By Ryan Pedler
The West Australian
July 24, 2007
http://www.thewest.com.au/default.aspx?MenuID=77&ContentID=35277
Australia — A 31-year-old woman broke down in tears yesterday as she told a District Court jury how a Catholic priest sexually abused her at his holiday home in Moore River more than 20 years ago.
With a public gallery of about 50 people including Perth Archbishop Barry Hickey watching, the woman said Father Richard Joseph Doyle invited her family to holiday at his two-bedroom "beach shack" when she was seven years old.
She said that while her parents were asleep early one morning in one bedroom, Father Doyle asked her to come into his bed in the home's other bedroom to scratch his back and then put his hand inside her underpants and placed her hand on his penis.
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The woman sobbed as she described how she quickly made up an excuse that she needed to get a tissue in order to leave the bed and that she could still remember specific details of the incident, including that the tissue she then went to get was yellow.
"It sounds pathetic but I had to get that frigging tissue," she said. "That's something that's stuck in my head for 25 years. I just really do remember what colour that tissue was."
Father Doyle has plead not guilty to two charges of indecently dealing with the woman, who cannot be named, in 1983 or 1984 when he was associated with the Willetton parish.
The woman said she did not tell anyone that Father Doyle had abused her until years after the incident and reported it to police only last year.
She said her family stayed at Father Doyle's home several times but he had abused her only once.
Father Doyle told the court yesterday that there was an incident at his holiday home but claimed that he did not invite her into his bed and denied putting his hand inside her underpants or placing her hand on his penis.
Father Doyle said that when he woke early one morning, the girl was on top of him in his bed, giving him an affectionate kiss on the lips.
Father Doyle said that he was sexually aroused as he woke and that while he was still "half asleep" with the girl on top of him, he ejaculated. Father Doyle said he regretted that he let the girl lay with him in his bed for several minutes after the incident and that he did not tell her parents about the incident.
He admitted writing a letter to the girl's father in 1993 suggesting the girl receive some financial compensation. The trial is due to conclude today.
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