IRELAND
Irish Times
Mary Carolan
Wed, Jul 1, 2015
A woman has told the High Court a priest kissed her and touched her breast while she was being treated for typhoid fever in a hospital in Nigeria in 1983.
Dolores Atwood, who was born in August 1969, said she first met Richard Burke, a member of the Kiltegan Fathers order, after mass at a Catholic church in Nigeria in 1982 and had enjoyed conversations with him.
When she became ill in 1983, she was treated in hospital for typhoid fever and he came to visit her, she said. She was “surprised” and, while he was there, the light went off and he kissed her and touched her breast and was “touching me inappropriately”.
When the light came back on, he had gone back to the position where he was standing before the light went off, she said.
Ms Atwood has begun her evidence in the action by Mr Burke (66), a native of Co Tipperary, against RTÉ alleging he was defamed in the RTÉ Prime Time Investigates: Mission to Prey programme broadcast on May 23rd 2011. He claims material in the programme wrongly meant he was a paedophile. RTÉ denies defamation.
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