A PARISH priest accused of sex abuse dating back 20 years claimed in Armagh Crown Court yesterday that his accusers had maligned him, taken away his good character and caused him intense suffering and humiliation.
Father Edward Kilpatrick (53) agreed under cross examination by a senior prosecutor, Mr Terence Mooney QC, that if the allegations of the two altar boys were true, then they had been maligned and humiliated by him.
The priest, of Lifford, Co Donegal, and a former diocesan secretary to the now retired Bishop of Derry, Dr Edward Daly, said he emphatically denied the allegations.
The priest was in the witness box on the ninth day of his trial on 19 charges of gross indecency and indecent assault.
The allegations span a six year period from March 1975 when he was a curate at Steelstown parish in Derry city. He has pleaded not guilty.
His accusers are a 30 year old civil servant and a 32 year old teacher who is a former student priest and an acknowledged homosexual.
The allegations focus on the sacristy of Our Lady of Lourdes Church, the priest's sitting room and bedroom in the parochial house, his rooms at the presbytery at St Eugene's Cathedral, and bogland near his parents' home at Bellaghy in south Derry.
Father Kilpatrick denied he had used his status as a high profile priest to conceal the incidents.
Asked by his counsel, Mr Eugene Grant QC, about the allegations of sexual impropriety, Father Kilpatrick denounced them as absolutely ludicrous "sheer fantasy" and "a fabrication".
In evidence, the priest said he had no recollection of the younger complainant as an altar boy. He said he knew the 32 year old, who as a teenager had come to the parochial house to carry out minor parish duties. He said the man had expressed what he believed was a genuine interest in the priesthood.
The defendant said the young man "was very enthusiastic and zealous" at the prospect of becoming a priest. He continually talked about the priesthood, showed an interest in obtaining the necessary qualifications and exhibited an intensity at study. He was a frequent attender at church services.
Father Kilpatrick rejected the prosecutor's suggestion that he had courted the press as a preemptive strike for publicity.
He admitted having announced to parishioners at a Mass to which the Derry press had been invited that he was to take administrative leave. He said the reasons were not given because of legal constraints.
The defendant said he had been asked by Bishop Seamus Hegarty to take leave from the parish.
Judge Tom Burgess was told "hundreds" of parishioners and former parishioners had put their names to petitions of support organised on his behalf.
The bearing resumes tomorrow.