In the latest in our series investigating those who have shamed their professions, Sunday Life examines the clerics who have gone from the church pulpit to the dock of a courtroom

The spectre of Brendan Smyth still looms large over the Catholic Church more than a decade after the paedophile priest died in a jail cell.

The church has been hit with another lawsuit by a victim of evil Falls Road priest Smyth — just one of dozens of individuals whose lives have been destroyed by the serial child-abuser.

A 47-year-old man from Massachusetts, who was molested by Smyth while he was a visiting priest in East Greenwich in the late 1960s, is seeking damages from the pervert priest’s order, the Norbertine Fathers.

Throughout 40 years in the priesthood, evil Smyth molested dozens of children while the Catholic Church simply bumped him from parish to parish, hoping that the sordid secret of his serial abuse would simply go away.

While the church stuck its head in the sand, Smyth’s evil grasp had affected victims in parishes in Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales, North Dakota and Rhode Island.

His superiors hoped moving him about would prevent him forming relationships with children and families.

Smyth died in jail in 1997, just a month after being sentenced to 12 years for 74 sex-offences against 20 victims.

He had been extradited to the Republic after being released from Magilligan Prison where he served four years after pleading guilty to a string of sex offences against girls and boys during 20 years as a priest on the Falls Road.

So far his victims have been paid almost £800,000 in compensation and the church continues to receive claims for compensation arising out of his abuse.

STRING OF YOUNG VICTIMS

The Catholic Church hadn’t learned its lesson from Smyth’s abuse and tried the same head-in-the-sand approach to bullying rapist Sean Fortune.

Fortune, who was based at the Holy Rosary parish in south Belfast for two years between 1979 and 1980 and had been closely involved with the Rosario Boy Scouts, left a string of young victims in his wake.

The cowardly curate, originally from Wexford, eventually took his own life rather than face justice for the litany of abuse he had handed out.

He overdosed on a cocktail of whiskey and pills as he awaited trial on 29 abuse charges in the Republic involving boys aged between 12 and 16.

The cover-ups and incompentence surrounding the handling of Fortune and other paedophile priests led to a government inquiry into his Diocese of Ferns.

During Fortune’s time in Ferns, concerned parishioners had organised a delegation to two bishops and written to the papal Nuncio, the Pope’s ambassador in Ireland to raise concerns, but nothing happened.

The church sent him away for therapy, but still installed him in new positions where he could continue to abuse young boys.

The government report found that for 20 years Bishop Donal Herlihy had failed to treat sexual abuse as a criminal matter, regarding it as a moral issue.

And once the report had blown open the Pandora’s Box of clerical abuse in the Catholic Church, it emerged that hundreds of priests had been accused of sexual offences across Ireland.

THE DEVIL’S DISCIPLE

Among those priests who had been earlier been exposed was Daniel Curran, a pal of Fortune, with whom it is feared he had formed an unholy alliance to abuse children. Curran, dubbed ‘The Devil’s Disciple’, walked free from jail in 1998 after serving a seven-year sentence for a series of horrific attacks on nine young boys aged between 11 and 13.

He had links with Fortune dating back to Fortune’s time as a curate on the Ormeau Road.

Curran, who had been linked with St Paul’s church on the Falls Road was back in court in 2005 accused of, on two occasions between June 1986 and June 1989, plying a young Boy Scout with booze before sexually abusing him after he had passed out drunk.

Curran, who admitted two counts of indecent assault at Downpatrick Crown Court, was handed an 18-month sentence which was suspended for two years.

BANKROLLED CHILD-RAPIST

Disgraced priest Jeremiah McGrath will be back on the streets next year, while the traumatised victims he helped serial child-rapist Billy Adams abuse face a lifetime of pain.

The high-rolling clergyman, who made a packet from gambling, bankrolled evil Billy Adams as he carried out the systematic grooming and rape of a young girl.

The shamless cleric from Roslea, Co Fermanagh had become besotted with Adams, the man that Sunday Life had repeatedly warned authorities was too dangerous to be released from jail.

McGrath had stood by Adams after he was convicted in Dublin in 1998 of raping an eight-year-old Ulster girl.

His position as a priest — introduced as ‘Uncle Gerry’ by Adams — convinced a strict Catholic family from the Liverpool area to trust their young daughter in the company of McGrath and monster Adams.

And as well as letting one of Ulster’s most dangerous sex-offenders bask in his supposed respectability, McGrath also handed over thousands of pounds to help Adams ‘groom’ the young girl with gifts and treats and seaside trips to Blackpool.

He had hoped to continue his own sexual relationship with Adams and was prepared to sacrifice the young girl to do so.

McGrath was convicted at Liverpool Crown Court in May last year of aiding Adams in the abuse of the young girl.

The Court of Appeal in London later upheld the five-year sentence that was handed down to the disgraced priest.

Adams was jailed for life, and ordered to spend at least seven years and six months behind bars.

SEX OFFENCES

The Methodist Church was rocked to its core last year when its former president confessed to a string of sex offences.

Belfast minister Kenneth Best was ashen-faced as he appeared in the dock of Belfast Crown Court and admitted sexually abusing a schoolboy more than 40 years before.

Father-of-two Best (64) was aged 19 when he first molested his then-14-year-old victim.

The disgraced cleric — who committed the offences before he became a minister — contemplated taking his own life after the offences came to light, the court was told.

He later walked free from the courtroom after a two-year jail term was suspended for 18 months. However, Best will remain on the sex-offenders register for more than eight more years.

At the time the Methodist Church was left reeling and it issued a statement that it had been “greatly saddened” to hear of the conviction and deeply regretted any suffering caused by Best’s depraved actions.

Best quit his ministry after his victim first reported the sex attacks to police.

INDECENT IMAGES

Shamed Church of Ireland minister Stephen Crowther escaped jail after he was caught with hundreds of indecent images of boys aged under 10-years-old.

Rector of Holy Trinity in Lisnaskea, Crowther was fined £2,500 and ordered to sign the sex-offenders register for five years after he being convicted of downloading child pornography and possessing indecent DVDs of young boys.

The clergyman, now 48, was arrested after an officer from HM Revenue and Customs intercepted what he believed to be an indecent video addressed to Crowther and tipped off police.

When cops raided the rectory at Lisnaskea, Co Fermanagh they seized a number of DVDs featuring naked boys and a laptop computer containing hundreds of indecent images of children.

Fermanagh Magistrates Court was told that some of the DVDs recovered by police had titles such as Soccer Boys and Gym Boys and showed children — some under the age of 10 — taking part in games and then having showers or communal baths.

Convicted paedophile Crowther denied that there was anything indecent about the naked images he had of young boys.

His Church of Ireland bishop for Clogher, the Rt Rev Michael Jackson, said: “I see this as a betrayal of ministry.”