RTE News
January 23, 2008
http://www.rte.ie/news/2008/0123/mcgrathj.html
A Fermanagh-based priest jailed last year in England for helping to fund the grooming of a young girl for sex by a paedophile has lost his attempt to appeal against his sentence.
64-year-old Jeremiah McGrath, who comes originally from Co Kerry, had worked as a missionary in Africa with the Kiltegan Fathers and more recently had spent time in the diocese of Clogher, based in Rosslea Co Fermanagh.
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| Jeremiah McGrath Jailed last year |
McGrath gave more than £20,000 to a paedophile, Billy Adams, who used the cash to buy gifts for a 12-year-old girl.
Adams, originally from Belfast but with an address in Bootle in Merseyside, raped the girl repeatedly over a six-month period in 2005.
The 38-year-old was given a life sentence and was ordered to serve a minimum term of seven and a half years.
After a trial at Liverpool Crown Court last May, McGrath was jailed after a jury found him guilty of one count of facilitating the abuse from August to November 2005.
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He had insisted he had no idea that Adams, with whom he had had a brief sexual relationship, was abusing the girl and claimed that the money was linked to his gambling habit.
McGrath's application for leave to appeal against his sentence was refused by three judges at the Court of Appeal in London.
Mr Justice Underhill said McGrath's conduct had facilitated the continuation of extremely grave offences and required no lesser sentence.
A spokesman for McGrath's order has said it respects the court's decision.
But the County-Wicklow based St Patrick's Missionary Society said that as his appeal against conviction was still outstanding, any further comment was not permitted by law.
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