A “sinister” monk from West Yorkshire who admitted having “crushes” on adolescent boys has been found guilty of sexually abusing two pupils at a prestigious Catholic boarding school.
Michael James Callaghan, known as Father James, preyed on teenage boys who were “isolated from their families” while he was a teacher and housemaster at Ampleforth College in North Yorkshire.
Teesside Crown Court heard that Callaghan, now 71, of Moortown, Leeds, groomed and repeatedly indecently assaulted one boy over three years in the 1990s, and sexually assaulted a 17-year-old in 2013 by squeezing his bottom during a hug.
Jurors were told he “ingratiated himself” with the first complainant by giving him cigarettes, buying him gifts and taking him out shopping and for pub lunches in the North York Moors.
The complainant told police the “sexual bit” of their relationship had started when he was under 16, with Callaghan kissing him.
He said Callaghan would ask to meet him after Mass on Saturday evenings at different locations, including guest rooms, and sometimes a room at the school that was used for homeless people.
The complainant said in his police interview that Callaghan would “take on the role of a boy I had a crush on” and they would kiss and simulate sex, telling officers he “hated the sexual bit of it” and realised as an adult it “wasn’t right”.
He told police: “He had been grooming me for three years. There’s a difference between welcoming someone’s affections and the other things that were going on in that room.”
The defendant admitted having some sexual contact with the boy but claimed it was consensual and only after he turned 16, telling jurors the relationship was “unusual but not criminal”.
But the prosecution said it “was not consent given freely by someone who had a real choice”.
In his closing speech to jurors, prosecutors Mark McKone KC said: “The defendant is massively watering down what he did.
“He is trying to put a gentle gloss on something very sinister indeed.”
Mr McKone said Callaghan had targeted boys with “serious vulnerabilities” and that both were “still struggling now” with what he did.
He told jurors Callaghan “sought to justify contact with (the first complainant) on the basis of trying to make a troubled boy feel better about himself” but that he was “thinking only about himself and his own sexual urges”.
The trial heard that Callaghan had confessed to a doctor in 1990 that he had “crushes” on “a number of boys” at a previous school, but “by and large had managed to control himself”.
A letter from the doctor said: “When I first saw him he was rushing after adolescent boys he saw in the street.”
The court was told Callaghan went to see the same doctor again in 1993 and said he was having “more difficulty in controlling the sexual side of his life”.
Callaghan was found guilty 12 counts of indecently assaulting the first complainant, including four when he was under 16, and one count of sexual assault on the second complainant.
The jury deliberated for just over six hours and 30 minutes before finding him guilty of 13 charges. Twelve of these were unanimous verdicts, and one – making the first complainant perform mouth-to-mouth resuscitation on him after he pretended to have a heart attack on at least three occasions – was by a majority of 11 to one.
Judge Richard Clews bailed Callaghan until his sentencing in June, and told him: “These are serious offences involving a considerable breach of trust.
“It is highly likely the only realistic sentence available to me will be immediate imprisonment.”
