Priest convicted of sex abuse

Fr. Eugene Lewis was today (Thursday, May 27) found guilty of sexually abusing three young Fermanagh sisters, one of whom he allegedly went on to rape while counselling her about her affair with a married policeman. It took the jury of six men and six women four and a half hours over two days to unanimously convict the priest on all 11 charges of indecently assaulting the girls between August 1963 and September 1973. The 76-year-old was a member of the White Fathers missionary organisation and at one time rector of its St. Augustine's College at Blacklion, now Loughan House Prison. He showed no emotion as the guilty verdicts were returned. The court heard evidence that Lewis raped one of the sisters on consecutive nights when she was 21, but the jury was not asked to decide whether he committed those offences as they were allegedly committed in the Republic, and therefore outside the jurisdiction of the North.