Marathon priest denies indecency with child
A Roman Catholic priest broke down today after calling on God to “strike me dead” if he was lying about an allegation that he molested a child.
Father Neil Horan called on everyone in the Old Bailey courtroom to witness his plea.
Seconds later, he buried his face in his hands as he wept uncontrollably. The court was adjourned while he composed himself.
Horan, 57, of Nunhead, south London, denies a charge of gross indecency with a seven-year-old child in 1991 when he was assistant priest at St Anthony’s Church, Penge, south London.
The prosecution allege the child and her mother called to visit him in his bedsit adjoining the church.
It was claimed Horan stripped out of his vest and green underpants and chased the girl around the room, before lying on the floor.
Horan, who disrupted the British Grand Prix at Silverstone and the Marathon race in the Olympics, agreed he was naked but denied the child had touched him.
Horan, who said he had not worked as a priest for ten years, denied being sexually aroused, saying he had never had sex with a woman.
Irish-born Horan lifted both hands up to heaven and made his dramatic plea after the allegation was put to him by defence counsel Julia Krish.
He said: “Everyone here present, I call on you to witness that at this moment I call upon Almighty God in heaven to strike me dead this very moment if I did such a thing.”
Horan, wearing black carpet slippers and a black patterned jumper, was taken back to the dock wiping his eyes with a hankie.
Earlier, he held up a silky pair of green Y-fronts for the jury of four women and eight men to see.
Asked how he knew it was the same pair he was wearing when the woman and child visited him, he said it was the same pair he wore when he disrupted the races in his national costume.
He said: “They are the ones I use for Irish dancing with my national costume.
“They are the ones I used at Silverstone and Athens.
“I never washed them so they were always ready for use. They are the only green ones I have ever had.”
