Sex Abusing Priest to Walk Free This Weekend Despite Getting 18-month Jail Term

By Declan Brennan
Irish Independent
March 22, 2013

http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/courts/sex-abusing-priest-to-walk-free-this-weekend-despite-getting-18month-jail-term-29148342.html

Victim: James Moran (50) said that McCabe's sexual assault had blighted his life

A FORMER priest whose abuse of children in the 1970s and 1980s was featured in the Murphy Report will walk free this weekend despite receiving an 18 month jail term.

Patrick McCabe (77), formerly of Alameda, California was extradited here in June 2011 and has spent the last 21 months in custody awaiting sentence.

Waiving his right to anonymity, one of his victims James Moran (50) said that McCabe's sexual assault had blighted his life. Mr Moran said he went from being a happy child to contemplating suicide at 18.

McCabe pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to indecent assault of Mr Moran at a Co Kildare school between January and April 1977.

He also pleaded guilty to indecent assault of another boy, who cannot be named, at two locations in Dublin between January and September 1979. Both victims were 13 years old when McCabe molested them.

David Keane SC, defending, said that he had being instructed by McCabe to offer a “sincere apology to the two victims for the pain and hurt he has caused”. He said his client also asked for their forgiveness.

Judge Margaret Heneghan said that both victims had described how the abuse at the hands of McCabe has left them “tortured, tormented and haunted”.

Inspector Jim Doyle told Cormac Quinn BL, prosecuting, that he travelled to California in 2006 to interview the priest about the abuse.

McCabe told him he visited Mr Moran at his boarding school after seeing a photograph of the boy at his parent's home. The then laicised priest said: “He met all the requirements to match my fetish. He was handsome and had a nice shirt and tie. I embraced him and fondled him.”

The second victim was abused at the parochial house after McCabe had offered to show him the crypts of the Pro-Cathedral in Dublin city centre. McCabe was dressed and had an erection when he started kissing the boy and lay on top of the boy with all his weight.

On another occasion the ex-priest abused the boy after they had prayed together at an altar he had in his home. He gave the boy a present of rosary beads after the abuse.