Priest convicted of 11 charges of indecent assault against sisters

Chris Donegan • Published 3 Jun 2010 16:00 Comments 1 Comment

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Fr Eugene Lewis, pictured outside Omagh Courthouse during his trial.

Paedophile priest Eugene Lewis fooled a lot of people: the Fermanagh couple whose three young daughters he sexually abused, his family and friends, and fellow clergy who joined in singing his praises.

But he could not fool the six men and six women of the jury at Omagh Crown Court.

They saw the priest in his clerical garb, a silver crucifix on his left lapel, take an oath on The Bible to tell "the truth, whole truth and nothing but the truth".

But they didn't believe the 76-year-old pervert was telling the truth when he denied sexually abusing the three sisters at their home in Fermanagh.

Those little girls are now mature women in their 50s but for the one he allegedly raped when she was just 21, the fear and revulsion were all too evident. During the trial it was obvious she did not want to have him anywhere near her and at one point a prosecution lawyer had to act as a human shield, screening her from her abuser as she walked from one side of the court to the other.

It was an unrepentant and defiant Lewis who sat in the dock.

On the opening day of his trial he stared long and hard at his three women he abused all those years ago. They were sitting just a couple of feet away from him in the public gallery. He didn't look like a man who was straining to recognise faces from his distant past but a man who was trying to make eye contact with his victims and perhaps re-establish the power he had over them when he was a priest in his 30s and they were little girls. But his victims did not return his gaze; their eyes stayed fixed on the judge at the front of the court.

And when the jury delivered its guilty verdicts on the final day of his trial his victims were not there to watch but were reported to be "relieved and pleased".

It took those six men and six women four and a half hours over two days to unanimously convict the former provincial superior of the Society of Missionaries of Africa, or White Fathers as they are better known.

The disgraced priest, who'd dismissed the abuse claims as "absolute rubbish ... they never happened", showed no emotion as the guilty verdicts were delivered. Standing in the dock with his head bowed, he never once looked up, all the time fiddling with a set of rosary beads.

By their verdicts the jury accepted that Lewis was a vile, evil paedophile who preyed on the sisters after befriending their parents nearly 50 years ago.

By their verdicts they also rejected the picture painted by his defence, backed by testimonies from around the world, including an African Bishop, that he was simply a loving, caring, wonderful man of God.

Lewis was convicted on all 11 charges of indecently assaulting the three sisters when they were youngsters, on differing dates between August 1963 and September 1973.

The court heard evidence that the priest raped one of the sisters when she was 21 after her parents sent her to him for counselling about her affair with a married police men. She described how the sex attacks took place in a bedroom of the White Fathers' Cypress Grove house at Templelogue in Dublin. She said she didn't shout or scream; she was traumatised, and that he raped her despite her begging him to stop. The court also heard from a fourth sister who claimed she was sexually abused by Lewis at the Order's former home in Blacklion.

The prosecution introduced the rape and Blacklion abuse claims as evidence of Lewis' bad character but because the offences were allegedly committed across the Border the court had no power to do anything about them.

However, from the start the jury heard of these alleged brutal sex attacks from prosecuting QC Ken McMahon, who said the priest had wormed his way into the family through a fellow, but innocent cleric.

Mr. McMahon told the jury that although welcomed into their home at any time, he often chose to call at bedtime or on Saturday bathnight.

The lawyer further stated that Lewis, his actions hidden by a large kitchen table, managed to abuse one of the girls in front of her father, who was oblivious to what the priest was doing.

The girl, now a grown woman, later told the court that Lewis also abused her while telling her and her sisters bedtime stories in their darkened bedroom.

Speaking after the trial, Lewis' solicitor, Mr. Joe McVeigh, said "while he respects the decision of the jury, he is very disappointed and he wants to stress that he remains adamant in his denials".

Mr. McVeigh said that Lewis' defence team is to "consider the position and give some thought to our grounds of appeal".

The priest, who swore to police and the jury that he "never touched those children", will be sentenced next month once pre-sentence reports are completed.

Lewis was born in Cloghan, County Donegal. His father was a founding member of An Garda Siochana, the Republic's police force. He was one of 15 children, telling the jury how his eldest brother was also a missionary priest and an older sister was a member of the Good Shepherd Sisters. He himself was ordained a missionary priest in Cavan Cathedral on May 7, 1958, and was Superior of the House at Blacklion when the White Fathers left what is now Loughan House Prison on the shores of Lough Macnean and moved to Dublin in 1971. He worked as a missionary in Africa and on his return to Ireland in 2001 asked to go to work in a "frontline" parish in Belfast. He worked in St. John's Parish and in Nativity Parish, Poleglass. He had planned to go and teach English and French to White Fathers students in Poland.

This article appeared in Impartial Reporter 03 Jun 10

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hengist
2 posts
Jul 5, 23:27
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I am appalled. He was my Superior while I was a student priest at Blacklion in 1969-70. I left, and he was kind to me when I was leaving.

I just looked him up on the internet, hoping that he was alive, and now I find this. I did feel that he was influenced by non-christian thinkers and values,such as Sartre and Marx, but I thought that this was his only weakness.

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