A FORMER Catholic priest has denied repeatedly sexually abusing three young alter boys in regional NSW in the early 1980s, including an incident in which he allegedly raped an 11-year-old at the church altar.
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"I completely reject that," the former clergyman told the Downing Centre District Court on Monday when asked about the alleged altar incident. "It never happened."
The man, who cannot be named for legal reasons, is being tried for 15 offences allegedly committed against the boys, aged 11 and 12, between 1980 and 1984 while he was a priest.
The court heard the man, who was stripped of his position more than 10 years ago, has already pleaded guilty to 40 other child sex offences and is awaiting sentencing for those crimes.
It has also heard evidence from the alleged victims who described a series of incidents in which the accused allegedly groped, molested, raped or forced them to engage in oral sex.
But on Monday the man went into the witness box and said these incidents never occurred. "I never asked him to go into the cellar," the accused said of one incident in which he allegedly ordered an altar boy to go down into a cellar underneath the church altar and then forced him to participate in oral sex.
In relation to another incident in which he allegedly put his hand down the pants of another young boy in the church sacristy the accused declared "that never happened".
The former priest also denied a string of other allegations, including that he grabbed and attempted to stroke the penis of a young boy at the swimming pool, that he forced another to participate in oral sex in the presbytery, and that he raped the same boy in the priest's bedroom.
The accused did admit to making an "advance" toward one of the boys by "grooming him" and then putting his hand on the boy's leg.
But he said that after the boy rejected this advance he did not bother him again.
"He said 'if you ever attempt to do that again I will tell my father on you," the accused told the court.
"Did you ever do anything like that [to him] again?" the former priest's barrister Matt Johnson asked. "No," the man replied.
The court heard that the man is in custody awaiting sentencing for the 40 offences he has pleaded guilty to.
Earlier on Tuesday, the jury was directed by judge Peter Zahra to find him not guilty of two counts on the indictment. The trial in relation to the other 15 counts continues.
