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	Abuse Priest Faces "Lengthy Jail Term" UTV December 15, 2011 http://www.u.tv/News/Abuse-priest-faces-lengthy-jail-term/2b436f3d-8ee9-4440-aa14-0666d6c0fec4 A former priest found guilty of 19 sex offences against two altar boys and a trainee priest has been warned he faces a jail term "of some length", after he was convicted of four more offences. James Martin Donaghy, 53 and from Lady Wallace Drive in Lisburn, has been found to have carried out a string of indecent assaults and attempted sex attacks on three victims over a 17-year period. But the jury of nine men and three women acquitted him over a common assault charge and further told trial judge Patrick Lynch QC that they would not be able to reach verdicts on three other sex abuse charges. The judge said "it would not be in the interests of anyone" for a further trial, but Donaghy will find out on Friday what the Crown attitude is to any potential retrial. As the jury returned their final verdicts - having deliberated for ten-and-a-half hours over the last three days - Donaghy again remained impassive in the dock, while relatives in the gallery wept and shook their heads in disbelief. Defence QC Eugene Grant made an impassioned bail application to the judge, pleading for Donaghy to be released to spend Christmas with his family and attend his niece's wedding on New Year's Eve. The request was refused by Judge Lynch. As the now convicted paedophile was led to the cells in handcuffs, his niece blew him kisses and mouthed the words "I love you" while other family members comforted each other. The verdicts come at the end of an almost five-week long hearing, where the judge said jurors had been presented with "difficult and frequently distasteful evidence". He excused them from further jury service for 15 years. All of the charges against Donaghy related to three victims - including a then altar boy who was abused from the age of about 14 until he was 20. The now 29-year-old described how Donaghy told him when he was a teenager that "he loved me and that he had loved me from the first time that he had set eyes on me". The priest further told him that his vow of celibacy was "only man-made rules and it's up to your conscience". Another victim, Father Patrick McCafferty - who described his abuser as "dominating and controlling" - told the court that he was sexually assaulted the night before Donaghy was ordained as a priest, and also in the parochial house at Corpus Christi, and his own family home in Lisburn. A third victim, former altar boy James Doherty (also known as Seamus), testified that Donaghy had tried to have sex with him in the parochial house at St Michael's in Finaghy - as Father Charlie Agnew lay dead in the house - and again five or six weeks after Fr Agnew's death, and then at Corpus Christi where Donaghy had been moved to. Judge Lynch told the jury on Thursday that, before he proceeds to handing down the "inevitable" jail term, reports would be compiled on both Donaghy and his victims. The case was adjourned until Friday, when it is listed for mention.
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