A clerical witness in the trial of a man charged with falsely claiming sexual abuse by a priest has told the jury he now remembered a mother and son coming to him with a complaint about the priest in question.
Fr Oliver Crotty said, however, that "after rechecking the video in my brain" he was satisfied he wasn't in denial and that the complaint concerned "a parish matter to do with the boy's education" rather than one of sexual abuse.
He had originally said he had no recollection of the accused and his mother coming to him to complain that the priest was refusing to allow the accused to make his First Holy Communion.
The 33-year-old accused, who cannot be named for legal reasons, denies making a false statement to Det Garda Brian Kavanagh at Kevin Street Garda station on June 18th, 2003, that acts of indecent assault and buggery had been committed on him by the priest in the period February to May 1981.
During cross-examination at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court by Damien Colgan, defending, Fr Crotty said when he reread his original statement to gardaí, he discovered he could not stand by it.
He said he could not remember the exact details of the conversation or the names and identities of the mother and son who came to him but he knew that it was about the time incorporated in the charges and concerned the priest in question.
He said the memory had come back gradually over the years since he had made his original statement, but after much reflection he now recalled a complaint by a mother and son but it was not of sexual abuse.
Det Garda Mick Lally told Dominic McGinn, prosecuting, that the accused said he had previously been taking the drug Seroxat for depression brought on by the abuse he had suffered. He claimed the priest abused him over a six-week period when he was six.