Category Archives: Clergymen

Joseph Quigley – Staffs

29 Friday Jan 2021

Posted by in Clergymen, Staffordshire

≈ Comments Off on Joseph Quigley – Staffs

January 2021

Ex-priest Joseph Quigley jailed for child sex offences

A former priest who subjected a teenage boy to “depraved” sex offences has been jailed for 11 years and six months.

Joseph Quigley, 56, had denied engaging in sexual activity with a child, sexual assault, child cruelty, and false imprisonment, but was convicted of multiple counts in December.

The offences were between 2006 and 2009 when the victim was aged between 14 and 16, Warwickshire Police said.

Quigley “abused the trust” of the boy who was said to respect him.

At the time of the offences, police said, Quigley was working as a priest at a church in Warwickshire and as a private tutor.

At Warwick Crown Court he was convicted of four counts of engaging in sexual activity with a child, two counts of sexual assault, one count of child cruelty and two counts of false imprisonment.

Quigley, from Staffordshire, was sentenced at the same court on Friday where he was also ordered to sign the sex offenders’ register for life.

Stephen Hardwicke – Harrow

16 Saturday Jan 2021

Posted by in Clergymen, London

≈ Comments Off on Stephen Hardwicke – Harrow

January 2021

Priest, 63, who sexually abused boys as young as 10 into sex acts is jailed for five years

A former priest who sexually abused three boys as young as 10 on church youth club trips in the 1970s and 80s has been jailed for five years. 

Stephen Hardwicke, 63, tricked boys aged between 10 and 15 to perform sex acts by using a card game, Harrow Crown Court heard.

The abuse took place when Hardwicke was a leader and helped at the Way In church youth group, which was connected to Stanmore Baptist Church in Harrow, London. 

A court heard how some of the abuse happened on overnight trips to Wales or Hertfordshire.

The abuse happened before Hardwicke became a priest at St Laurence Cowley Church in Uxbridge – he was suspended once a police investigation was opened. 

Last November Hardwicke was found guilty on five counts of historic indecent assault, following a nine day trial.

In one incident a victim was made to take part in sexual activity as part of a card game, prosecutors said.

Hardwicke carried out the abuse by taking ‘special interest’ in his victims and made them feel as if they had nowhere else to turn, according to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS).

Police said Hardwicke took advantage of his young victims’ vulnerability by sexually abusing them on numerous occasions.

The initial allegation of abuse was reported to police in October 2015 and further investigations led officers to find another victim in 2017. Hardwicke was arrested and charged in June 2018

Peter Turner – Workington

01 Tuesday Dec 2020

Posted by in Childrens homes/Boarding schools, Clergymen, Cumbria, N Yorks/Cleveland/Middlesborough

≈ Comments Off on Peter Turner – Workington

February 2020

Former monk who abused boys at Ampleforth College is jailed for 20 years

A former monk at a Catholic boarding school who continued to abuse young boys after confessing to having sexual contact with a pupil has been jailed for more than 20 years.

Peter Turner, 80, sexually abused two boys after he was forced to leave Ampleforth College, in North Yorkshire, and sent away to work in a parish in Workington, Cumbria.

He was sentenced to 20 years 10 months at York Crown Court on Wednesday after admitting to a string of sexual offences committed more than 30 years ago against three boys aged between nine and 12.

Turner, who was previously known as Father Gregory Carroll, pleaded guilty on Tuesday to 11 counts of indecent assault, two counts of buggery and one count of gross indecency with a child.

He served another jail sentence in 2005 after he admitted offences against 10 pupils at Ampleforth between 1979 and 1987.

Judge Sean Morris, the Recorder of York, said: “You have brought evil into this world when, by your calling, you should have brought hope, help and succour.”

Pauline McCullagh from the CPS said: “Turner committed a truly sickening breach of trust, sexually abusing young boys who innocently placed their trust in him as a monk and priest.

“He blighted their childhoods, in pursuit of his own depraved sexual gratification.  His victims have shown tremendous strength and bravery in coming forward and supporting the investigation and prosecution. Thanks to them, the true scale of his criminality is becoming clear.

“Our thoughts remain with them as they have been throughout.”

January 2006

Sex abuse priest’s jail term cut by a year

A priest jailed for sexually abusing young boys at Ampleforth College has had his four-year prison sentence reduced by 12 months.

Three judges at the Court of Appeal in London allowed an appeal against sentence by 66-year-old Father Gregory Carroll, ruling that the term originally imposed was “manifestly excessive”.

