Paedophile US priest is killed in prison

The defrocked paedophile priest John Geoghan, whose involvement in the Boston archdiocese's sex scandal ultimately led to the resignation of the Archbishop of Boston, was killed in prison yesterday.

Geoghan, 67, a convicted child molester who became a central figure in the Catholic church's sex abuse scandal, was injured in an incident with another inmate about noon yesterday. He died shortly after being taken to Leominster Hospital, said David Shaw, spokesman for the Massachusetts Department Of Public Safety.

The other inmate was isolated and the incident was investigated.

Geoghan, who was alleged to have molested more than 130 victims, was jailed for up to 10 years in January 2002 for molesting a 10-year-old boy with whom he used to swim. He had been expected to serve at least six years.

Mitchell Garabedian, an attorney representing many young men who have claimed they were molested by Geoghan, said he was shocked and surprised to hear of the jail death. "My clients would rather have seen John Geoghan be punished in a way seen fit by society," he said. "They would have rather seen him endure the rigours of two more trials and the pain of more prison sentences."

Geoghan's death comes as the Catholic Church has offered to pay $65m (£41m) to settle hundreds of sexual abuse claims filed against the church by young men and women. In civil lawsuits more than 130 people have claimed Geoghan sexually abused them as children during his three decades as a priest at Boston-area parishes.

In September 2002, the archdiocese settled with 86 Geoghan victims for $10m after pulling out of an earlier settlement of about $30m.

Cardinal Bernard Law, the Archbishop of Boston, who resigned in December 2002 in an audience with Pope John Paul II, for months resisted calls to resign. Law, previously one of the John Paul's most trusted advisers, offered his resignation in April last year but the Pope rejected it.

Law was first implicated in the church's scandal when he admitted moving Geoghan from parish to parish despite claims that the priest had sexually abused children back from 1984.

The Cardinal responded to the Geoghan scandal by giving to the state authorities all church records relating to cases of abuse. The archdiocese, which covers five counties in and around Boston, gave the prosecutor's office the names of 80 priests suspected of abuse during a period of 40 years.