RTE News
May 16, 2011
http://www.rte.ie/news/2011/0516/duaned.html
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| Dan Duane (centre) - Retired priest denies assault charge |
A 73-year-old retired priest of the Diocese of Cloyne has gone on trial at the Circuit Criminal Court in Cork charged with indecently assaulting a woman 30 years ago when she was a teenager.
Fr Dan Duane, of the Presbytery, Cecilstown, Mallow, Co Cork, denies the charge.
The woman told the court that Fr Duane indecently assaulted her when she went to his house to talk to him about a family problem.
Fr Dan Duane is a retired priest of the Diocese of Cloyne who ministered in north Cork from 1966 until his retirement in 2005.
In the early 1980s, the State alleges that he met a teenage girl while he was conducting a retreat at a school in Mallow and subsequently indecently assaulted her at the house where he was living at the time.
The woman told the Circuit Criminal Court in Cork she was 15 or 16 years when she went to Fr Duane's house to discuss a family problem with him.
She said she became upset and was crying while she was there and Fr Duane leaned towards her, kissed her on the lips and fondled her.
She estimated that the incident lasted for around one minute.
The woman said she left the house in shock, only mentioned the incident to a friend months later and did not raise it again for years afterwards.
Fr Duane denied the assault in a garda interview, saying it did not ring a bell with him, and again this afternoon in his direct evidence he denied that the incident took place.
The trial continues tomorrow.
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