A SURVIVOR of clerical sex abuse has demanded that the Irish Government acts to end his 37-year campaign for justice by publishing the final censored chapter of the Murphy Report.
Cheshire-based James Moran, 50, says his life has been a constant struggle since priest Patrick McCabe abused him as a schoolboy.
McCabe, 77, walked free last month despite being sentenced to 18 months in jail for offences committed in the late 1970s, including the indecent assault of Mr Moran in 1977.
The disgraced priest, who had spent 21 months in custody before the trial, had his sentence backdated by the judge.
Waving his right to anonymity, Mr Moran said Justice Minister Alan Shatter must now publish chapter 20 of the Murphy Report, which details McCabe’s offences.
The chapter has remained heavily redacted following a High Court order that its full publication could compromise McCabe’s trial.
“I was under the impression that after the sentencing it would be a matter of course that the redacted chapter and indeed the Murphy Report in its entirety would be released,” Mr Moran said. “I then found out a couple of days later that it would be June and I was quite shocked by that.”
The Kildare man, who has lived in Britain for 30 years, added that he only put himself through the difficult process of testifying in the trial because he thought Chapter 20 would be published within a week of the sentencing.
“I feel like I have waited long enough,” Mr Moran said. “I am trying to find this thing called closure and I do not want to run the risk of having the release of Chapter 20 delayed again or it not being released for some legal reason.”
Without full publication, Mr Moran worries he will not be able to find out why complaints he made in 1977 and 1987 to the Archbishop’s office and gardaí were ignored. “My statements were only discovered by the gardaí in early 2003,” he added. “That leads me to believe my case was not investigated properly or was stifled in some way.”
Judge Yvonne Murphy, who authored the report, said McCabe’s case “encapsulates everything that was wrong” with the Dublin diocese’s handling of child sexual abuse cases. “The connivance by the gardaí in effectively stifling one complaint and failing to investigate another, and in allowing (McCabe) to leave the country is shocking,” she added.
A spokesperson for the Department of Justice confirmed that proceedings relating to the full publication of Chapter 20 of the Murphy Report have been adjourned until June 11.
She added that the Minister “is anxious to see the chapter in question published as quickly as possible”.
