A former priest whose abuse of children in the
1970s and 1980s was featured in the Murphy report will walk free this
weekend after an 18-month jail term was backdated by the judge.
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) (pictured) said 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 when McCabe molested
them.
David Keane SC, defending, said he had been
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 both victims had described how the abuse at the hands of McCabe has left them “tortured, tormented and haunted”.
Garda Insp Jim Doyle told Cormac Quinn,
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 parents’
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 was sexually
aroused 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.
McCabe was arrested in the US in August 2010
and extradited to Ireland in June 2011. Last October he was jailed for
18 months after he pleaded guilty to the indecent assault of five
schoolboys.
Judge Heneghan said the maximum possible
sentence for each offence was two years. She said she had to take into
account McCabe’s guilty plea, his admissions to gardaí, his remorse, his
age and his medical condition.
She said McCabe’s conduct was utterly abhorrent
and was an immense breach and abuse of trust but accepted a submission
from defence counsel that these offences lay at the lower end of the
scale. She said this was not a case where consecutive sentences were
appropriate.
The victim said his life had been blighted by
the abuse and the events around it. As an adult he was diagnosed with
post-traumatic stress disorder.
“I failed my Leaving Cert, failed all attempts
at relationships but most importantly, felt I had failed my family. I
have experienced every emotion associated with self-loathing,” Mr Moran
told the court.