Priest remanded over alleged attempted sexual communication with child
Edward Gallagher, 58, of Orchard Park, Lifford appeared via videolink from Strand Road Police Station before a special sitting of Londonderry Magistrates' Court sitting in Dungannon on Saturday morning.
Wearing a grey coloured jumper, Gallagher was told he has been charged with attempted sexual communication with a child between April 2 and 17 2025.
When asked whether he understood the charges, Gallagher replied, 'I do'.
A police constable said they believed they could connect the accused to the charge.
A defence lawyer said there would be no bail application at this stage, and also requested that his client be remanded until May 1 while there is what he described as an 'issue over addresses', adding that they are in conversation with police around that and hopeful of resolution in the next week to 10 days.
He said there would be no bail application on that date.
He also applied for legal aid for his client.
'He would have been in receipt of a modest stipend, the circumstances of the case are as such that that will obviously cease,' he said.
District Judge Steven Keown said the defendant should be produced via video link for a court sitting on May 1, and granted a limited legal aid certificate for that day.
Earlier this week a spokesperson for the Derry Diocese said it was aware of an incident outside a hotel in Derry involving a priest.
The spokesperson said: 'The diocese knows that a video of the incident has been posted online and we understand the PSNI have been involved.'
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
BBC News
2 hours ago
- BBC News
Fermanagh murders: Victim was 'devoted mum to Sara and James'
A woman who was fatally shot alongside her two teenage children in County Fermanagh was a "devoted mum" and a "really lovely person", colleagues have said. Vanessa Whyte, who was 45, was killed in a gun attack at a house in Maguiresbridge on Wednesday morning. Her 13-year-old daughter, Sara Rutledge, and her 14-year old son, James Rutledge, also died as a result of the shooting.A man from the same household who sustained gunshot wounds at the scene remains seriously injured in hospital in Belfast. On Wednesday, police said that a suspected triple murder and attempted suicide was "one line of inquiry" for Whyte was an experienced veterinary surgeon who was originally from Barefield, County Clare, in the Republic of the time of her death she was employed by Stormont's Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (Daera).But before taking that role, the mother-of-two spent about eight years working at Lakeland Vets in Derrygonnelly, County Fermanagh."Vanessa was lovely. She was just such an enthusiastic, hard-working colleague," said its practice manager, Julie Wood."She was a devoted mum to Sara and James. I used to love chatting her about them."She was always full of what they were doing - they were doing so well in school. "They were so sporty and yeah, she was just devoted to them. It's just heartbreaking" Ms Wood told BBC News NI. Both children attended Enniskillen Royal Grammar School and were members of local Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) teams and Enniskillen Cricket Club. 'Full of life and full of enthusiasm' Another of Ms Whyte's former colleagues at Lakeland Vets said she had a "great personality" and was "very friendly and down to earth"."Vanessa joined our practice in 2005," said principal vet Innes Redmond. "She was incredibly talented, hard-working, well respected by our local farming community and pet owners."His colleague Ms Wood added: "She just had a great vibe off her - full of life I would have said, and full of enthusiasm."I just can't believe it [that] she's not here anymore. It's very hard to put into words, to be honest." Grandmother 'broken hearted' over deaths Ms Whyte's family in County Clare have been "shattered" by the murders, according to their local parish priest in Barefield."It's been a terrible tragedy - a senseless tragedy," Fr Tom Fitzpatrick told Irish broadcaster RTÉ.He explained that Ms Whyte's widowed mother Mary is a Eucharist minister in his parish and a "very devout woman" who visits Barefield's church almost every day."When I talked to her this morning, she was broken-hearted," the priest said. He said Mary Whyte had been visiting Knock Catholic shrine in County Mayo on the day of the murders and she was given the news by her son when she returned home. "The shockwaves that have gone through the parish have been palpable and felt by everybody," he said. Fr Fitzpatrick added that, even though the sun was shining in Barefield on Thursday, "a cloud of darkness has descended upon the place here". Shortly after responding to the shootings at a house on Drummeer Road, the PSNI began a murder investigation.A police cordon was still in place on Thursday and mourners have been leaving flowers and sympathy messages close by. Among them was Maguiresbridge resident Josephine Faulkner, who told BBC News NI the village is in "pure shock" over the killings."This is so sad for all of the family and neighbours," she said."She was so young, and the two little angels."The PSNI were alerted to the scene by an emergency call from inside the house on Wednesday and officers and paramedics were confronted with a "harrowing scene"."Everyone needs prayers at this time, including the police and ambulance workers." Ms Faulkner said. "I don't know how the services do it, I pray for them every night." 'Our community is devastated' The Reverend Lindsey Farrell, from the Church of Ireland's Clogher Diocese, said the three deaths had caused great upset among parishioners in the area."As a community, we're devastated. We're numb, everyone is in shock," she said. "But this is a strong community here in Maguiresbridge and we stand united. "We stand together in support of this family and of all who have been impacted by this and we are keeping them all in our prayers."
