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Irish Priest Charged with String of Indecent Assaults on Young Girl in Manchester 30 Years Ago

By Neal Keeling
Irish Mirror
November 14, 2014

http://www.irishmirror.ie/news/irish-news/crime/irish-priest-charged-string-indecent-4626023

Mortimer Stanley at his home in Ballybunion, Co Kerry

A priest who lives in Ballybunion, Co Kerry has been charged with a string of sex offences dating back 30 years.

Canon Mortimer Stanley returned to Manchester from his home in Ireland to face the allegations at Bury Magistrates court yesterday.

The Crown Prosecution Service authorised Greater Manchester Police to charge Canon Stanley, 82, after numerous complaints by former pupils at a Rochdale school.

He is accused of 17 charges of indecent assault on a girl under 14 between 1977 and 1988.

The clergyman, who is now living in Ballybunion after retiring from St Vincent de Paul RC Church in Norden, was first quizzed by police last year.

Retired priest Mortimer Stanley

The allegations involve ten victims. All the alleged victims were pupils at St Vincent’s Primary School, which has been historically linked to the parish.

Canon Stanley had twice travelled to Greater Manchester to answer police questions before returning a third time to be charged.

The priest was originally interviewed in November last year, and he returned in May this year to be further interviewed under caution about the historic allegations.

Canon Stanley, who joined the church as a parish priest in 1972, retired to his native Ireland in 2002.

In a statement last year, the Roman Catholic Salford Diocese said: “The Diocese is co-operating fully with the police and the statutory agencies in these investigations in line with the robust safeguarding policies put in place by the church in this country in recent years.”

 

 

 

 

 




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