Ireland: Priest sentenced for abusing three sisters

A Catholic priest in Northern Ireland was sentenced to four years in prison for sexually abusing three underage sisters 50 years ago.

Father Eugene Lewis, 76, denied the eleven counts of sexual assault committed between 1963 and 1973. The victims told that the priest abused of them when they were only seven years old in their home of Fermanagh, north of the country.

The jury has unanimously ruled against the abuser priest, who was a member of the Society of Missionaries in Africa, and who after serving his sentence, can never return to give a mass.

Joe McVeigh, defense attorney, said Lewis wants to “fight to prove his innocence.”

During the trial, it was learned that the abuse began when the priest met the family of the sisters through another religious, who introduced them.