The Guardian
7 hours ago
- The Guardian
Late Jesuit global leader didn't stop known child molester from becoming priest
Pedro Arrupe, the late, former worldwide leader of the Jesuit religious order and a candidate for Catholic sainthood, acknowledged in records produced as part of a New Orleans court case that he was warned about how one of the group's aspiring priests had been accused of sexually molesting two minors and acknowledged making sexual advances on a third. The man was ultimately ordained, and there is no indication in records in the court case in Louisiana state court that Arrupe – who coined the Jesuits' slogan 'men for others' – took steps to prevent him from becoming a priest. The man was later accused of molesting other minors he met through his ministry. Arrupe's involvement in the case of Donald Barkley Dickerson – who died in 2016 and two years later was confirmed by the Jesuits to be one of hundreds of their members faced with substantial claims of child molestation – began toward the end of the 1970s. But it has drawn new scrutiny in a lawsuit that accuses Dickerson of raping a 17-year-old student at a Jesuit-run university in New Orleans. The case in New Orleans civil district court raises questions about whether Arrupe, a beloved figure whose name is on numerous prestigious awards and buildings at Jesuit institutions around the world, did as much as he could to protect those who trusted in his order. Church officials in Rome in 2019 initiated the process to canonize Arrupe, who is known for having ministered to survivors of the US's atomic bombing of Hiroshima at the end of the second world war. The first stage of that process has thrust Arrupe one step closer to becoming a saint, as the Jesuits themselves described it. The new concerns about Arrupe come at a time when the broader global Catholic church has been sending mixed signals about the urgency of addressing the clergy abuse scandal that has roiled it for decades. Pope Leo XIV in June said the church must 'not tolerate any … abuse', sexual or otherwise, and earlier in July the pontiff appointed French bishop Thibault Verny to lead the Vatican's child protection advisory commission. However, also in June but in another part of France, the archdiocese of Toulouse gave the high-ranking position of chancellor to a priest who had been imprisoned after being convicted of raping a 16-year-old boy in 1993. And a former Vatican diplomat who was convicted of possessing and distributing child abuse imagery reportedly has been allowed to continue working as one of several clerks at the Vatican's secretariat of state. At least one Jesuit official who testified under oath as part of the lawsuit accusing Dickerson of raping a minor on the campus of Loyola University New Orleans said he was horrified by the way the order admitted the suspected pederast into its clerical ranks. 'I think the whole thing is appalling,' said John Armstrong, a priest who described himself as secretary of the Jesuits' US central and southern province – which includes New Orleans – while an attorney for the plaintiff questioned him in early June. Meanwhile, a statement from attorneys representing the plaintiff who describes having survived being raped by Dickerson at a Loyola dormitory issued a statement saying Arrupe 'shouldn't … be canonized a saint'. His name also 'should be stripped from every building, award or anything else it currently graces', reads the statement from attorneys Richard Trahant, John Denenea and Soren Gisleson, all lawyers for numerous people who reported being sexually abused by clergy assigned to Catholic institutions in New Orleans, which is the church's second-oldest diocese in the US. A spokesperson at the Jesuit central and southern province declined to comment, citing a policy against discussing pending litigation. Neither Loyola nor the Shreveport diocese in north-west Louisiana where Dickerson was assigned during the alleged campus rape immediately responded to requests for comment. Arrupe spent 18 years as the Jesuits' superior general beginning in 1965. He was mailed a 20 December 1977 letter detailing concerns regarding part of Dickerson's abusive past, about four years after he was credited with conceiving the order's enduring 'men for others' mantra – encapsulating the Jesuits' zeal for community service – during an address to members in his native Spain. The letter from Thomas Stahel, Arrupe's fellow Jesuit and at the time the top official – or provincial – in the region including New Orleans, recounts how Dickerson had just gone on a retreat where he 'made sexual advances on [a] 14-year-old boy'. The boy, a student at the Jesuit-run Brebeuf college preparatory school in Indianapolis, told his parents – who in turn reported Dickerson to Stahel. Stahel's letter made clear