Prison for Ex-pastor Whose Sex Abuse of Three Girls Covered up for 30 Years by Baptists

By Paul Higgins And Chris Kilpatrick
Belfast Telegraph
June 22, 2013

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/local-national/northern-ireland/prison-for-expastor-whose-sex-abuse-of-three-girls-covered-up-for-30-years-by-baptists-29364443.html

Paul Gardiner at Belfast Laganside Court

A former Baptist pastor and gospel singer has been jailed three decades after his abuse against three young girls was covered up by the Church.

Paul Gardiner was sentenced to 11 months and banned from working with children.

Jailing the 52-year-old at Belfast Crown Court, Judge Gordon Kerr QC told him his "historical sexual abuse" offences were aggravated by the fact there were three victims and that he had breached the trust placed in him when he had been a guest in their respective homes.

Judge Kerr also ordered the pervert to spend 10 years on the police sex offenders' register.

Prosecuting lawyer Rosemary Walsh had told an earlier court how the abuse happened on each occasion when Gardiner, who was in his late teens at the time, was staying overnight at the victims' houses, whom he knew through associations with Monkstown Baptist Church in Newtownabbey.

It was alleged in court that members of the Church were told of the abuse but decided to deal with it 'in-house' rather than inform the authorities.

Last April Gardiner, from Cusher Road in Markethill, pleaded guilty to a total of 13 counts of indecent assault he committed against the girls who were aged seven, nine and 14, on dates between January 1978 and March 1980.

The married father-of-four has in the past made recordings with top gospel singers and has also worked as a youth pastor.

Yesterday Judge Kerr told Gardiner that had he not pleaded guilty he would have jailed him for two years and nine months, but that he was taking into account the fact there had been no repeat offending in the intervening period. Ms Walsh said the first girl was abused over the course of about a year from when she was around seven and she had recounted that Gardiner would sneak into her bedroom and touch her inappropriately.

"She said that during the time he stayed these incidents happened on an almost nightly basis," the lawyer told the court.

In relation to Gardiner's second victim, her ordeal began when she was around nine years old, and similarly to the first victim, Gardiner crept into her bedroom and touched her inappropriately.

Ms Walsh said this victim could remember one occasion when, in an effort to escape the abuse, she had slept in with her brother when Gardiner came to stay, but that he came in and "asked her why she was in that room" before then proceeding to abuse her.

Gardiner used the same method on his third victim the court heard, sneaking into her bedroom where he touched her inappropriately. When they told their parents, the father of the first victim told her to "shout out" the next time it happened.

"Indeed, the next time he went to her room and touched her she did shout out and Mr Gardiner was caught coming out of the room naked, trying to pull his underpants up, and was confronted by her father who told him to leave the house," explained Ms Walsh.

Victims campaigner Michael Connolly criticised the Church's handling of the allegations against Gardiner.

"Those who have stood in the way of justice and those who have covered up the abuse of children have to be brought to book and made answerable for their actions," he said.