Jury cannot agree in trial of priest for sexual abuse

Jury cannot agree in trial of priest for sexual abuse

3 October 2012

A JURY has failed to reach a verdict in the trial of a Castlewellan priest accused of sexually abusing a young girl nearly 30 years ago.

Jurors returned to Belfast Crown Court yesterday afternoon after over five hours of deliberations to say they couldn’t agree on a verdict in the trial of Fr. Peter Donnelly.

Fr. Donnelly, from Drumaroad Hill, had denied six counts of

indecent assault and one of

gross indecency against the girl who was aged between 10 and 14 at the time of the alleged offences between July 1983 and August 1987.

The 69 year-old was curate of St. Matthew’s Church in east Belfast during that period and it is alleged the attacks occurred in the parochial house.

Yesterday morning, after the jury of six men and six women had been out for three hours, Judge Gordon Kerr QC called them back into the court and told them he would accept a unanimous verdict.

But the foreman of the jury later sent him a note saying there was stalemate among them and the judge discharged them.

Judge Kerr has listed a new hearing for Friday when lawyers for the Public Prosecution Service will outline how they plan to proceed with the case.

The alleged victim, who is now 40, told the trial via a video link that she didn’t go to police sooner with her allegations because she was afraid and because she blamed herself.

“But Fr. Donnelly knows he done it,” she said.

Fr. Donnelly went into the witness box to deny all the allegations.

“That’s not the way I have lived my life,” he said. “I go around trying to be a witness for Christ”.

Fr. Donnelly accepted there would have been opportunities to abuse the girl in the “big barrack” of a Parochial House of the church. However, under cross-examination by prosecuting lawyer Kate McKay, he said: “Just because the opportunities were there doesn’t mean that I took those opportunities”.

Mrs. McKay put each of the victim’s allegations to the priest but to each he told the lawyer either “I deny that” or “I totally deny that”.

“All I can do is deny that happened because it didn’t happen with me,” Fr. Donnelly said.

“Are you suggesting this happened with someone else, some other priest or other man?” the lawyer asked.

He replied: “I didn’t witness anything like that therefore I can’t say it.”