Saturday, November 21, 2009

Judge orders names taken out of priest abuse probe

A report on the handling of child sex abuse allegations by the Catholic Church and the State by clerics in the Dublin Archdiocese can only be published with the exclusion of additional sections, the High Court has ruled.

Mr Justice Paul Gilligan directed yesterday that the additional sections cannot be published because they might prejudice an impending criminal prosecution against a man named in the report, the High Court ruled yesterday.

Extracts

In a detailed order relating mainly to chapter 20 of the report, the judge ruled certain extracts should not be published until the court directs.

He also ordered that the man, and his brother who is also named in the report, can both only be referred to as Father, Mister, Reverend or the title be left blank.

Last month, Mr Justice Gilligan the ruled the report could be published with the exception of chapter 19 and other references to a named person in it because it could prejudice criminal proceedings against him.

Yesterday, the judge made a similar order about a man named in chapter 20 and other parts of the report.

The judge said this latest order arose out of a decision of the DPP to issue warrants for the arrest of the man on October 2 and 5.

Criminal

The judge said at the time the application dealing with publication was made to the court on July 31, there were no criminal proceedings pending against anyone who was the subject matter of the application.

It was only after he delivered his judgment in relation to the July proceedings, on October 15, that the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform was made aware that the DPP had issued the warrants for the arrest of this man, the judge said.

The Commission of Investigation report for the Dublin Archdiocese deals with abuse allegations against 46 priests between 1975 and 2004 and was presented to the Minister, Dermot Ahern, in July.
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