THE Roman Catholic Church was last night facing yet another embarrassing sex abuse scandal when a senior priest was told a jail term was ''virtually inevitable'' after being convicted of indecently assaulting a 13-year-old girl shortly after baptising her.
Father John Lloyd, 57, had faced 20 other charges of child sex abuse, including rape, at Cardiff Crown Court, but the jury convicted him on only one indecency offence after 10 hours' debate.
Lloyd, a parish priest in south Wales for 32 years and a former press officer to the Archbishop of Cardiff, stood pale but impassive as the guilty verdict was read out. Judge Mr Justice Rougier remanded him in custody to await sentence next week but warned he was likely to go to jail given his position as a clergyman.
The court heard Lloyd took the schoolgirl back to his home after baptising her in his church but then indecently assaulted her before driving her back to her grandmother's house.
The girl, now an adult, was one of four women and two men who gave evidence that Lloyd indecently assaulted them when they were children. South Wales Police brought charges after one woman, aged 36, broke her silence after 27 years to claim Lloyd raped her in his confessional at her school as a nine-year-old. Others then came forward to bring other complaints including two former altar boys.
Lloyd, of St Joseph's Church, Penarth, near Cardiff, had denied four charges of rape and 17 offences of indecent assault covering an 18-year period from 1970.
From the witness box he categorically denied all the allegations, claiming the thought of sexually abusing children ''never entered my mind''.
After considering verdicts for two days, the jury was discharged after failing to reach majority
10-2 verdicts on nine counts of indecent assault. They had earlier cleared Lloyd of the four rapes and the other indecent assaults on the indictment.
Following the hearing, senior church officials said Father Lloyd would no longer be allowed to practise as a priest. He had been on administrative leave since his arrest last year. Last night, Archbishop Ward, Archbishop of Cardiff, said: ''I am deeply saddened and ashamed by the events which have culminated today in the conviction.
''The families have every right to expect a high standard of pastoral care from Father Lloyd and they justifiably believe that their trust has been betrayed.''
The Church moved to reassure the public that it had an ''efficient and effective'' system in place to root out child abusers in the clergy.
However, the priest's conviction is the latest in a long line of sex scandals to rock the Church. These included some cases which emerged years afterwards, even though senior clergy often knew about them at the time.
In the latest case, Canon Joseph Terry, now 71, was jailed for six years at the High Court in Edinburgh last month for sexually abusing young girls. He was investigated three years ago when he was retired from his ministry, but the scandal went unreported.
In August last year, Francis McCann, a 74-year-old former member of a Catholic teaching order, accused of offences against eight boys while at St Joseph's College in Dumfries, was said to be ''physically too frail'' to stand trial.
In July 1996, former priest Desmond Lynagh was jailed for three years at the High Court in Edinburgh after admitting shameless and indecent conduct towards two youths while he was a teacher.
In August last year, Father Brendan Smyth, 69, who was jailed for paedophile crimes on both sides of the Irish border, died while serving a 12-year jail sentence in prison.
Also in 1996, Father Joseph Steele, from Belfast, whose abuse of children went undetected for 14 years, was jailed for two-and-a-half years at Belfast Crown Court after admitting 25 charges of indecent assault involving three boys and seven girls.
Share