29 Feb 2012

Paedophile priest is sentenced to four years

As paedophile priest Daniel Curran is sentenced in Northern Ireland, one of his victims tells Carl Dinnen: ‘I am bringing the Devil’s disciple to justice.’

Daniel Curran can’t be sure how many boys he abused. He was drunk at the time. Having pleaded guilty, the former priest received a four year sentence in Downpatrick’s imposing court house for the abuse of two boys.

Curran admitted the charges although could not actually remember the offences.

Because I have been forced to live a secretive life, it’s time for him to be named and shamed. Abuse victim

The boys do. Now grown men they can’t be identified. But I spoke to one of them on condition of anonymity ahead of the sentencing. He says the abuse nearly ruined his life and that two people he knew committed suicide because of it: “He has ruined and torn apart people’s lives. But he’s not going to ruin me. I will see that man in court and he is not going to ruin me.”

Exciting

He tells me how Curran would bring groups of boys to his holiday cottage at the weekends. This was during the Troubles. The boys lived in Curran’s Falls Road parish at the epicentre of the violence.

Curran’s victim told Channel 4 News: “He would take three, four, five altar boys to his cottage which had no running water or electricity. There was this big open fire and paraffin lamps, so for a group of boys from Belfast it was quite exciting”.

Their parents were happy for them to get away. Once the abuse started the victim asked his mother if he could go to a youth club instead. She said ‘no’.

In order to get him out of Belfast, in order to protect her son, she unwittingly sent him away with a paedophile. The abuse continued for two years.

His victim remembers: “I was going around hoping someone would say to me, ‘Do you know what this man is doing?’ I used to find excuses not to go, youth club, homework, but you wouldn’t have said no to the priest.”

Devil’s disciple

The church eventually moved Curran out of his parish. Last week the judge asked if that was in order to cover up the abuse. “That is the suspicion,” answered the prosecutor.

It has taken a long time for the scale of Curran’s abuse to emerge. He was sent to England on a course by the Catholic church.

The course helped him address his drink problem and sexual issues but also advised him not to name more victims in order to protect their privacy.

Today will be the fourth time Curran has been sentenced. He has already served a seven year prison term for offences against nine children.

His victim says: “I am bringing the Devil’s disciple to justice. The truth is at last going to come forward. Because I have been forced to live a secretive life, it’s time for him to be named and shamed.”