|
Pervert priest denies paying alleged victim £10,000 to keep quiet
By Mark Mcgivern
A PERVERT priest who has never faced a court has denied paying an alleged victim £10,000 to keep quiet. Father Paul Moore admits giving the man a cheque for £10,000 but insists it was a loan. He said: “It wasn’t hush money.” Ayrshire priest Moore, now 79, confessed to his bishop in the 1990s that he had abused children over several years. But prosecutors decided not to put him on trial. Instead, he was sent to a centre in Canada for priests with psychological problems, then allowed to retire to a house in Largs bought by the Catholic Church. BBC investigators confronted Moore over the cheque he gave the alleged victim, who has not been named. He said of the money: “I lent him that because I wasn’t using it. It was sitting aside and when I’m asked to help people that’s what I try to do. “Sure, it looks now – I realise that now, in these times – but it’s not that. It wasn’t hush money. “I mentioned it to him as, you know, in the Bible it says lend without hope of getting things back.” The BBC investigation was broadcast last night. Police said: “We can confirm that Police Scotland has received a report of historical sexual abuse and our inquiries are ongoing.” The Scottish Catholic Church did not comment. A former altar boy accused Moore in 1997 of sexually abusing him twice on visits to the beach in Ayrshire in the 1980s. The accuser, Paul Smith, said he was 11 at the time. He has never received a personal apology from the Church. Moore has also been accused of sexually assaulting a fellow priest. Father Patrick Lawson claimed Moore abused him when he was a young seminarian at his church, St Quivox in Prestwick, in 1996. He claimed the Church sacked him when he went public. Scotland’s senior Catholic cleric, Archbishop Philip Tartaglia, made a landmark public apology in August to victims of abuse by priests.
|
.
Any original material on these pages is copyright © BishopAccountability.org 2004. Reproduce freely with attribution.