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Victim speaks out after abusive priest sentenced

Joseph Quigley Child Abuse

Title: Victim speaks out after abusive priest sentenced
Author: Catherine Pepinster
Publisher: The Tablet
Date: 03FEB2021

The victim of a priest sentenced to serve more than a decade in jail for child sexual abuse has attacked the Archdiocese of Birmingham for trying to dissuade him from reporting the assaults to police.

Last week, Fr Joseph Quigley was jailed for 11 years and six months for sexually and physically abusing a young man. At one stage he locked him in the crypt of a church as a punishment for supposed wrongdoing.

The priest, who was once a national education adviser to the Catholic bishops, groomed the boy during tutoring sessions in his presbytery which eventually led to assaults, involving sexual touching. The judge described the priest as a sexual sadist. During the trial, Warwick Crown Court heard the abuse took place in the 2000s when Quigley was serving at a parish in Warwickshire within the Archdiocese of Birmingham. The victim eventually told his mother in 2009.

In an exclusive interview after Quigley was sentenced, the victim described how he and his mother approached the archdiocese and spoke to its then safeguarding officer, Jane Jones. Prior to this, the diocese had learnt of a previous assault by Quigley on another teenage boy and in 2008 had sent him for assessment in the UK and then to the US for treatment.

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