UNITED KINGDOM
Daily Mail

By Hugo Gye

A Catholic priest who was secretly married was today jailed for six months for molesting a teenage girl in what a judge described an an ‘enormous breach of trust’.

William Finnegan, known as ‘Father Bill’, touched the 17-year-old’s bottom and forcibly kissed her at St Clare’s Roman Catholic Church in Bradford on Easter Sunday last year.

Judge Roger Thomas said that 60-year-old, who admitted during the trial that he had a secret wedding 14 years ago, was ‘in denial’ about his crime.

He also had harsh words for Finnegan’s parishioners who stood by him despite the charges, saying: ‘Maybe some of them would believe the sun would rise in the west tomorrow if he said it.’