Yorkshire Post
June 11, 2011
http://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/at-a-glance/main-section/exclusive_scandal_of_boys_home_paedophile_appointed_as_priest_1_3469442
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| Father Joseph O'Brien |
A SENIOR staff member sacked from a Roman Catholic children’s home for sexually abusing boys went on to become a priest in the same diocese, the Yorkshire Post can reveal today.
Father Joseph O’Brien, who served as a priest in Thirsk, North Yorkshire, for 15 years, had previously been dismissed for abusing a number of boys at the St William’s children’s home in Market Weighton, East Yorkshire.
The case casts another shadow over the Roman Catholic Church, which has been the subject of a series of accusations that it harboured priests who abused children.
It also poses questions for Humberside Police, which was made aware of Father O’Brien’s actions but did not interview or arrest him when his history was flagged up in a formal witness statement in 2002. Father O’Brien died in January last year.
He was sacked from his position as deputy principal at St William’s in 1965 and escorted from the building. At that time, Father O’Brien was a member of the De La Salle Brotherhood, a Catholic lay order which ran the home, and was known as Brother Ambrose O’Brien.
The dismissal was formally reported to the board of managers at the home, which was part of the Middlesbrough Diocese.
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