A former Presbyterian Church youth leader incited children into sexual activity more than two years after he was confronted by the father of an earlier victim.
William Maher (37), of Kings Brae in Belfast, received a two-year sentence earlier this year after pleading guilty to inciting two 10-year-old boys into sexual activity, offences that took place in 2021 and 2022.
In a separate case, dealt with by the courts in May 2024, Maher was put on a probation order for three years after pleading guilty to communicating with two young boys for sexual gratification, including one between August 2018 and July 2019. Maher knew the family of one of the boys through a church connection, Belfast Crown Court heard.
The crown court heard that in 2019, the father of one of the boys raised concerns to Maher directly about the communications. The Presbyterian Church did not want to comment on any aspect of the Maher case.
The PSNI last week said a 2024 conviction of an individual for child sex offences led the Presbyterian Church to begin talks with police over safeguarding issues.
Moderator Reverend Trevor Gribben announced last Wednesday he was standing down as leader of the Church in Ireland following an internal investigation that found “serious and significant failings” around safeguarding, dating back more than a decade.
Three people are known to have been harmed by these failings, the Rev David Allen, acting clerk of the church’s General Assembly, told The Irish News.
The church believes an unknown larger number were impacted due to the “basic failure” of the church to follow its own guidelines on the safeguarding of individuals who may have made contact from 2009 to 2022.
In May, Maher, a former teacher at a primary school in east Belfast, was given a two-year sentence, with half to be served in prison and half on licence, after admitting three charges of inciting two different children under the age of 13 into sexual activity. The offences took place between September 2021, and May the following year.
In a separate case, Maher in May 2024 received a probation order of three years after pleading guilty to communicating with two young boys for sexual gratification.
The father of one of the boys, who had confronted Maher in 2019, contacted the police in 2022 after becoming aware of a criminal investigation into Maher’s conduct.
Following his pleading guilty to the incitement offences this year, Detective Constable Eszter Aszmann said Maher was “a child predator who used his position of trust to take advantage of young boys who trusted him”.
In a letter to congregations read at services on Sunday, the Reverend David Allen, acting clerk of the church’s General Assembly, said it failed to make referrals to statutory authorities, did not respond adequately to concerns, failed to respond properly when people asked for help and failed to keep proper and adequate records.
When statutory authorities notified the church that offenders wanted to return to worship “we didn’t monitor them as we should”, the letter read.
“This was addressed as soon as we discovered it, with the statutory authorities and all required safeguards are now in place,” the congregations heard.
The letter read: “I’m sorry, firstly, because people have been let down by us. Through past actions, or not acting as we should, we have put people at risk, and we know that some people have been harmed.”
