Ex-priest is jailed over sex attacks on young girl
A FORMER Catholic priest has been jailed for grooming an underage girl for sex attacks after befriending her family.
Vincent Whelan, 71, got nine months for abuse that Judge Patrick Field said was “seared” on her memory.
He plied the girl, who was under 16, with alcohol and complimented her looks to gain her trust.
Whelan, then parish priest at St Peter’s church in Wythenshawe, Manchester, was 41 when he attacked her in the 80s.
She said she suffered assaults for a year but he convinced her not to tell anyone about it because he would lose his job.
She only got the courage to go to police in 2017.
Whelan, of Wirral, was found guilty of indecent assault at Manchester Crown Court on Friday.
Judge Field told him: “While a parish priest, you ambushed her and forced yourself upon her, kissing her on the mouth.
“She recalled your teeth clattering with hers and horror she experienced.
“This was a shocking experience for a young child and will have been seared on her memory.”
And the true total of dogs going through the trafficking pipeline is far higher, as many make it through undetected or die somewhere along the horrendous journey.
The evil trade is part of a Europe-wide organised crime racket netting bootleg breeders hundreds of thousands of pounds.
Gangs exploiting lax border controls are feeding demand for fashionable breeds such as French and English bulldogs, pugs, chow chows and dachshunds.
So-called “handbag dogs” which are so tiny they can be carried around can be bought in Eastern Europe for as little as £20 and sold for £1,200 here – so even small-scale operators can make thousands every week.
Last year the canine welfare charity Dogs Trust spent six months probing one of the criminal networks. It discovered a web of crooked puppy farmers, vets and handlers in Lithuania and Poland were greedily exploiting the system.
And it claimed four-week-old puppies with umbilical cords still attached had been subjected to a gruelling, 30-hour journey to the UK.
Footage recorded by the charity’s investigators showed dogs kept in squalor, with poor hygiene standards and commonplace mistreatment of puppies and mothers alike.
In the clips, the puppies are crammed into tiny cages which are then piled up and stuffed inside vans. One smuggler