A former Catholic archbishop has denied a suggestion by lawyers for RTÉ the reason a woman was “deeply troubled” was because he had sexually exploited her when she was “a vulnerable child”. Co Tipperary-born Richard Burke (66) said he had not had any sexual encounter with Dolores Atwood until 1989 when she was aged 20 and he 40.
When they first had sex, she was very sexually experienced and his
interaction with her could not have warped her later relationships, he
said. When she was aged in her thirties, she told him uninvited and in
detail about her sexual experience, he added.