The 4 newspaper articles, below, are from the Todmorden News. They are also available on microfilm at the public library in Todmorden. The Todmorden News archives online do not yet stretch back to 1998. (See http://www.todmordennews.co.uk/ ) The transcripts below were supplied by the librarian of the parent newspaper, the Halifax Courier (See
http://www.halifaxcourier.co.uk/ ) via e-mail.
27 March 97
PRIEST FACES OFFENCE CHARGES
Community stunned by arrest
By Amy Binns
THE PRIEST of St Joseph's RC Church has been charged with serious sexual offences against a boy under 14. Father Thomas Doherty, 50, was also charged with inciting a boy to commit an act of gross indecency. Father Doherty appeared before Calder Magistrates last Saturday. He was arrested by police officers at the priory in St Joseph's church grounds after his return from a holiday in Lanzarote on Friday afternoon.
He was remanded in custody by magistrate Angela Viney until last Tuesday, but has now been released on conditional bail until May 6. The conditions are that he lives at the Roman Catholic centre, Our Lady of Victory Trust in Stroud, and that he surrenders his passport and keeps out of Calderdale.
He also must not contact prosecution witnesses or have any unsupervised contact with children. A stunned St Joseph's church congregation were told of Father Doherty's arrest in a statement read out at early morning mass on Sunday by Father Bernard Wilson, a spokesman for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Salford. "Allegations of improper behaviour have been made against Reverend Thomas Doherty," he said. "The matter is being investigated by the police. The diocesan officials are co-operating with the inquiries being made by the authorities. "It would be unfair and inappropriate to make any further comment while the investigations are proceeding. "In the meantime he has been relieved of all pastoral responsibilities."
The announcement left parishioners shocked and saddened. They were encouraged to ring a Catholic family support helpline if they wanted help or advice. A spokesman for the Diocese said they may also install another priest temporarily to help him.
Father Doherty became the parish priest for Todmorden in 1991, having also worked in Bolton, Manchester and Stockport, where he was chaplain of St John Vianney's Special Needs School. Originally from Rochdale, he celebrated his silver jubilee as a priest two years ago. He was also chair of the governors at St Joseph's Roman Catholic Junior and Infants School.
Todmorden CID are continuing to investigate the matter, and have appealed for anybody with any information to contact DC Steve Holderness or DC Anne Gee on Todmorden 01706 815002.
PRIEST IS JAILED FOR SEX OFFENCES
By Amy Binns
20 Feb 1998 P1
Guilty: Father Thomas Doherty
A ROMAN Catholic priest was yesterday beginning a six year jail sentence after being found guilty on five counts of committing serious offences of indecency against a boy under 16.
Father Thomas Doherty, 51, formerly of St Joseph's Church Priory, Todmorden, had denied all charges of sexually assaulting the boy, aged 14 and 15 at the time of the offences, but was found guilty by a jury at Leeds Crown Court. In sentencing him to six years imprisonment, the Honourable Mrs Justice Steel said the sentence took into account the devastating effect conviction would have on Doherty's life. But she said the offences constituted a "massive
breach of trust" and the case had been "sad and sordid".
"It is clear from the evidence that you groomed him for your own sexual purposes," she told Doherty. The parents of the boy, who cannot be named for legal reasons, said they wished to thank prosecuting barrister Mr Neil Davey and his Crown Prosecution Service team. They also gave special thanks to the professionalism and support offered throughout by police officers DC Ann Gee and DC Steve Holderness and Mr Richard O'Brien, of the Leeds Diocese Catholic
Care organisation. Family and friends had also given a lot of love and support, they said.
Speaking after the case, DC Gee said police were pleased with the result but disappointed Doherty had not taken the opportunity to admit the offences at an earlier stage, adding to the victim's trauma. DC Holderness said police had been confident of a guilty verdict. "I have never worked on a case where the result has been such a foregone conclusion," he said. The officers urged anyone reading the report of the trial who could identify with anything that had
happened to contact the police, where they would receive a sympathetic hearing.
At the start of the trial Mr Davey, prosecuting, had said Doherty succeeded in seducing the boy by a combination of charm, flattery and gifts. A grooming process began where the boy became more and more used to sexual activity with the defendant. In court, the boy described pornographic videos he had watched with Doherty at the Priory.The priest spent around £6,000 on the boy, buying him gifts, cigarettes, and taking him on foreign holidays.
In court on Wednesday, Doherty admitted taking and posing for obscene photographs while on holiday in Brittany with the boy, who cannot be named for legal reasons. But he claimed there had been no sexual relationship between them. He cannot be prosecuted for taking indecent photographs while in France. He was arrested in March 1997 after indecent photographs of he
and the boy were found by a locum priest, Father Peter Hickford, while he was staying at the Priory just before Christmas 1996. As Doherty was then in hospital church officials did nothing until March 1997, when Doherty was on holiday in Lanzarote. They informed police who searched the priory, seizing letters, a computer and computer disks and indecent photographs, and arrested him on his return.
A 'seduction at the Priory', Page 6
A 'SEDUCTION AT THE PRIORY'
By Amy Binns at Leeds Crown Court
20 Feb 1998 P6
THE seduction of a 14-year-old boy began at the Priory of St Joseph's Church when Father Thomas Doherty asked the child to look after him. Just before Christmas 1992, Father Doherty, while drunk, invited the 14-year-old boy to the priory and said he had a drink problem and was homosexual. Father Doherty persuaded the boy, who cannot be named for legal reasons, to stay at the Priory and sleep naked with him in his bed. "He was taking care not to frighten him
off," said Mr Neil Davey, prosecuting. "The process began of getting him used to the idea of what was to come in the weeks and months ahead."
