Priest acquitted of one rape charge 18/6/14

A well-known Hebridean priest was acquitted of one allegation of rape during a trial at the High Court in Aberdeen on Wednesday.

Two sex charges, covering a time period years before he became a priest, remain against Father John Angus MacDonald who is originally from South Uist.

The 68-year-old of Ard Tullaich, Ardeonaig, near Stirling, is accused of sexually attacking a young girl and a boy. They are now adults but cannot be named for legal reasons.

Following a legal debate on Wednesday, Judge Morris told the jury that they “need no longer consider” a charge against MacDonald - who would have been 12 years at the time - of allegedly acting with another person and repeatedly raping an eight-year-old girl in an outhouse.

He still faces an allegation he raped a nine-year-old girl some 50 to 60 years ago.

MacDonald also denies a charge of acting indecently towards a boy - then aged between 10 and 12 - around the same period, on the Uist machair, in a van at Beinn na Corradh, Uist, and elsewhere, including allegations of making him undertake a sex act as well as carrying out a sex act on him.

MacDonald was aged between 12 and 16 years at the time the incidents are said to have occurred.

The jury was told that MacDonald - who is presently working on a project in translating the New Testament from the original Greek into Gaelic - had no criminal convictions, apart from a drink driving case.

The court heard MacDonald, who had ambitions to be a priest from an early age, would stage role-paying games with the children allegedly involved.

A witness earlier said she was an infant when Macdonald started play role games while pretending he was a priest. There was indecency practices when this developed into playing doctors, she said.

She suppressed the memories for decades but they rushed back after meditation sessions in 1988, she said.

The woman claimed MacDonald made a series of drunken phone calls repeatedly apologising for something.

MacDonald denied this. He said it was the other way round. He said it was not about any alleged abuse but the woman would call him about her problems when she was drunk and he would respond: “I’m sorry, there’s nothing I can do about it,”” he told his QC, Mark Stewart.

It wasn’t true he raped her when she was young after calling her into a room when he was partially undressed, maintained the islander.

He also denied “playing doctors and interfering” with her either by himself or with another boy.

MacDonald agreed with his defence agent he “play acted at being a priest” by dispensing Mass and having other children as part of the congregation.

Macdonald - who previously sat on a Western Isles Council committee and was also involved with the Crofters’ Commission for six years - denied claims that he also played at conducting a mock funeral service.

He insisted: “I can clearly state it (the play Mass) happened three or four times - but never a corpse.

The girl “might have been there (but) never as a corpse,” added Macdonald.

He said he stopped the game by the time he became an altar boy at ten after an adult explained: “Mass was a sacred thing and it shouldn’t be imitated.”

Macdonald also told the court he did not carried out indecent practices towards the boy.

But “it happened by him,” he maintained.

Macdonald said he was on vacation from Blairs College, Aberdeen - a boarding school for boys considering to be a priest - when his accuser “exposed himself” to him.

The retired priest highlighted both accusers kept in touch with him over the decades.

He conducted their weddings and baptised their children, he said.

A number of times he lent the woman money but never got repaid a penny, he said.

In 1994, he first became aware of sex allegations when the man, “well-oiled on drink,” started making vague claims which escalated into an “obsession” with “more intense and strident” claims, he agreed with his QC.

Macdonald denies the charges.

The trial in front of Judge Morris continues.