Catholic Priest 'Used Status to Abuse Boys'

By Paul Byrne
Daily Mirror
January 24, 2012

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/top-stories/2012/01/24/catholic-priest-used-status-to-abuse-boys-115875-23714634/

A priest exploited his "revered and trusted" status to sexually abuse young boys, a court was told yesterday.

Alexander Bede Walsh, 58, allegedly attacked eight victims from 1975 to 1994.

Prosecutors claim he gave one of them a strong ­alcoholic cocktail, saying it was the "blood of Christ", before abusing him.

His position within the Catholic church "allowed him to have access to boys, to groom them and manipulate them before abusing them," prosecutor Robert Price told Stoke-on-Trent crown court.

Some of the boys looked up to him as their "route to God", the jury was told.

Walsh, of Abbots Bromley, Staffs, denies 27 offences of indecency and serious sexual assault while working in schools and parishes in the West Midlands and Staffordshire. The trial continues