UNITED KINGDOM
Motherwell Times
June 7, 2018
A priest who served in Craigneuk has been jailed for six months for abusing a young girl 50 years ago.
Hamilton Sheriff Court heard his victim says Michael Maher ruined her childhood and she has never got over what he did. Maher (74), now of Stobo near Peebles, admitted using lewd, indecent and libidinous practices and behaviour towards the girl between February 1968 and February 1972. She was aged between 12 and 15 at the time and he was between 24 and 27. The court heard the abuse happened at the girl’s home in Holytown and at St Mary’s Church in Whifflet, where Maher was first posted after his ordination in 1968. Maher was a frequent visitor to the girl’s home and would take her into her parents’ bedroom where he lay on top of her on a bed and simulated sexual intercourse.
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