Last Updated: Tuesday, 15 February, 2005, 19:25 GMT
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US judge jails child rape priest
Paul Shanley (archive)
Shanley was defrocked by the Vatican in 2004
A US judge has sentenced defrocked Catholic priest Paul Shanley to up to 15 years in jail for raping a boy.

The ex-priest was found guilty of four charges including rape and fondling of the child by a jury at a Massachusetts court last week.

The case, at the centre of a scandal which shook the Boston archdiocese, hinged on the memories of his victim, now 27-years-old.

The 74-year-old will also serve 10 years probation after he is released.

In sentencing, Judge Stephen Neel said it was "difficult to imagine a more egregious misuse of trust and authority."

He said Shanley, who showed no emotion as the sentence was read out, should spend as much of his sentence behind bars as legally possible.

"Emotionally and psychologically, Mr Shanley's crimes were devastating" to the victim, the judge said.

"And the emotional effects of those crimes... continue to this day."

Jurors had deliberated for nearly 15 hours in the only case against the priest to be fully prosecuted, after three other alleged victims withdrew their testimony over the past seven months.

Shanley has been accused of abusing dozens of other alleged victims in civil lawsuits.

In September 2003, the archdiocese of Boston agreed to pay $85m to settle more than 500 civil suits accusing priests of sexual abuse and church officials of covering up the scandal.

Abused in the confessional

Shanley's trial had revolved around the reliability of the victim's memories of the abuse, which took place at a Massachusetts church in the 1980s.

The adult man, now a firefighter from Boston, said he had repressed the memories as a child, but they flooded back three years ago when other allegations against his abuser were reported by the media.

During the trial, he broke down on the stand as he gave details of the abuse, which began when he was six years old.

Shanley would pull him out of Sunday morning catechism classes, he said, to rape and grope him in the church toilet, the rectory, the pews and the confessional.

Police arrested Shanley in 2002 in California, where he had been living since leaving Massachusetts in 1990.

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