Sex beast and former priest Michael Molloy
MEET the pervert ex-priest who is taking a State-sponsored computer course where he has access to the internet – despite being convicted for possession of child porn.
Sex beast Michael Molloy (47) can be seen getting into his car at the Cavan Innovation and Technology Centre (CITC) in Cavan town on Friday.
The defrocked priest is currently part of a small group of students taking the Level 3 computer training course in a small building rented from the CITC.
The course includes modules on databases, spreadsheets, powerpoint, email and the internet.
However, at least one of the students on the course is techy savvy and has experience in the use of computers.
In 2009, Molloy, from Clifferna in Co Cavan, was sentenced to five years in prison for possession of child porn and for sexually abusing an underage boy.
The priest – who has since been defrocked – videoed the schoolboy on his mobile phone as he performed a sex act on him.
Shockingly, the sick abuse was carried out at the same time Molloy was attending a child protection course run by the Catholic church as it attempted to clean up its image.
After he was reported to gardai, the then Cavan General Hospital chaplain launched a campaign to discredit his victim, describing him as “a liar” and “a fantasist”.
When confronted by the Sunday World, Molloy refused to comment on whether it was appropriate that he was studying computers.
“I have nothing to say, thank you,” he said.
A source insisted that Molloy’s presence on the course has caused some disquiet.
“A lot of the students know about his past but I don’t think the instructors do. Some people aren’t happy.”
Molloy became the first Cavan cleric to be convicted of child sex offences since Fr Brendan Smyth when he was jailed in 2009.
Cavan Circuit Criminal Court heard how Molloy had sent the boy sexually explicit mobile phone text messages and showed him pornographic DVDs.
The offences took place at a number of locations, including at a parochial house, on dates in 2006 and 2007, when the boy was in his early teens.
The court heard that offences took place before Molloy became a full-time chaplain at the hospital, and that he was removed from active ministry when he was arrested in September 2007.
The court also heard the boy was unaware that he had been recorded while performing oral sex until the footage, which was on the priest’s mobile phone, was shown to him as part of the garda investigation.
Molloy also tried to claim that the boy had initiated things.
In court, Judge John O’Hagan said there was the sense of a “huge breach of trust” in the case.
He said the main aggravating factor was the constant denial by Molloy that he had done anything wrong.
He jailed him for five years for defilement of a child under 15, three years for defilement of a child under 17 years and three years for the possession of the recording on the mobile phone of the boy.
Molloy’s computer was seized by gardai as part of the investigation and this would later become the centre of a national controversy.
On September 14, 2007, a team of gardai acting under warrant seized the computer hard-drive from Molloy’s residence at his parochial house in Co Cavan.
Later in 2009, Molloy pleaded guilty to two sample charges of defilement of a boy in his early teens and one of possession of child pornography.
However, Molloy only pleaded guilty to a child porn charge relating to his mobile phone because the computer hard drive was lost by the gardai.