September 2005

A Catholic priest who taught at the prestigious Ampleforth public school in North Yorkshire has been jailed for four years for sexually abusing boys.

Gregory Carroll, 66, abused 10 youngsters over an eight-year period at the school in the early 1990s.

Jailing Carroll Judge Paul Hoffman said the offences were part of a grooming process involving the young pupils.

York Crown Court heard Carroll, who pleaded guilty to 14 indecent assaults, was revolted by what he had done.

The priest confessed to the headteacher at Ampleforth that he had sexual contact with a boy in 1987. He was suspended and moved to a parish in Cumbria.

But 12 years later he returned to the school and admitted his abuse had been more widespread.

The court heard the school called in psychologist Dr Elizabeth Mann to carry out a risk assessment, but it was never completed because papers held by the abbey about Carroll’s history of sexual abuse were withheld from Dr Mann.

Judge Hoffman told Carroll it was perhaps ironic that the refusal to hand over papers in order to protect him had resulted in Dr Mann referring the case to the authorities.

‘Weird experience’

Prosecutor Jeremy Goss QC said some of the victims had been left distressed and confused by what had happened to them.

One had been chased around a room by Carroll after being abused and described it as “a weird experience”.

Defending, Nicola Gatto said Carroll did not have his first sexual experience until the age of 34. He was, she said, “naive and unworldly”.

“He has expressed his revulsion towards his behaviour and has described it as grotesque,” she said.

Judge Hoffman ordered Carroll to sign the sex offenders’ register on his release and banned him from working with children for life.

After the sentencing Father Cuthbert Madden, Abbot of Ampleforth, apologised to the victims.

He said: “Father Gregory has been reflecting on the offences he has admitted.

“While they took place more than 20 years ago, he regrets deeply the hurt he caused to the young men involved and to their families.

“His fall from the high standards expected of a man committed to a life of service to God is in no way diminished by the interval of two or three decades.

“As a community we continue to pray for and to care for our brother but our first concerns now are for the victims of his abuse of trust, who were boys in our care at the time.

Koji Takeuchi – Brighton/Newark

04 Wednesday Nov 2020

Posted by in Clergymen, Nottinghamshire, Sussex

≈ Comments Off on Koji Takeuchi – Brighton/Newark

November 2020

Buddhist monk sentenced for sex offences in Brighton

A Buddhist meditation master whose garden was visited by 10,000 every year was today jailed for six years after admitting to sexually abusing a three-year-old girl at her home more than four decades ago. 

Koji Takeuchi, 80, who featured in an episode of Alan Titchmarsh’s 2015 TV series Britain’s Best Back Gardens, went over to the girl’s house for meditation sessions with her parents and told them he would look after her so they could sleep in.  

Takeuchi – who gives his name as Buddha Maitreya – told the three-year-old girl, ‘I’m your boyfriend and you’re my girlfriend’ as he subjected her to ‘rough, forceful, firm and insistent’ abuse between 1975 and 1981. 

Lewes Crown Court in Hove heard he was a regular visitor to the family home in Brighton when he was a monk. He was invited to host mediation sessions for Buddhists in the home.

In exchange for letting him stay overnight in the house, he would look after the girl the next morning to let her parents sleep in, the court heard.

Gabby Henty for the prosecution told the court: ‘When she was very little, aged 3, her parents created a relationship with the defendant.

‘He used to come to their house for mediation sessions. He was a monk and this was a significant event. Community posters were put up to ask people to come and take part.’

Takeuchi, 80, started abusing the girl from the first occasion he was alone with her.

‘He would say to her I’m your boyfriend and you’re my girlfriend, this is a secret between us,’ Mrs Henty said,

‘She thought he was rough, forceful, firm and insistent.’

The girl told her mother who confronted the monk.

‘He acknowledged that he touched her and loved her but not that it was abusive,’ Mrs Henty said.

In a harrowing impact statement, his victim said her life had been ruined by the abuse.

‘I had been taken advantage of and groomed by this man at my most vulnerable. I reached out to adults but there had never been any action.

‘He was a trusted adult, respected and powerful. I have always thought I wasn’t believed. What Buddha Maitreya has done has destroyed me.

‘I was a little girl at home. I should have been safe with my parents. He took advantage of that and of me.

‘I could have had a whole different life if someone had looked out for me, if someone had saved me, if Buddha Maitreya had never abused me. He took away my childhood and I will never get that back.’

