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	Ex-Priest Gets Order Halting His Trial for Abusing Altar Boy (12) Irish Times February 3, 2009 http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2009/0204/1232923385560.html A FORMER priest has secured a High Court order halting his trial on a charge of sexually abusing a 12-year-old altar boy 27 years ago. Mr Justice John MacMenamin ruled the man's right to a fair trial was prejudiced by a combination of factors, including culpable delays of some 4½ years in the investigation and prosecution of the abuse allegations and in disclosing important evidence (a psychiatric report stating the complainant altar boy had apparently been abused by his older brother when he was a child). These factors, plus prejudicial media coverage, created a real risk of an unfair trial, the judge said. The slow progress of the Garda investigation was "in strong contrast" with "leaked media coverage" regarding the case which could only have come from gardaí. The applicant brought his judicial review proceedings over an allegation he abused the boy between 1981 and 1982 in a church sacristy. The complainant and a brother of his were both altar boys and both claimed to have been abused by the priest. The priest was convicted in 1990 for assaulting a minor and received a suspended sentence. He went to England after that but returned here some years later when he was involved in a "homosexual affair" with the younger brother, then 20 years of age. In 2003, after the brothers revealed to one another what had happened to them as children, they made complaints to gardaí of alleged abuse by the applicant. In August 2006, he was charged with 35 counts of abuse in relation to the younger brother and one count concerning the older. In October 2007, he was acquitted on the basis of the unsafe nature of the younger brother's testimony.
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