Cleric Is Rushed to Hospital after Child-sex Charges
By Luke Byrne
A RETIRED Irish priest was yesterday rushed to hospital after he was charged by police in Australia with a raft of child-sex offences. Fr Finian Egan (right) left a Sydney police station by ambulance after being questioned and subsequently charged with 17 offences dating back to the 1970s. The 77-year-old cleric was charged with 16 counts of indecent assault and one count of rape over a 15-year period. The charges relate to the alleged sexual abuse of four different children -- three girls and a boy -- between 1972 and 1987 while he was serving as a priest to parishes in Sydney and the Central Coast. Heart The priest, who was ordained in Sydney in 1959, was granted strict conditional bail before an ambulance rushed him to a nearby hospital for treatment for heart problems. In a statement, Australian police said detectives had "arrested and charged a Catholic priest with child-sex offences dating back four decades". Delays in both the church's response to initial complaints and the setting-up of a criminal investigation have angered his alleged victims. A church investigation later found that he had abused two girls, though he has consistently denied the allegations. One of his accusers, Irishwoman Kellie-Anne Roche, has previously expressed her disgust at learning that he conducted a wedding and was publicly honoured for his 50 years of service as a priest after she had first made a complaint in 2008. Fr Egan will appear in Ryde Local Court on May 23.
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