His Honour Judge Jeremy Gold QC told the ex-monk his offences were aggravated by his position of trust, invited into the family home to perform Buddhist ceremonies.

‘You took advantage of that situation to abuse a young child and it has had an effect on her life for the years that followed.’

Takeuchi, who uses Buddha Maitreya as his professional name, was given two consecutive three year sentences with an additional one year extended licence for each.

HHJ Gold said: ‘This makes an overall sentence of six years custody and two years extended custody, expressed at eight years.’

The judge also imposed an indefinite Sexual Harm Protection Order meaning the monk will be a registered sex offender barred from working with vulnerable adults or children for life.

The religious leader ran facilities in Nottinghamshire and India.

Maitreya is originally from Handa, near Nagoya, in Japan. The meditation master previously lived as a Zen monk and describes himself as enlightened.

He claims to have followers all over the world and uses his website to raise funds for two project in India.

The former monk sees 10,000 visitors a year at his Japanese garden in Nottinghamshire which has been closed during lockdown.

The garden was featured in an episode of Alan Titchmarsh’s 2015 TV series Britain’s Best Back Gardens.

He BBC News and Sky News Covid-19 is a grave warning for the future of mankind.

Buddha Maitreya, from North Clifton, Nottinghamshire, has told his followers: ‘We have to change the way we live now on this planet.’

The former Buddhist monk has also appeared in several national newspapers.

John Murphy – Bolton

28 Tuesday Jul 2020

Posted by in Clergymen, Greater Manchester

≈ Comments Off on John Murphy – Bolton

July 2020

Paedophile Bolton priest, 96, jailed for abusing boys

A Bolton priest has been jailed for sexually abusing six boys more than 30 years ago.

All but one of 96-year-old former priest Father John Kevin Murphy’s victims came forward to police after seeing media reports about him being imprisoned in 2017 for molesting other boys.

“The picture that emerges from the two cases is that for some 27 years the defendant was a predatory paedophile who used his position as a Catholic priest to groom and subsequently abuse at least ten children,” said Arthur Gibson, prosecuting, at Liverpool Crown Court.

The court heard how Murphy, of Hillside Crescent, Horwich, had been ordained as a priest in 1962 and served in a number of parishes in the Merseyside, Lancashire and Greater Manchester until he retired.

The six victims, who were aged between eight and 16 at the times of the offences, were molested while he took them on swimming lessons and also while visiting the homes of their devout Catholic parents.

Some felt unable to speak out because they knew it would devastate their parents and one, who broke down while reading his impact statement, told the judge how he has a deep-seated anger towards his parents because “their devotion to their religion blinded them in the face of a monster using his job as a priest to abuse me and other children.”

Frail white-haired Murphy, who sat in the dock wearing a face mask and with his head bowed throughout the hour and a half long hearing, was jailed for five years.

He had pleaded guilty to 32 offences involving indecent assault and indecency.

Judge Anil Murray, who had jailed him for three years in December 2017 for the previous offences, told the defendant today, “Your offending has had a devastating impact on your victims for decades and they are still really seriously affected by what you did.”

He said examples of this included loss of confidence, nightmares, loss of faith in the Catholic church and feelings of shame. “It is no exaggeration to say you ruined many lives.”

The judge said, “You were a priest at the time and you used your position of standing in society to commit these offences and cover them up…. Because of your position in the church you were greatly trusted and respected, possibly revered, and you abused that trust.”

He said that Murphy claimed in his pre-sentence report not being able to recall committing the offences or having an attraction to males.

“You say you have no memory of these offences. I’m afraid I cannot accept that especially in the light of the evidence of a psychologist who said you do not present with any significant neurological impairment.

“I cannot therefore accept your expression of remorse as genuine.”

He added, “You were effectively living a lie and using your good character and standing in society to commit these offences and got away with it for so long.”

Murphy, who formerly served in the Army and RAF, was given an extended licence for 12 months and ordered to sign the Sex Offenders Register for life.

Mr Gibson had told the court that one of the victims involved in the earlier case appeared on television after Murphy was jailed and the interview and newspaper reports were seen by the others who then came forward. By coincidence the sixth victim, who had “wrestled with the effect of the abuse throughout his life” had also decided to speak to the police.

The abuse of the victims, some of them altar boys, occurred at swimming baths in Liverpool and Leigh, on camping trips and at the homes of the victims in Liverpool, Whiston and Ashton-in-Makerfield.

One told how he had been horrified when years later Murphy helped at his mother’s funeral mass and he consequently felt unable to visit her grave for ten years.