Abuse report: Cover-up clerics likely to get off the hook
Fresh evidence is needed for prosecutions
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Tuesday December 01 2009
NEW evidence will be needed if senior clerics and gardai are to be prosecuted for their involvement in the cover-up of child sex abuse in the Dublin Archdiocese.
Legal sources last night poured cold water on the prospect of senior members of the hierarchy being held criminally responsible for their failure to protect children from paedophile priests, as a previous garda investigation had ruled out such prosecutions.
The disclosure came as pressure continued to mount yesterday on Donal Murray, the Bishop of Limerick, to resign.
Local Limerick Fianna Fail TD Niall Collins said it would be in the best interests of the Catholic Church for the beleaguered clergyman to go.
Judge Yvonne Murphy found hundreds of child abuse allegations were covered up over a 30-year period because senior clergymen were obsessed with secrecy and upholding the reputation of the Church.
And the report found paedophile priests got away with decades of horrific child sex abuse because the hierarchy was given a form of immunity by gardai.
Following RTE's 'Prime Time' programme 'Cardinal Secrets' in 2002, senior gardai conducted an inquiry into whether there was sufficient evidence to mount a case against any Church official for failure to report a serious crime. The offence is known as misprision of felony.
But detectives in the 20-strong unit, dubbed 'the God Squad', concluded there was not -- and did not submit any file to the DPP recommending prosecution.
"In all the circumstances, it is considered by the commission that the misprision of felony investigations were carried out more for the sake of completeness than from any substantial belief that there would ever be such a prosecution," said Judge Murphy.
She acknowledged in her report that there were legal difficulties with potential criminal charges against clerics because the distinction between a felony and a misdemeanour (a less serious crime) had been abolished in 1997.
Eleven years ago the Government introduced new anti-terror laws making it a crime to withhold information about a serious offence, but sexual offences were omitted from this law.
Members of the hierarchy are also exempt from reckless endangerment of children laws, introduced three years ago, as the new offence cannot be applied retrospectively.
Legal sources said one of the only options remaining for building a case against senior clerics was a common law charge of perverting or obstructing the course of justice.
But they said any criminal charges would require new evidence, possibly drawn from the raft of fresh leads emerging from first-time complainants.
- Dearbhail McDonald and Barry Duggan
Irish Independent
