NORTHERN IRELAND
Belfast Telegraph
By Lisa Smyth
28 October 2005
A support group for sex abuse has welcomed a custodial sentence handed down to a Catholic priest who admitted owning a video showing the rape of an eight-year-old girl.
John McCallum (45), of Ballymena Road, Antrim, was jailed for 12 months yesterday after pleading guilty to 25 sample counts of the possession and making of indecent images of children.
Downpatrick Crown Court sitting at Newtownards heard McCallum was the hospital chaplain on duty at Belfast City Hospital on the day of the Omagh bomb and ministered to a number of the casualties.
The court was told that while holding this position, McCallum worked on average 90 to 100 hours a week and turned to alcohol and child pornography as "a means of escape".
Details of McCallum's chilling collection of child pornography, which included a movie file of an eight-year-old girl being raped and a photo of a young girl being anally penetrated, was read out in court as the former priest stood impassively.