Priest defends decision to write reference for rapist

A CATHOLIC priest yesterday defended his decision to write a reference for a man who repeatedly raped a Polish woman in the grounds of a church.

Richard Finn was given a 12- year sentence on Monday for subjecting the woman to a two-and- a-half hour ordeal that he photographed on his mobile phone.

Fr Pat Bradley, of the Sacred Heart Church in Clondalkin in Dublin, said he wrote to the sentencing judge so that he could hear about Finn's troubled background.

He hoped this testimony would be "an element that could make for a better judgment", but maintained he did not ask for mitigation for Finn.

"I was as sorry as anybody was and as upset by it and I found it a very horrible thing," Fr Bradley said on RTÉ radio. "If I could have met the Polish person, the victim of the crime, I would certainly have done so, but unfortunately she's gone from the country. It must be absolutely devastating for her.

"I was happy that Richard confessed or pleaded guilty to the crime, in the sense that it saved her more distress.

"I'm not in any way minimising what happened or the seriousness, and so it is in that kind of a context I decided, yes, to make my testimony known because I knew the boy personally."

Finn (20) of Rockfield Drive, Clondalkin, pleaded guilty to rape and oral rape of a woman on July 22nd, 2007. He had grabbed his victim from behind while she walked to work at about 7.30am and forced her into the grounds of the Church of Immaculate Conception and a school until nearly 10am.

While he was shocked by "this terrible crime", Fr Bradley said he felt it was his job to do what he could to see the good side in people.

He said: "We knew the very bad side of the young man, but nobody is totally, totally, totally bad . . . I was hoping that justice could be done in the sentence of a man," he said.

Fr Bradley added that Finn came from a decent family who were appalled by his crime. "They don't condone it in any way. He has to pay the price and his mother says it is right that he has to go to prison," he said.