SCOTLAND
Scotsman

By STEPHEN MCGINTY
Published on Tuesday 5 March 2013

CARDINAL Keith O’Brien threatened to report a victim of clerical sexual abuse to the police as a “blackmailer”, according to the man who had been abused.

“Michael X”, who received £42,000 granted by the Archbishop of St Andrews and Edinburgh in 1990 following his traumatic experiences, said yesterday that when he insisted Father Desmond Lynagh, who had abused him while he was a 14-year-old junior seminarian at Blairs in Aberdeen in the 1970s, should be sent away for counselling and no longer minister to children and young people, the archbishop had threatened him with the police.

In an exclusive interview with The Scotsman, Mr X said: “He then stood up. I remember he was wearing a black soutane with his pectoral cross and he said, ‘Do you know who I am? Nobody tells me what to do….