that he believed the boy because he was at least the third child on whom Dickerson had been accused of inflicting abuse. By then, Dickerson had amassed a history 'of overt homosexual encounters with two high school boys whom he masturbated', Stahel's letter said. As their client pursued a lawsuit against the Jesuits decades later, Trahant, Gisleson and Denenea obtained records from the order's regional archives through legal discovery showing Dickerson had admitted abuse which occurred while he was studying to become a priest and was assigned to the order's high school in New Orleans. The Jesuits sent him to psychiatric treatment from February to June in 1975 without reporting him to civil authorities to be investigated as a criminal child molester. That was the Catholic church's custom at the time, though it has acknowledged that that practice was misguided and has sought to reform its protocols in such cases, including by urging its leaders to be transparent and report offenders to law enforcement. Dickerson completed the treatment and gained a recommendation from a Jesuit official named Louis Lambert to be ordained as a priest. As Stahel put it, Lambert excused Dickerson as only behaving abusively whenever he 'got nervous'. Yet, having learned of a third abusive incident attributed to Dickerson at the time he wrote his letter, Stahel implored Arrupe to at least hold off on the ordination, which had been scheduled for two days after Christmas that year. 'Dickerson seems to me a poor risk for ordination,' Stahel – who was also known for being a longtime editor at the Jesuits' America magazine – told Arrupe. 'I do not think we can in conscience present Dickerson … as ready for ordination.' The Jesuits subsequently postponed Dickerson's ordination – 'till further study of his suitability,' with Arrupe's approval, according to Stahel's December 1977 letter – and once again sent him to psychiatric treatment in 1978. In September 1978, Arrupe wrote to Lambert, saying he had gotten the psychiatric report on Dickerson. 'I shall await further information on the case from Father Stahel,' Arrupe wrote. Arrupe does not appear in any other documents so far reviewed by the Guardian and WWL Louisiana. In June 1979 and January 1980, Stahel wrote a pair of memos describing conversations with Dickerson, who had been a brother with the Sacred Heart order before joining the Jesuits, according to the website Dickerson in the first conversation said that 'the incident of December, 1977' was 'relatively insignificant' and that the doctor who treated him agreed, Stahel wrote. In the second conversation, Dickerson again asserted his belief that the same incident was 'relatively insignificant', Stahel wrote. But, Stahel continued, Dickerson understood 'such incidents have far reaching consequences, can cause scandal and in short must be regarded as serious'. Dickerson was ordained as a priest in 1980, according to information published by the Jesuits. It wouldn't be until 1983 that Arrupe stepped down as the superior general of the Society of Jesus, as the order is formally known. He had suffered a debilitating stroke in 1981. After his ordination, Dickerson was assigned to the order's college preparatory high school in Dallas. Jesuit officials did not alert leaders at the campus about their knowledge that Dickerson was a child molester, according to the Dallas Morning News. The newspaper attributed that fact to a deposition given by an order official in charge of schools in the region, Philip Postell, amid clergy abuse-related litigation many years later. By July 1981, Stahel received a letter from Postell informing him that Dickerson had been removed from Dallas's Jesuit college preparatory school. The parents of a child had reported an accusation against Dickerson to the school, whose principal discovered the various prior abusive episodes, the Dallas Morning News reported. The parents' accusation was one of multiple reports of child abuse made against Dickerson while at the school. Postell – who was president of the Dallas Jesuit college preparatory school from 1992 to 2011 – eventually conceded under oath that he should have reported Dickerson to law enforcement at that point, according to the Morning News. But Jesuit leaders simply transferred Dickerson about 200 miles east to the Cathedral of St John Berchmans in Shreveport, Louisiana. While assigned to St John, Dickerson frequently visited Loyola New Orleans, where he had gone for his undergraduate and post-graduate studies, the plaintiff represented by Trahant, Gisleson and Denenea would later assert in court. The plaintiff recounted gaining early admission into Loyola in August 1984 at age 17 and meeting Dickerson shortly after beginning his freshman year. Dickerson soon began inviting the plaintiff to dinner