Teenager hounded priest

A TEENAGER hounded his parish priest with phone calls and lewd and threatening text messages.

Ciaran Callary, 19, bombarded Father Paul McAlinden and another parishioner, Seamus Quinn.

He was caught when a police officer called the phone used to make vile comments.

A FORMER chapelgoer hounded his local priest and a parishioner with phone calls, including a threat to attack one of them with a holy cross.

Ciaran Callary, 19, bombarded Father Paul McAlinden and Seamus Quinn during May 2016 at all hours of the day.

One recorded call to Mr Quinn threatened to knock his “f ****** head off with a cross”.

He mimicked an Irish accent and left other lewd messages.

The matter was reported to police and an investigation into the phone number used lead them to Callary’s mum’s house in Milton.

When PC Peter Bell phoned the number, Callary was found with the mobile in his bedroom at the house.

The teenager denied being responsible for the calls – including 36 calls to Father McAlinden in one day – but after a trial at the city’s sheriff court, he was convicted of two charges of stalking between May 2 and 25, 2016.

Sheriff Mary McCrory said “I find that there is sufficient evidence in the circumstances which I accept in this case, he was the person who made these calls”.

Callary accepted his phone was used to repeatedly contact both men including Father McAlinden of St Augustine’s Parish, in his local area.

The calls recorded on answer phones of both men were not disputed and a joint minute of agreed messages was given to the court.

They included Callary threatening to knock Mr Quinn’s “f ****** head off with a cross”.

He also threatened to “do in” Mr Quinn and said he would “stick a bottle up his backside”.

The teenager told the priest that if he wanted to go to Belfast to have sex he could.

Callary also said he would go to confession with the priest after killing Mr Quinn.

PC Bell, one of the officers investigating the matter in 2016, went to Callary’s mum’s house in Milton in June 2016 to enquire about the phone number that had been used.

He told how he spoke with Lesley-Ann Smith – Callary’s mother – and while there, dialled the number and heard a phone ringing in a room.

The officer said: “I made my way to that room, there was a male within who at that time had answered the phone.”

Callary was detained, and later in a police interview claimed that the number wasn’t his.

The court heard a number of calls were made to both numbers throughout May 2016, at times one after the other.

On May 14, 2016, Father McAlinden received 36 calls.

In evidence Callary denied being responsible and said that he couldn’t give an explanation how the calls were made without him knowing.

Asked by defence lawyer Jenny Reid, when he would perhaps not have his phone on him, he said when listening to music with friends.

He said he suffered a head injury in January 2016 and his memory of that time is poor.

Callary said he didn’t know either of the men but said he used to go to St Augustine’s church.

Sentence was deferred.