Stranocum man thanks God for his acquittal
A CHURCH ELDER from Stranocum thanked God on Friday when acquitted of sex abuse by a jury who however convicted his cousin and fellow church elder, John McConaghy from Dervock, of indecently assaulting the same 44-year-old mum when she was a youngster.
The Antrim Crown Court jury of six men and six women took just over three hours to unanimously acquit 53-year-old farming church elder John McElheran (pictured right) from Ballinlea Road, Stranocum, of the four charges of indecent assault he denied.
"I'm very, very relieved," admitted the elder of Ballycastle Gospel Hall , who added, "The Lord is my shepherd".
However the jury convicted his 66-year-old cousin John William McConaghy, a church elder known as Jack, from Urbal Road, Dervock, of all but one of 21 charges of indecently assaulting the mum of one when she was a P7 schoolgirl up until she 18 when she rebelled against his abuse.
The wheel-chair bound elder, who was put on the Sex Offenders' Register, was told that he will be sentenced at the end of November after both a pre -sentence report on him and an impact report on his victim are obtained.
McConaghy showed no emotion as at first he was acquitted of indecently assaulting the girl while she was sitting on his knee in her home when she was aged about ten or eleven.
During her evidence to the ten-day trial the woman, who claimed that her abuse at McConaghy's hands was so prevelant that she thought such behaviour was "the norm", accepted that his touching of her could have been accidental on that specific occasion.
The church elder remained sitting quietly in his wheel-chair however, as the 'madam forewoman' of the jury read out their guilty verdicts to the next 20 charges of indecent assault.
The next four charges, which were also specific counts, the jury convicted him by majority verdicts of 11 to one.
However, he was unanimously convicted of the remaining 15 specimen charges committed between May 1975 and May 1983.
The pensioner, a church elder from 1977 and a Sunday School teacher for over 30 years, had denied all charges against him, but the jury by their verdicts have rejected his pleas of innocence.
Giving evidence on his own behalf McConaghy had said of the sex abuse allegations: "I totally deny them .... That's untrue.... It never happened, never.... I says that's totally untrue .... That's completely false ... That never happened".
In turn the jury have accepted the evidence of his victim who claimed that over the years it was "a better than even chance of being touched on my boobs or a hand put up my skirt" by the church elder.
"If it happened in the shed, so be it. If it happened in the house, so be it. If it happened outside the shed, so be it .... It depended how lucky he was, or unlucky I was," she'd told the jury.
The woman said McConaghey's abuse "mostly petered out" after she rebelled when she was aged about 18 and she struck back at him, scratching his face as she fought him off.
She said the elder even "had the nerve" to complain to her mother about the scratch, to which her grandmother remarked: "well you didn't get it for nothing".
The woman said that after that McConaghy must have come "to realise that I was getting a bit old or brave" for him as the abuse soon stopped.
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Weather for Ballymoney
Tuesday 22 May 2012
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