weekly alongside other priests. That allegedly escalated into groping and oral rape, including behind a sacristy. The plaintiff would later say in his lawsuit that he was eventually raped by Dickerson in a dorm room. The Jesuits at last got rid of Dickerson after the Shreveport church to which he was assigned received a letter in 1986 from a family reporting him for 'feeling and touching' their son inappropriately, as the Dallas Morning News noted. It was by then at least the seventh documented allegation against Dickerson – not counting the underage Loyola New Orleans student, who came forward after many years had passed. A Jesuit official handling that seventh known complaint against Dickerson drafted a memo to colleagues in which he insisted that the accused clergyman deserved 'to be given the benefit of the doubt'. 'We should proceed on something like this very cautiously,' the official, Edmundo Rodriguez, wrote in the memo. 'On the possibility of a set up, however remote', the memo added, deliberation about Dickerson should be limited only to 'this particular case'. Nothing should be discussed publicly either given 'the sensitivity of the material', Rodriguez added. Rodriguez also suggested the Jesuits provide $10,000 to Dickerson in living expenses over the next year, especially while the matter was pending. Dickerson, for his part, resigned less than a week later, saying it was for his 'own peace and the good of the Society of Jesus'. 'I am grateful to the society for what it has done to try to help me,' including sending him to 'extensive psychological therapy' at Foundation House in Jemez Spring, New Mexico, Dickerson wrote in his resignation. 'It is clear now that these measures have not been enough to prevent my falling into problems which become public and have the potential of harming the Society of Jesus and the church seriously. 'I appreciate your willingness to suspend judgment on the question of moral culpability and to acknowledge my genuine efforts to overcome my tendencies.' The Jesuits revealed in December 2018 that Dickerson was a credibly accused child predator. That year, it included him on a published list of more than 40 order priests and other members who had been the subject of child molestation claims deemed credible while working in what is now considered the order's central and southern province in the US. Jesuit officials released that list within months of a Pennsylvania grand jury report which established Catholic clergy abuse in that state had been more widespread than originally thought, creating pressure for groups such as the Jesuits to be transparent about molesters in their employ. Dickerson – who spent time in Nebraska after his Jesuit career, according to public records – died at age 80 in August 2016. That was about 25 years after Arrupe had died. In June 2024, the former Loyola New Orleans student who was allegedly abused by Dickerson sued the university, the Jesuits and the Shreveport Catholic diocese for damages. He did so almost immediately after Louisiana's supreme court upheld a law temporarily allowing people in the state to sue for compensation over sexual abuse no matter how long ago it had occurred. The lawsuit was unresolved as of Thursday, with the defendants generally trying to attack the validity of the law which enabled the plaintiff to file against them for damages. They also have contended that the allegations against Dickerson were outside the scope and course of his ministry. Nonetheless, at least one Jesuit has made it clear that he was not proud of how the order managed Dickerson. That official is John Armstrong, the assistant secretary of the Jesuit central and southern province, which disclosed that Dickerson was a child predator. Armstrong recounted how he once participated in a meeting about Dickerson in 1976, after the order realized he was a problem. He said he then had to work in Dickerson's proximity in New Orleans in the mid-1980s and loathed it, even though they interacted only once as far as he could remember. Under oath, Armstrong confirmed the Jesuits would not have needed to let Dickerson be present at any of their institutions – such as Loyola, where Dickerson purportedly abused the plaintiff – if they had ousted him or turned him over to law enforcement. Referring to how the Jesuits dealt with Dickerson throughout his career, Armstrong said he believed it was 'appalling that it was handled that way'. It was 'appalling that it happened,' Armstrong said. '[I] feel terrible for the people that were victims of [Dickerson's], and it is beyond my understanding how after that first incident … he was allowed to go any further.' This article was amended on 24 July 2025. A previous version said that Pedro Arrupe died 15 years before Donald Dickerson, but it was actually 25 years.
