METRO FREE Thursday, December 17, 2009 HELP METRO HELP THE ENVIRONMENT. RECYCLE THIS NEWSPAPER TODAY INSIDE TODAY Competition: Page 14 PLUS Whats on TV tonight Pages 16-17 Win! Win! Win! Tickets to see Rufus in Dublin Interview: Page 16 Garp author John Irving talks to Metro Monster: Fr Thomas Naughton, left, is led from court after being sentenced Picture: Joe Keogh Abuser priest is jailed againbY jOANNE AHERN Bishop expected to resign after paedophile priest convicted BISHOP of Limerick Donal Murray is ex- pected to resign today over the damning Murphy report, which found he badly mis- handled information given to him that a priest was abusing children. The Vatican is expected to issue a state- ment this morning about the future of Bishop Murray, who has been in Rome for the past week. The news comes as paedophile priest Fr Thomas Naughton was jailed for three years for sexually assaulting an altar boy. Fr Naughton appeared before Judge Michael OShea at Wicklow Circuit Crim- inal Court yesterday where he admitted five charges of sexual assault committed between 1982 and 1984 when he was a priest in Blessington. Judge OShea suspended the last year of the 78-year-olds sen- tence. The recent State- backed report on the Dublin Diocese found more than 20 named people had made com- plaints against Fr Naughton. The investigation also criticised Donal Murray for his failure to deal with allega- tions about Fr Naughton when he was working in Dublin, which was deemed in- excusable. During sentencing, Judge OShea said the abuse had a catastrophic impact on the vic- tims life. He said the offences, which be- gan when the victim was six, were at the higher end of the scale and described them as shocking and horrific abuse. In a statement, the victim said he was abused about 70 times by the priest and had twice attempted suicide. He said he was sexually confused and he did not believe he would ever settle down with a girl. He is extremely paranoid, is having treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder and has a sex addiction, which he blames on the abuse. In 1998, Fr Naughton was jailed for abus- ing altar boys in Donnycarney and Ring- send, and spent two-and-a-half years in jail. He has since lived under the supervision of the Kiltegan Fathers in Co Wicklow. Following the priests sentencing,Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin said: Tom Naughton was an abus- er who damaged the lives of many innocent young people. I hope those involved... will find some solace and justice in his having to serve a jail sentence for his crimes. The Murphy commission said Fr Naugh- tons case was symptomatic of the Dublin Archdioceses attitude to child sexual abuse in the 1980s. Systematic, shocking and horrific abuse index.html2.html3.html4.html5.html6.html7.html8.html9.html10.html11.html12.html13.html14.html15.html16.html17.html18.html19.html20.html21.html22.html23.html24.html25.html26.html27.html