The victim of a defrocked priest wept as he walked free from Belfast Crown Court yesterday with a suspended jail term of 18 months. A former Cistercian monk, Gerard John McCallion, whose address was given as Mount Melleray Abbey, Co Waterford, who has already served a sentence for sexually abusing youngsters, admitted indecently assaulting her, after a charge of raping her was dropped.
Four sex attacks took place while his 27-year-old victim was a patient in Derry's Altnagelvin Hospital. She had been "weak, ill and vulnerable depending on those about her for care, comfort, goodwill and support".
Mr Justice Coghlin said McCallion's case raised difficult sentencing considerations, not least that in January last year he had been jailed for two years for sexually abusing girls during the same period in 1987. The judge said McCallion deserved credit for his guilty pleas to the five indecent assaults, and that expert medical evidence "confirms that you have responded positively to treatment and that there is no significant risk of you re-offending".