Daily Record
9 hours ago
- Daily Record
Mother and two kids killed in 'triple murder and attempted suicide' named
Vanessa Whyte and her two children James and Sara were killed following the fatal shooting incident in Northern Ireland early on Wednesday morning. The "beloved" victims of what police are investigating as a "triple murder and attempted suicide" have been named. Yesterday, Vanessa Whyte and her two children James and Sara died following a shooting in "quiet and rural" village Maguiresbridge, in Co Fermanagh, near Belfast, Ireland. Emergency crews raced to the scene on Wednesday morning following reports of shots being fired. A man remains seriously injured, and is being treated at the Royal Victoria Hospital in Belfast, reports the Mirror. Superintendent Robert McGowan said: "We are treating the case as a possible triple murder and attempted suicide." It has been reported that investigators are also examining whether mental health played a part in the tragedy. The children and their mother, a volunteer sports coach who worked as veterinary surgeon, were 'active and beloved' members of a Gaelic football club, and Lisbellaw St. Patrick's Hurling Club. Secretary of State for Northern Ireland Hilary Benn said: 'The news from Maguiresbridge is tragic and deeply distressing. My thoughts are with the victims, their relatives and the local community in Fermanagh. I would urge the public not to speculate and to allow the PSNI to continue their investigation.' UUP politician Diana Armstrong said the local community had been left in shock following the tragedy. She added: "Heartbreaking and distressing news from Maguiresbridge this morning. The loss of life and the serious injuries reported have shocked the local community. "My office has been in contact with the PSNI this morning and we are continuing to monitor the situation closely. The Emergency services acted swiftly and professionally. My thoughts are with the families of those affected and with everyone in this rural local community as they come to terms with this tragedy. I ask that the public allow space for the investigation to proceed and respect the privacy of those involved at this difficult time". Speaking at a press conference in the aftermath of the shooting, Superintendent McGowan said: 'I am keen to, first and foremost, express my sympathy to family members and loved ones who are today left in total shock, and who will inevitably be struggling to come to terms with their unimaginable loss. "The police service has now commenced a murder investigation and detectives are working at pace to determine the circumstances. This is a quiet, rural location and I am aware that this tragic event will have sent waves of sadness throughout the community. Please be assured that you will see a continued police presence in the area, as we continue to carry out our enquiries. 'Our enquiries are at an early stage, and I would appeal for patience as we work to understand the events that have taken place. We will continue to bring updates as our investigation continues.' A spokesperson for St Patrick's Hurling Club said: "We offer our heartfelt condolences to the family and friends of all those impacted by the tragic incident this morning in Maguiresbridge. We are working with the GAA at county, provincial and national level, to implement the Association's critical incident protocols. "We will also work closely with all appropriate services to ensure that those who require support at this difficult time can access it. Details of this will be shared in due course. All three were active and beloved members of our club and will be desperately missed." Join the Daily Record WhatsApp community! Get the latest news sent straight to your messages by joining our WhatsApp community today. You'll receive daily updates on breaking news as well as the top headlines across Scotland. No one will be able to see who is signed up and no one can send messages except the Daily Record team. All you have to do is click here if you're on mobile, select 'Join Community' and you're in! If you're on a desktop, simply scan the QR code above with your phone and click 'Join Community'. We also treat our community members to special offers, promotions, and adverts from us and our partners. If you don't like our community, you can check out any time you like. To leave our community click on the name at the top of your screen and choose 'exit group'.
