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  Belfast Priest Criticized for Defending Child-Abuser

Catholic World News [Northern Ireland]
May 2, 2005

A Belfast priest has come under fire for claiming a convicted child-molestor didn't really know what he was doing and was therefore "an innocent man."

Jude Lynch, a former head teacher of Good Shepherd Primary School in Londonderry, was sentenced to four years in prison on April 29 after pleading guilty to 33 sexual offenses against three teenagers boys, including indecent assault and gross indecency.

During the case, Father Michael Collins, a parish priest from Limavady and a family friend, said of Lynch: "He has lived all his life in a structured society where there are moral expectations but he moved out of that environment into a murky world. He is an innocent man."

But a counselling organisation for sex-abuse victims has criticized the priest's comments. Helena Bracken, regional manager of the Nexus Institute, said the remarks by Father Collins were disappointing and offensive to the victims of sexual abuse.

Bracken told the Belfast Telegraph: "The fact of the matter is this man pleaded guilty to the charges and I'm shocked that a priest could suggest he was innocent." She continued: "There is no excuse for what Lynch did and the comment from Father Collins will offend and upset people who have gone through the ordeal of sexual abuse."

Bracken admitted that Lynch had "a good reputation" but added: "Most abusers are clever men. There is simply no excuse for what he did."

Last week, Ballymena Crown Court, sitting in Antrim, heard that Lynch took his victims to top hotels across Northern Ireland to engage in "a sequence of homosexual adventures".

Lynch met the boys, aged between 13 and 15, in an internet chat room and the encounters were only revealed when the mother of one of Lynch's victims found the boy's dairy.

The court was told Lynch did not groom the boys or force them to become involved with him. But in passing sentence, Judge David Smyth said that, as a headmaster, Lynch knew what he was doing was wrong. Judge Smyth said: "You made contact with the boys while they were in a gay chat troom, to which they were willingly visiting." He added that while the boys may have been willing participants, "children could not consent to that type of behavior".

 
 

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