A Co Kilkenny priest jailed for buggery and other offences had his eight-year sentence reduced to six years at the Court of Criminal Appeal yesterday.
The court said the priest was attempting to reform, to face up to what he had done and had outlined to social workers and others the thought processes of a child abuser. Society was wiser as a result.
The 46-year-old priest had been told by the trial judge in the Circuit Court in June 1996 that he had abused his position of trust in several cases where his victims had been assigned to him for care because of his position.
At the Court of Criminal Appeal yesterday, Mr Justice Barrington, giving the court's decision on the priest's appeal against severity of sentence, said he had been convicted of buggery, attempted buggery and other offences.
The accused had been a priest of great ability, had done excellent social work in his parish and had been admired by many people. Partly as a result of that, he had been in a position to offer refuge to young men in difficulty or who had fallen foul of the law. But he abused and breached that trust.
It was a case which would merit a very severe sentence, the judge said. However, it was unusual in that the accused had undertaken an examination of the system he had built up around his paedophile tendency and had attempted to look back through the whole delusory system.
That involved long periods of therapy, facing up to what had led him to where he was and warning society of the dangers a paedophile presents. The priest had confessed to his bishop, spoken to all the priests of his diocese prepared to listen and had divulged the secret life he had led.
There was no doubt the trial judge had balanced both the iniquity of the crime, the breach of trust and the efforts at reform. Mr Justice Barrington said the court was persuaded by counsel for the priest that the judge did not give sufficient weight to the service done to the community by this paedophile.
This was a case where society, through the relevant agencies, was the wiser as a result. The judge also did not give sufficient weight to that aspect, which was unique in the experience of the court.
Mr Patrick MacEntee SC, for the priest, said his client had engaged in a therapy process which entailed a total acknowledgment not only of what he had done to the five boys aged between 15 and 17, but also subjected himself to a regime of treatment which entailed a total examination and restructuring of his entire attitude to almost every aspect of his life.
Mr MacEntee said his client was in prison in the Curragh, where no therapy was available. He was most anxious to get on with rehabilitation. He was in an environment with sex offenders who were substantially untreated.