NORTHERN IRELAND
Irish Examiner
Tuesday, June 23, 2015
Disgraced priest Fr Brendan Smyth penned an angry letter from jail denying he had damaged the Catholic Church, an inquiry has heard.
Just months after he was jailed for sexually assaulting more than 100 children, the prolific paedophile wrote to former Catholic Primate Cahal Daly claiming he had pleaded guilty to “false” allegations to spare the reputation of the church.
In a letter sent from Magilligan Prison, Co Derry, in December 1994, Smyth wrote: “I wish to express my anger and disbelief that a person with your lofty intellectual qualifications could possibly have made such statements.
“Whatever my sins and failings, and there are many of them, it is not they but the media reporting of them which was created an atmosphere of mixed shame and embarrassment…
“I pleaded guilty to wildly exaggerated and in some cases false allegations to try to limit the media coverage. In that I admit I failed dismally.”
The letter was shown to Northern Ireland’s long running Historical Abuse Inquiry (HIA) which is examining whether systemic failings allowed Smyth – a member of the Norbertine order – to perpetrate the abuse over more than four decades between the 1960s and 1990s.
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