A schoolgirl who was allegedly sexually molested by a Roslea priest and his paedophile friend told the jury in Liverpool Crown Court how the men had abused her.
In a DVD of her taped police interviews the girl, who was then 12, claimed Father Jeremiah McGrath molested her while driving her home and that the priest knew his friend, William Adams sexually abused her.
In the taped interview, the girl, who is now 13, said she first met McGrath when he arrived while she was on a three week holiday in Blackpool with Adams, her brother and mother.
It is claimed the holiday was paid for out of £23,500 which had largely been deposited by McGrath in McGrath and Adams' joint bank account and Adams' own account.
In November 2005, she met Adams at a service station on the M6 in Lancashire, and McGrath was also present.
By that time, family concern had been raised about her relationship with Adams who knew they were not supposed to be seen together, so McGrath agreed to drive the girl, who was in her school uniform, back home to Liverpool.
On the journey back, "he (McGrath) got his hand from the steering wheel and put his hand where he shouldn't," she claimed.
Further questioned, she explained he put his hand up her skirt, and touched her. She asked what he was doing and he said, "I'm doing that". She told him to get off and he asked why and he put his hand back on the steering wheel.
The girl said he had not done that before but she had spoken to him on the phone when Adams was at McGrath's home and he had used the same phrase that Adams used, 'slip your hand down'.
SMACKED
The girl, who cannot be identified, also told the officer in her interview that, during a three week holiday in Blackpool earlier that year, Adams threw a glass of coke over her so she got McGrath's gin and tonic and threw it over Adams. "Gerry (McGrath) got up and smacked me," she said. Further quizzed, she said he had slapped her across the face and the hotel boss shouted at him.
She was staying in the same room as the two men and, while McGrath was pretending to be asleep, she reached under his pillow to get the room keys as she did not want to be alone with him, but he grabbed hold of her hand.
She jumped on the bed and started banging on the ceiling knowing her mother's room was upstairs. Her mother came down and she went up to her room as did McGrath and Adams.
Adams asked her to return to their room and left, but McGrath stayed and while her mother was in the toilet he deliberately slammed the door shut, trapping her finger. She screamed and told her mother that McGrath had done it. She then went back to the men's bedroom and Adams again raped her.
She also told how McGrath had been present in Adams' car when Adams reached his hand round and sexually molested her until she moved out of his reach.
Asked if she thought that McGrath knew what was happening between her and Adams she said, 'yes. The teenager said Adams had used his mobile phone to take pictures of her when she naked despite her objecting.
Sixty two-year-old McGrath, whose address was given Parochial House, Church Road, Roslea, is pleading not guilty to three offences of arranging or facilitating the commission of a sexual offence and one of sexual assault.
