The mother of the alleged victim of sexual abuse by a Catholic priest has expressed regret about how she would insist her child see the priest when they were “reluctant” to.
Giving evidence in the Royal Court yesterday on the fourth day of the trial of Piotr Antoni Glas, the woman described how she would take her child to go and see the priest, saying: “He’s been good to us.”
She recounted telling the child: “We can’t be ungrateful.”
The mother added: “I was so gullible. I was so, so gullible. How did I let that happen?
“I’m so ashamed. I drove [them] there and I made [them] go when [they] didn’t want to.”
Mr Glas, who is known as Peter when his name is Anglicised, faces eight counts of committing acts of gross indecency and two counts of indecent assault against a child.
In her opening speech, Crown Advocate Carla Carvalho, prosecuting, described how the 61-year-old had “groomed” the child and their family, using his position as a priest to gain their trust before starting to use the child to fulfil his sexual fetishes surrounding feet.
Mr Glas is accused of masturbating with the child’s feet in his face and play-fighting the child until the child’s face was near his erect penis with the child’s feet in his face.
He is also accused of kissing the child on the mouth twice.
The alleged victim’s mother yesterday told jurors that she had become “dependent” on Mr Glas, and that she had not thought there was anything untoward about his relationship with her family.
But she admitted her child was sometimes “reluctant” to visit the priest.
The woman told jurors: “[The alleged victim] said that… the defendant would be quite close to [them] or sitting on the floor, he would be quite close to [them] and he would be rubbing his leg.
“I said to [them] – that’s how gullible I was – maybe he had a sore leg.”
She said when the priest stopped hearing from the complainant for a while, he would text their mother and act “martyr-like”.
Mr Glas “didn’t like being challenged”, she recounted.
“Everything was black and white with him,” she said.
“If you disagree with him, it didn’t go down well and he made me feel vulnerable in that friendship that we had.”
The woman described how years later, her child had revealed the abuse to her.
During a call, her child told her: “After everything I have been through and everything he did to me, I hate him.”
The court heard she asked who the child meant, and they replied: “Father Peter. What he did to me.”
She described herself as “confused”, adding: “It’s just unfathomable that we didn’t protect [them].”
“You don’t know how to deal with it. There is no guidelines how you deal with it,” she said.
“I still blame myself.”
The Deputy Bailiff, Robert MacRae, is presiding over the jury trial.
The trial is expected to continue until the middle of next week.