget standing at his bedroom door after being summoned,” he said. “I would be panicking inside, knowing what was going to happen. My hand shaking while trying to knock, then bid to enter and it seemed to take an eternity for my shaking hand to grip the door handle, knowing I couldn’t run because I had nowhere to go and nobody to turn to.

“I was just a lonely confused child with a mother who put priests on a pedestal and here was Moloney coming across as a wonderful, charming clergyman who had my welfare foremost in his mind when clearly he had no interest in my welfare at all.”

Judge Teehan said the effects of the abuse on the victim were “devastating” and described Moloney’s actions as “an enormously damaging breach of trust”.

There were few mitigating factors, the judge said, but among them were Moloney’s age, his poor health as detailed in medical reports, and the fact that he himself was abused as a child, also outlined in a report.