Jail sentence is reduced for notorious paedophile

Jail sentence is reduced for notorious paedophile

16 January 2013

NOTORIOUS former paedophile priest, Daniel Curran, has had his sentence for sexually abusing young boys reduced by a year.

The Newcastle man was jailed for four years at Downpatrick Crown Court in February after admitted five charges of indecently assaulting two boys between 1989 and 1994.

At the Court of Appeal on Friday the Lord Chief Justice, Sir Declan Morgan, ruled that the sentence was "manifestly excessive".

Curran, who is serving his third prison sentence after first being jailed in 1995 for abusing young boys, is one of Northern Ireland's worst paedophile priests having attacked 13 boys over 17 years.

The pattern in which he abused those children was always the same. Curran was a priest at St. Paul's in West Belfast in the late 80s. He built a friendship with the parents of altar boys and then took them to his isolated cottage near Tyrella where he plied them with alcohol and sexually abused them.

He was first jailed for seven years in 1995 for abusing nine boys; the youngest was only eight years old.

He appealed his sentence last June and appeared via video link as the Lord Chief Justice delivered his judgement.

"By way of mitigation it was accepted that the appellant's plea was volunteered at the first available and reasonable opportunity," he said.

When arrested in 2011, Curran told detectives he had been a former alcoholic and at that time in his life, had been totally out of control.

The Court of Appeal was told Curran had given up alcohol and that there had been no concern about his behaviour towards children since his release from prison in 1998.

The Lord Chief Justice said, "It appears on each occasion the appellant has entered pleas of guilty at a stage which has prevented any concern that victims would have to give evidence and each judge has considered it appropriate to allow him full credit for those pleas.

"We have also dealt with the issue of remorse."

Concluding, he said he considered that the sentences imposed were "manifestly excessive". As a result Curran's current jail term was reduced from four years to three years.