IRELAND
Irish Independent
Sonya McLean
PUBLISHED
04/07/2016
Former “singing” priest Tony Walsh faces a maximum sentence of two years in prison for raping a boy with a crucifix, a court has heard.
Anthony Walsh (62) committed the offence and two other rapes of the same victim before the Criminal Law (Rape) Amendment Act came into effect in 1990, meaning that the maximum penalty the judge can impose on each offence is two years.
He is charged with indecent assault as that was the offence which existed at the time. He forced the child to have sex twice, once in the parochial house in his parish and on another occasion in a tunnel under the Phoenix Park. He also used a crucifix to rape the boy.
Walsh told the jury during the trial last month that he never knew the boy and said he never assaulted him.
Walsh, formerly of North Circular Road, Dublin 7 had pleaded not guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to five counts of indecently assaulting the boy on dates between January 1980 and December 1982. The boy was aged between 10 and 13 years old at the time of the abuse.
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