The boy told the court: "I felt guilty but I did not know what to do. I did not think it was right and Father Doherty said it was natural for me to be confused. He said `This our little secret'." The following summer Father Doherty took him on holiday to France and Switzerland and in September 1994, when the boy was 15, took him to Brittany. After visiting the cathedral at
Quimpere they went to a sex shop where Father Doherty bought pornographic videos and magazines and sex aids.
Giving evidence, Father Doherty admitted that he had loved the boy and felt sexually attracted to him but had never tried to make the fantasy reality. But in Brittany he and the boy had talked frankly about their sexuality and he had bought the magazines, freely available in France, on impulse. "I thought he might be old enough," Father Doherty told the court. "We looked at them and one of them had advertisements for vibrators and he seemed to be excited." He said
he then bought the vibrator for the boy to experiment with but became confused under cross-examination and could not remember why he had bought two. Father Doherty insisted there had been no contact between them but said the boy had wanted to pose for photographs and later, to keep things equal, the priest offered to pose himself. "It was a bad mistake," he said. "It was morally wrong and I justified it by some strange thinking that it was legal in France, which
it was. "I most certainly did not say `this is our little secret'. I don't speak in cliches like that normally."
Mr Roger Farley QC, defending, said the boy was an exhibitionist, thief and liar who had, in the past made a false allegation of physical assault against his father after he had punished him. The boy had been cautioned by police for making sexual signals and whistling at a man in the street in May 1995 and had had sex with a stranger while on holiday with Father Doherty in Corsica later that year. He admitted keeping sponsors' money intended for the church organ fund after walking the Boundary Walk and later stealing about £20 from the church collection boxes. Another £150 was later found missing, which the boy denied taking, and the priest wrote to his father about it, provoking an indignant letter from the boy himself. "You were extremely annoyed, upset and angry," said Mr Farley QC to the boy. "When the police came round you took the opportunity of exacting your revenge on him. You made false allegations in the
same way you made false allegations against your father."
A locum priest later discovered the indecent photographs in Father Doherty's bedside cupboard and informed the authorities. In the priory, police found letters, cards and documents on computer disk written over three years which were read out in court. Some of his letters to the boy covered 25 pages and included references to bestiality and biblical quotes alongside erotic and explicit pictures. He quoted the first book of Samuel, saying: "Your love for me is wonderful, surpassing the love of women." Father Doherty also sent the boy a book he had written titled "Sex Log", a history of his own sex life, telling the boy it would let him know more about him. "This is part of my prayer for thanking God for the wonderful gift of making me gay," he wrote. "It's my prayer that I use my sexuality to his greater glory." He had a portrait painted of the
boy which he hung in his bedroom.
In court, the boy said Father Doherty had given him pornographic videos and magazines, drinks, money, around 100 cigarettes a week, and many other gifts. When the boy refused to see him any more Father Doherty wrote saying he had given him presents "in cash and kind amounting to about £6,000". He wrote he had always been honest with the boy, adding: "I use white lies sometimes with other people, I'm not a saint. I do not want to lose a friend who is so special to me."
INVESTIGATION CALL
By Amy Binns
27 Feb 1998 P1
PRIESTS saw Father Doherty's obscene photographs of a young boy months before telling the police. Father Thomas Doherty, of St Joseph's Church, Todmorden, was sentenced to six years imprisonment last week for sexually abusing a boy while he was aged 14 and 15. Three months passed before police were informed after the alarm was raised by Father Peter Hickford, a locum priest helping out at St Joseph's while Father Doherty was undergoing cancer surgery, in late December 1996.
There is a strong feeling amongst the Catholic community that many questions remain ananswered and that an investigation is needed. Father Hickford found the photographs of a young boy, which are too obscene to be in this newspaper, in Father Doherty's bedside cabinet while looking for clothes to take to him in hospital. He immediately went to his superior, Dean Leo Heakin of St John the Baptist Church, Burnley, and told him of the pictures. But Dean Heakin did nothing. Father Doherty left hospital at the end of December, made a good recovery and in March went on holiday with a man to Lanzarote. Concerned at this lack of action, Father Hickford then told four senior parishoners about his discovery and asked two of them to go with him to meet the acting head of the Salford Diocese, Monsignor Michael Quinlan.
The police were informed the same day, searched the priory and arrested Doherty when he returned from holiday. Father Michael Walsh, press officer for the Salford Diocese, this week insisted that the church authorities had informed police as soon as they knew about the pictures. In a statement, Father Walsh said the Dean Heakin did not study the photographs in any great depth and was not sure when they had been taken."It was not clear to the Dean that the
pictures depicted criminal activity but he did realise that they were inconsistent with the status of a priest. "He intended to challenge Father Doherty with this evidence when he was sufficiently recovered from the trauma of his recent cancer surgery," he said.
Dean Leo Heakin himself refused to speak to the Todmorden News this week. The new bishop of the Salford Diocese, Bishop Terence Brain, said he hoped those who had suffered distress can be enabled to grow and that harm could be made good now the court case is over. "As far as I am Bishop am concerned every effort will be made to protect both children in the future and all other people who are hurt and offended by these offences." He said Father Doherty would not
be allowed to give public ministry in the future. "The involvement of a priest or other church worker in even one case is obviously one case too many," said Bishop Brain. "The Church will continue to co-operate with the statutory authorities to protect young, vulnerable people."
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