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  Abuse Trial Priest Had School Job

UTV
April 28, 2010

http://www.u.tv/News/Abuse-trial-priest-had-school-job/7b8a4295-4900-4989-929e-70d7a2626f35



A second woman who claims she was sexually abused by a priest as a child has said she went to police years later after discovering he was working at a girls' school in Belfast.

The woman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, told Omagh Crown Court that Fr. Eugene Lewis showed no signs of remorse for what he had allegedly done to her and she thought he might be abusing other children.

The 75-year-old cleric - a White Father missionary who heads the orders seminary at Cypress Grove House at Templelogue in Dublin - denies a total of 11 charges of indecently assaulting the woman and two of her sisters between August 1963 and September 1973.

The woman claimed her parents would have welcomed him, "not knowing what they were bringing into their home".

She remembered one occasion when she was seven or eight when the priest came to her bedroom to tell her a story, but allegedly abused her as he did so, and when finished he just got up and said goodnight just completely normally.

The woman claimed the abuse continued and that even when her parents or sisters might have been present, he was able to conceal what he was doing - but that by the time she was 15, she realised the sexual nature of what the priest had been doing.

She said it was after seeing Fr Lewis at a party in her sister's house in Belfast in 2007, and that she was "really angry to see him there".

Later, after learning the priest was working in a girls' school and was involved in community work, she claimed she began to think of the implications - and that "this isn't just about me".

She said after contacting Childline and looking at the different options, she came to the conclusion she had to make a complaint to the police.

The woman said before making her complaint her sister contacted her out of the blue to say she was taking a case against him for abusing her as a child and raping her when she was older.

She said she made her complaint to the police in May 2008 but had not lodged a claim for compensation against the priest.

 
 

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