Exclusive Father Flash Groomed Me for Six Times a Night Sex Then Betrayed Me
By Janice Burns
Glasgow Daily Record [Scotland]
March 6, 2006
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SEX SHAME priest Roddy MacNeil kisses his young lover on a sunshine holiday - just days before she found out he was a love rat.
Student Jennifer Gilbert, 22, said MacNeil had groomed her for sex since she was a teenager and bedded her when she was 21.
And she revealed MacNeil, 46, was an insatiable "sexual athlete", who made love to her at least SIX times a night.
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Jennifer fell for MacNeil, nicknamed Father Flash, after he told her he was a virgin.
But she dumped him after the Record revealed he had an affair with his cousin Hilda Robertson and got her pregnant.
RANDY priest Father Flash was a six-times-a-night sexual athlete who seduced his conquests with lobster and champagne.
His latest love Jennifer Gilbert, 22 - who is half his age - told how he turned her head with luxury holidays and romantic picnics on the beach.
And she claimed he even vowed to give up the priesthood for her.
Jennifer also said the priest asked her to marry him and have six children.
The couple even exchanged his-and-hers white gold wedding rings worth ?450.
Now Jennifer says the priest simply used and abused her - and nearly destroyed her family in the process.
She believes Roddy MacNeil, 46, hatched a plan to steal her away from her parents after using his vocation to worm his way into their lives.
Jennifer dumped MacNeil after finding out he had no intention of leaving the priesthood for her and had a string of lovers.
She was devastated when told MacNeil was the father of his cousin Hilda Robertson's unborn child.
The young student has now dropped out of her final year of a BA Honours in international business and modern languages at Strathclyde University.
And she believes the stress of finding out about the affair contributed to her dad Stephen's death at the age of 52, just 13 weeks ago.
Since Jennifer ended her affair with MacNeil, he has bombarded her with 50 text messages a day in a bid to win her back.
But last night Jennifer, of Rouken Glen, Glasgow, begged: "Please leave me alone. I don't want anything more to do with you.
"You have used and abused me. You have left me feeling cheap and dirty. I thought we were in love but it was all a lie.
"You have betrayed me and my family and torn our lives apart. It is unforgivable."
It is all a far cry from the man of the cloth who befriended Jennifer's family when she was an eight-year-old girl.
MacNeil became friends with her mum Evelyn and dad Stephen 14 years ago after they met on a pilgrimage to Lourdes.
Jennifer and her mum spent three summer holidays in a row at MacNeil's church house on the Hebridean island of South Uist, where he was priest of St Michael's.
In summer 1999, MacNeil went with them on a family holiday to Spain.
MacNeil began emailing Jennifer just after her 17th birthday and she confided in him about boys and drinking her first Bacardi Breezer.
On her 18th birthday, he sent her a bouquet of pink lilies with the message: "Happy birthday Jennifer. Love Roddy xxx."
Jennifer said by the time she was 19, they were in regular contact by phone or email and he texted her daily while on holiday in Italy.
In Easter 2004, MacNeil phoned on his way home from a pilgrimage to Lourdes to invite himself for dinner.
MacNeil, who is fluent in Spanish, spent almost the entire night helping Jennifer with her language studies.
Then on her 21st birthday the next month, MacNeil gave her a silver pen and asked if he could go with her to a nightclub - though she said no.
MacNeil stayed the night at the family home and made Jennifer breakfast.
But he didn't make his move until she had left home in August of that year to spend a year studying in Rome.
He began calling the family home asking about Jennifer and her mum told him she was heartbroken that her only chi ld was alone and homesick in a strange country.
MacNeil called her regularly, then flew to Rome to spend a week with Jennifer in her flat last April.
On the second night, he took her to a posh restaurant in up market Via Veneto and treated her to a ?200 meal washed down with champagne cocktails, white wine and Sambuca.
Kitted out in a designer lime green jacket, he took her clubbing and continued to down cocktails until 3am.
When they got home, MacNeil made his move and pulled her on to the couch for their first lingering kiss. Jennifer said: "After he kissed me, I pushed him away and told him it wasn't right. I went to bed and nothing else happened.
"The next day, I was so embarrassed. It was only a kiss but he was our family priest.
"I was sick with guilt and could hardly look at him or bring myself to speak to him. I told him how I felt and that it should never have happened but he said, 'It felt really right tome.' "
She later agreed to an invitation to join him in Barra when she returned from Rome in June last year - and he persisted in his advances.
She said: "I spent four days with him at the church house in Barra and on the first night he came into my room and asked me into his bed.
"I went with him but we just cuddled - he tried other things but I turned him down."
On the second day, they shared a romantic beach picnic with lobster, crab, champagne and red wine.
Jennifer said: "Again, we just cuddled - but on my last night he drove us to a field in his 4x4 and we hiked up a mountain.
"We were standing on the mountain top, looking at the water and the lights in the distance and he turned round and said he loved me. I started laughing and said, 'How on Earth do you know you love me?' He replied, 'I know how I feel,' and began kissing me."
Jennifer said the priest pushed her down on to the grass and tried to make love to her, but she recalled: "I was too nervous and pushed him away."
Jennifer added: "He said he had waited 45 years to make love to me. He told me I was an amazing person. He made me feel like I was the only woman on Earth.
"Roddy said he was a virgin and he had been saving himself for me. He said he had never felt this way with anyone and it was all new to him."
After Jennifer left, MacNeil kept calling her and they met at the Glasgow Hilton in September last year.
She said he booked a ?700 executive suite - where they enjoyed champagne and strawberries - and finally consummated their relationship.
She said: "I couldn't believe how highly sexed he was - we had sex at least six times that night.
"He would have carried on all day and all night and it was all unprotected sex. I knew it was stupid but he made me feel special. I wasn't sexually experienced at all but no one had ever treated me like that, like a queen."
Jennifer's parents finally learned of the affair four months ago and said it must stop. Jennifer called off the affair but he sweet-talked his way back in with promises of marriage and children.
By October, Jennifer was besotted. The couple even exchanged wedding bands and he vowed to quit the priesthood.
She said: "He proposed to me and told me in Gaelic, 'You are my north, my south, my east and my west. I love you.'"
In December, her father died of a heart attack. MacNeil went to the funeral and, according to Jennifer, told her mum he planned to wed her daughter.
Jennifer's mum reported MacNeil to the bishop and he was suspended.
Despite the anguish he had caused the Gilbert family, MacNeil told Jennifer that the best way to get over her dad's death was to go on holiday with him - and whisked her away for an all expenses paid trip to Madeira on January 16.
Again, he wined and dined her in expensive restaurants but the relationship turned sour when she found texts on his phone from other women.
She confronted him - but he told her that a lot of women loved him but not in a sexual way.
Jennifer said: "I realised then that I had made a fool of myself and I had hurt my family very badly. He was just stringing me along and, on that holiday, I found out that he had got his cousin pregnant.
"I felt sick to think that he was having an affair with me while making babies with someone else.
"He denied everything of course, even the baby, but I knew that everything he had told me was a lie.
"I will never trust another man again."
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