A prosecutor has said it would be ‘difficult to give a timescale’ for police efforts to identify potential victims in the case of a Catholic priest charged with sex offences.
Edward Gallagher (58) of Orchard Park in Lifford, Co. Donegal, had been charged with one count of attempted sexual communication with a child on dates between April 2nd and April 17th, 2025 and seven further offences including inciting a child to engage in sexual activity and causing a child to watch sexual activity, on April 17th of this year.
At today’s hearing the court was told that the triage of devices had been completed and a large number of potential victims identified and attempts were ongoing to communicate with these people and ‘find out who these people are’.
The court heard that ‘obviously’ it was difficult to give any timescale for this exercise and added that the PSNI were working with other police forces on the case.
Defence counsel Stephen Chapman said that while he appreciated the update such an exercise could ‘potentially take a very long time’.
He said the defence would need to be given a more ‘detailed update as to what needs to be done and what is being done.
‘Deputy District Judge Trevor Browne said the defence would need to be given ‘some sort of structured outline’.
The case was adjourned until November 6th and Gallagher remains in custody.
