Paedophile avoids jail term for latest offence

25 March 2015

NOTORIOUS paedophile Daniel John Curran has been spared prison after admitting abusing his youngest victim.

The former priest, from Newcastle, has already been jailed for 12-and-a-half years for abusing more than a dozen boys at his family’s holiday cottage in Tyrella.

He was back at Downpatrick Crown Court on Monday to be sentenced after admitting gross indecency and indecent assault of another boy in the cottage in the early 1990s.

Sixty four year-old Curran, of Bryansford Avenue, had originally told police he had no memory of the victim, who was between seven and nine when the abuse happened, but said he was surprised there was “one that young.”

In a pattern Downpatrick Court heard was typical for the former clergyman during his reign of abuse, Curran befriended the victims family as part of the “grooming” process.

He then invited the young boy to the holiday cottage with a group of older altar boys and abused him after alcohol was passed around. The abuse happened during the night, after the group had gone to sleep for the night.

The boy told his abuser he needed to use the bathroom to get away from him and said the priest touched his arm and told him he had been a “good boy.”

He said he then went outside into the cold rain where he cried before returning indoors. He was driven home by Curran the following day and admitted he never spoke of the abuse until he confided in his wife last year because the time “felt right.”

The victim, who is now in his 30s, told police he first became associated with Fr Curran when he came into his school and asked the primary three teacher for altar boy volunteers.

Once he became an altar boy, the priest took him on birdwatching trips and for barbecues to Castlewellan. He also took older boys, who no longer served on the altar, for overnight stays to his family’s holiday cottage in Tyrella.

The man recalled being flattered as a child to have been invited on one of these trips because he was being included with older children.

It was only when he arrived at the house that he discovered the boys all slept in a “massive bed” with Fr Curran, who provided the children with cider. The court heard the clergyman was an alcoholic at the time.

The court heard the victim was a private individual who did not want to name the other boys who stayed in the cottage with him because he did not want them to know what happened to him.

Due to his privacy, he had also declined the opportunity to have an victim impact report. Despite the absence of such a report, however, Judge Piers Grant said he believed the impact was “considerable.”

“It has taken him a very long long time to to adjust to what occurred, to be in a position to deal with it and to come forward,” he said.

“I am satisfied the effect was significant.”

Judge Grant said Curran, as a priest, had betrayed the trust of the child and his family.

“In this case it seems to have been between seven and nine, a very tender immature young age when people were likely to obey someone in authority, someone their parents would consider a good individual,” he said.

“It is almost inevitable they would be in a position of control, undoubtedly there was pre-planning and grooming.

“They were taken to a place where they felt safe, but they were in fact vulnerable. That was designed to lower their resistance and make them more vulnerable.”

Judge Grant explained the latest victim was assaulted towards the end of a “horrific catalogue” of offending carried out by Curran but said the court had to pay attention to prison sentences that had already been imposed for similar offending in the same period.

He said he also had to take into account the defendant’s age, the fact he no longer drinks and that he has not reoffended since 1995.

“The risk is low. Nothing has come to the attention of the authorities since 1995,” he said.

“He has sought to keep himself under control.”

Curran was sentenced to 18 months in prison suspended for three years.

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