By Paul Britton
Manchester Evening News
February 22, 2008
http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/s/1037837_repeated_abuse_by_priest
A SECOND man has told a jury how he was repeatedly sexually abused as a young boy by a priest.
The man, who cannot be named for legal reasons, told a court John McCollough, 63, sexually abused him on a number of occasions at the vicarage of Christ The King With Holy Trinity Church in Bury.
McCollough was minister there, where Catholics and Protestants worshipped, between 1985 and 1995.
The man said he was abused by him from the age of eight or nine to 11.
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| CHARGES: John McCollough, who was a minister at a Bury church, denies indecently assaulting two boys between March 1989 and February 1993 |
He told Bolton Crown Court that on one occasion McCollough asked him to sit on his knee and tried to kiss him.
The priest would fondle him, the jury was told, but the man said he would pull McCollough's hands away and shout: "Get off."
The alleged victim told the jury of another occasion when he performed a sex act on McCollough behind a sofa in the living room of the vicarage.
He said: "I do not know how it happened. He used to make you feel friendly."
The court was told that the boy stopped going to the church, where he was a parishioner, before he started high school. He made a statement in 2006 when police contacted him after the claims surfaced.
McCollough is accused of indecently assaulting two boys between March 1989 and February 1993. He denies 11 indecent assault charges and one charge of gross indecency.
The man told the jury McCollough was 'a friendly man'. He said he used to go to the vicarage to play and watch videos but McCollough would fondle him.
He told the jury that he recalled sitting on McCollough's knee and the priest trying to kiss him.
He said: "I always felt that because he did not force me to do anything it was my fault. I thought people would think bad things about me. I was ashamed about it.
He did do that to me and the only thing to do is to do the right thing and tell the truth."
McCollough, now of Leigh-on-Sea, Essex, is understood to have joined the Catholic Church in 1997, moving to Essex to become parish priest at a church in Dagenham.
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