Former archbishop: I was portrayed as a rapist by RTÉ

IRELAND
Irish Examiner

Friday, June 26, 2015

by Ann O’Loughlin

A former Catholic archbishop has told a High Court jury he was portrayed during an RTÉ television programme as leading a young girl up a stairs to his bedroom where he had sexually abused, sexually assaulted, and raped her.

“I could not believe my eyes,” Richard Burke said. “This did not happen, I did not do that, what is portrayed there is a lie.”

When his counsel, Jack Fitzgerald, asked: “Are you a paedophile,” he replied: “No.”

Mr Burke, aged 66, from Tipperary, said he was living in London with a member of his order, the Kiltegan Fathers, when Prime Time Investigates: Mission to Prey was screened on May 23, 2011.

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