Paedo priest jailed after friends reunited

A Catholic priest whose sexual abuse of young girls went undiscovered for years until two women chatted on the web has been jailed for one year.

Father Peter Carr, 73, whose duties included teaching drama at a boys' school in the Forest of Dean, Gloucestershire, rubbed stage-paint into the pupils' naked bodies before school plays between 1969 and 1975.

A solicitor and a singer in their 40s swapped recollections about the clergyman's intimate application of the make-up, having chatted on the Friends Reunited website.

Police were contacted when the women discovered that other girls were also abused at the school, having been invited there to join in with productions.

Judge Martin Picton at Gloucester Crown Court told him that he had done the church "much damage" and had left his victims feeling "degraded and humiliated".

Father Carr was convicted of eight counts of indecently assaulting six different girls after a trial last December. A member of the Salesian order, he last week pleaded guilty to two counts of indecently assaulting a seventh girl, who had come forward later.

The jury heard Carr put on two plays - Sinbad the Sailor and Tom Thumb - which he said required full-body make-up to be put on. During rehearsals he smeared paint over the naked girls, sometimes when they were alone when him, although he claimed he "only wanted to put on a good show".

One of the first two victims, now a 49-year-old singer and osteopath, said Carr had become a "monster in her mind" during all that time and she had never told of the abuse.

Carr, now of Orbel Street, Battersea, south London, was also made the subject of a Sexual Offences Prevention Order (SOPO) to prevent him working or living with children.

The woman who went on to become a singer said she had not expected Carr to go to prison and was satisfied he would now go to the grave with his reputation in tatters.

She said: "I didn't think a prison sentence would necessarily change anything because he doesn't think he has done anything wrong. He doesn't even have an inkling of how he has affected our lives.

"I feel quite sorry for him now. If you had asked me in my 20s, I might have wanted revenge, but now I am just satisfied that he isn't going to die with everyone saying what a fantastic priest he is."

His final victim, now a 42-year-old midwife, said she wanted a longer sentence but had no idea what tariff would make up for what Carr did.

She said: "I just wanted him to say sorry but he's not going to do that."

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