UNITED KINGDOM
The Guardian
Press Association
theguardian.com, Monday 24 February 2014
An 85-year-old former Catholic priest has admitted sexually assaulting seven children, including altar boys, after spending more than 20 years on the run in Spain.
Francis Paul Cullen was extradited back to the UK last year to face the charges after being traced to Tenerife. The Catholic Church and its safeguarding board helped police to trace Cullen, who was found to have attended mass at a church in Playa de las Americas every Sunday.
On Monday Cullen, looking frail in the dock, pleaded guilty to 21 charges at Derby crown court. The offences, committed between 1957 and 1991 on children aged between six and 16, took place while Cullen was a practising priest in Mackworth, Derbyshire, and later Buxton, Derbyshire, and Hyson Green, Nottinghamshire. Cullen pleaded guilty to 15 counts of indecent assault, five of indecency with a child and one of attempted buggery.
Judge Jonathan Gosling told Cullen, who was born in Dublin, that a “very substantial” custodial sentence was inevitable.
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