Father Francis McDermott: Priest 'sex mad', court told

Father Francis McDermott, now 75, denies committing sexual offences against six children in the 1970s

A Roman Catholic Priest accused of abusing children was "sex mad", a jury has been told.

Father Francis McDermott, now 75, is accused of committing sexual offences against six children in the 1970s.

One accuser told Aylesbury Crown Court he was abused when the priest lived in London and High Wycombe.

The man told the court Father McDermott had a locked cabinet containing pornographic magazines and had boasted of having sex with a girl.

Giving evidence from behind the screen, the witness, who is now in his late 50s, said his family were friends with Father McDermott when he was training to be a priest in north London in the early 1970s.

'High sex drive'

He said Father McDermott, now of Atlantic Way, Westwood Ho, Bideford, Devon, regularly stayed at their home and sexually abused him.

The abuse started when the witness was still at primary school and continued when the priest moved to High Wycombe, he said.

He said: "He [Father McDermott] had a very high sex drive - he was sex mad. He was always talking about it. "

The man said the sexual activity tapered off when he was about 17, and he stayed in touch with the priest, who had moved to Aylesbury.

In about 2004, when the man was living in Northampton, he said he received a call from the priest.

He said he recorded a conversation in which Father McDermott asked him to make a statement to support him after a complaint had been made against him by a woman.

The retired priest denies 18 indecent assaults, four indecent assaults on a male, two charges of indecency with a child, one of buggery and one of rape, allegedly carried out between 1971 and 1979.

The case continues.