Blackburn - Three Jesuit priests were yesterday charged with indecent assaults on former pupils at a leading Roman Catholic public school. The offences are alleged to have been carried out at Stonyhurst College and the associated St Mary's Hall prep school near Clitheroe in Lancashire.
The priests were connected to the schools when the offences were said to have taken place in the 1970s and 1980s.
Father Joseph Dooley (79), of Green Park, central London, Father Clifford Taunton (82), of Winckley Square, Preston, Lancashire, and Father George Earle (73), of Zimbabwe, will appear before magistrates in Blackburn tomorrow.
Five other men, including an 87-year-old priest, all at one time staff at St Mary's, have already been remanded on bail by the same court charged with indecency offences.