Father Reginald Dunkling, 63, allowed the teenager - who played flute in a church band - to sleepover at Our Lady of Muswell in north London.
Wood Green Crown Court heard that during the night he lay on the bedroom floor and forced his hand under the covers, molesting the boy over his boxer shorts.
Dunkling - known as Father Reg - of Chequers End, Gadsden Row, Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire has pleaded not guilty to one count of indecently assaulting the boy on a day between April 1992 and April 1993.
“I remember him going through the covers and just stroking me over the top of my shorts. He stroked and stroked and stroked and I just froze,” the complaint told the trial in his video-recorded police interview.
“He was a charismatic, interesting, likeable guy that introduced me to theatres and musicals. Stuff I ended up doing as a living. I kind of idolised him.”
Regarding the Lourdes trip the complainant added: “He asked me to stay in his room, which didn’t seem odd to me. I was very naive.
“He held my hand and told me: ‘I’m in love with you,’ and I kind of froze. He did not touch me at that point, but it was all about how he was in love with me.”
The man did not report Dunkling after the Muswell Hill sleepover two years later. “I remember him being very drunk and I brushed it off a bit, thinking it was a big mistake, but as I got older I became more angry.”
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| In Court: Father Dunkling |
Between those incidents he went on a Tenerife holiday with the defendant and another man. “Father Reg spent time with my family and my mother’s attitude was: ‘He’s a priest, of course he is okay.’
“It is very odd for a 15 year-old boy to go on holiday with two grown men and during it he would shout: ‘You don’t love me.’ It was a very odd couple of weeks.”
Prosecutor David Harounoff told the jury: “The defendant is a priest and in 2013 the complainant was contacted by the police, who were investigating offences, but he declined to co-operate.
“In 2020 the Diocese of Westminster undertook a safety review and the complainant decided he wanted to co-operate and the police interviewed him.
“As a teenager he was involved with the Church of Our Lady Help of Christians in Kentish Town and developed a relationship with Father Reginald Dunkling.
“He was a gifted flute player in the church band and describes this defendant as charismatic and interesting and he took him to the theatre and to a trip to Lourdes with others.”
Aged just fifteen, the boy was invited into Father Dunkling’s room, where the priest told him: “I’m in love with you,” the jury were told.
There was no physical contact until the night of the Wembley Arena opera, the trial heard.
“When he was 17 years-old he stayed with this priest in Muswell Hill after the show and meal,” explained Mr Harounoff.
“He says he was asleep when this defendant entered the bedroom and lay on the floor beside him, placed his hand under the bed covers and stroked him over his boxer shorts.
“The complainant said he did not like it and to use his words ‘bolted’ the next morning at 5am.
“Ten years later he saw Father Dunkling at a music function in Hammersmith and says this defendant looked uncomfortable.”
Another witness, who attended the Lourdes trip, will tell the jury he saw a drunken Father Dunkling knocking on the boy’s bedroom door.
He was warned off, but returned five minutes later and knocked on the door again and had to be told to go away for a second time.
“The witness stayed in the hallway until he left the vicinity of the boy’s room,” added the prosecutor.
Father Dunkling was arrested on June 16, 2020. “He was adamant absolutely nothing had happened.”
Trial continues………..
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