The 74-year-old former parish priest in Selva told the Provincial Court in Palma yesterday that there was a "financial motive" behind the accusation levelled at him of having sexually abused a twelve-year-old girl. He denied the charges, saying that they were "absolutely false".
The ex-priest explained that the girl's father had taken her to his house in Santanyi in 2015 and had done so because she was seeking support. Her mother had committed suicide and her father's new partner was expecting a child. He insisted that he did not touch her. "I had no physical contact with her in any way."
The court was told that the girl's father had demanded a payment of 60,000 euros from the former priest and that if he didn't pay the money, he would destroy his life and that any judge would believe him.
The accused also said that the girl had told him that her father was more interested in sex than in her and that the child had checked this by seeing sex videos of her father with his new wife on her father's phone. The girl, according to the ex-priest, is also alleged to have said to him that her grandmother had told her that her father had married a Brazilian prostitute.
The father, giving evidence, said that he had been abused by the priest thirty years previously. He added that his daughter has been receiving psychological treatment as a result of her experience.