Richard Burke: under cross examination in defamation suit

A former Catholic archbishop, Richard Burke has continued his defamation suit against RTE, denying that he had sexually exploited Nigerian lady, Dolores Atwood when she was “a vulnerable child”.

Under cross-examination today, Burke (66) said he had not had any sexual encounter with Dolores Atwood until 1989 when she was aged 20 and he 40.

When they first had sex, she was very sexually experienced and his interaction with her could not have warped her later relationships, he said. When she was aged in her thirties, she told him uninvited and in detail about her sexual experience, he added.

He agreed he had other sexual encounters while he was a cleric, including with a married Nigerian mother of eight. He also said he had “embraced” and “improperly touched”, but had not had sex with, a sister of Ms Atwood.

Mr Burke was a member of the Kiltegan Fathers who served as a priest, and later as Bishop and Archbishop in Nigeria after being ordained in 1975.

RTÉ denies he was defamed in the Prime Time Investigates: Mission to Prey programme broadcast on May 23rd, 2011. Mr Burke claims the programme wrongly depicted him as a paedophile.

Read more: http://www.irishtimes.com/news/crime-and-law/courts/high-court/ex-archbishop-denies-he-sexually-exploited-vulnerable-child-1.2266720When Mr Atwood asked Mr Burke about his wife’s claim she was 14 when she and Mr Burke first had sex, Mr Burke said that was untrue,