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Did Former Darlington Rapist Priest Michael Higginbottom Act Alone?

Northern Echo
April 14, 2017

http://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/news/15225352._Haunted_by_demons____victim_of_rapist_priest_speaks_of_horrific_abuse/

SADISTIC: Catholic priest and child abuser Michael Higginbottom

“CRUEL and sadistic” Catholic priest Michael Higginbottom was jailed for 17 years on Thursday.

Former Darlington parish priest Higginbottom repeatedly raped a boy almost 40 years ago and, following decades of silence, was finally brought to justice this week.

A judge told the 74-year-old he had made a young boy’s life a “living hell” for six months in the late 1970s, while he was a priest and teacher at St Joseph’s seminary in Upholland, West Lancashire.

At Liverpool Crown Court, Judge Andrew Menary, QC described Higginbottom as “someone who undoubtedly had a mean and cruel streak, saying: “The evidence makes plain that when you were teaching you employed methods that today - if not then - would be recognised for what they were cruel sadistic bullying.”

In a moving statement, the victim – now aged 52 – said he had been “haunted by demons” since the abuse.

He said: “My abuse started within the first week of being left alone in that cold dark place.

“It was difficult to try to portray what that place was like. It was the polar opposite of the loving caring home I came from.

“I was subjected to physical, sexual and mental abuse at his hands.

“My sexual abuse happened so often I became numb with what was happening.

“I cried so often I believed I could drown in my own tears. I used to pray to die. There are worse things than death, living with an evil man and being left alone at Upholland.”

The victim, just 13 and 14 at the time of the abuse, said it had affected his entire life, saying he had kept his ordeal secret from his wife until eventually opening up to a psychiatrist.

He said he was bitter and angry and could not properly love his children saying: “A daddy that cannot love is only half a daddy.”

The man escaped the abuse when he was expelled from the seminary for stealing a watch.

Jailing Higginbottom – of West Farm Road, Newcastle – Judge Menary said: “What you did to him there effectively destroyed the remainder of his childhood and did a good job of destroying any faith he ever had.

“Within about two weeks of his arrival you had targeted him for your own sexual gratification.

“As a matter of routine you took him or summoned him to your private quarters where you systematically committed sexual acts on him that would now be described as anal and oral rape.”

He said the victim and other pupils had described in graphic terms the “excessive and inappropriate corporal punishment you seemed to enjoy inflicting on the boys.”

Higginbottom was given a 17-year sentence after being found guilty on four counts of buggery and four of indecent assault, which took place between September 1978 and March 20, 1979.

He had also faced two allegations of sexually assaulting a 12-year-old boy at the seminary but at the beginning of the trial no evidence was offered and not guilty verdicts were recorded.

Higginbottom, who was suspended by the church in 2004 from his parish in Darlington, showed no emotion as he was sentenced and ordered to sign the sex offenders’ register for life.

Adam Birkby, mitigating, said Higginbottom did not remember the boy and denied the allegations.

He said the once-popular priest had contributed to his community and was of “exemplary good character” over the years since his offending.

The judge said it was a “huge and terrible personal tragedy” for Higginbottom that his legacy would “now only ever be that of a priest who abused a young boy.”

 

 

 

 

 




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