Priest cleared of historic sex abuse claims

A Catholic priest has been cleared by a jury in the UK of historical allegations that he sexually abused nine girls and one boy.

Limerick-born Fr Mortimer Stanley, 82, from Ballybunion, Co Kerry, denied a string of indecent assaults said to have been committed in Rochdale, Greater Manchester, between 1977 and 2002.

The prosecution alleged that the priest targeted most of the complainants, aged under 11, in his presbytery at St Vincent de Paul RC Church in Norden, when he would sit them on his knee.