AUSTRALIA
The Courier
By William Vallely Feb. 3, 2015
A FORMER Ballarat parish priest who indecently assaulted a nine-year-old girl with a carrot told police he mistakenly thought he was playing a “practical joke” on her mother, a court has heard.
Leslie Sheahan, 84, offered a “bizarre” and “troubling” explanation for the historical crime, telling police it was a practical joke gone awfully wrong, Ballarat Magistrates Court heard on Tuesday.
Sheahan, who was appointed priest at a Ballarat North church in the mid 1960s, was an assistant priest in the Horsham Catholic Diocese when the offence occurred between 1970-1971.
He pleaded guilty to unlawful/indecent assault of a girl – a historical charge which the court heard predates the sexual penetration of a child charges introduced in 1980s.
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