A victim of paedophile Father Michael Ingram recalls how the priest encouraged boys to compete for his attention.

He said: "He used a ranking system. He would create an atmosphere of competition among the children. Then once he had ensnared them, he would move on to the abuse. I was his special boy."

Talking to anyone about it, is incredibly difficult for him. Off-limits subjects include the abuse and his feelings on seeing Ingram across Leicester Crown Court as he gave evidence against him.

He was abused at Coston Lodge, a farmhouse converted by Ingram into a holiday home for deprived children, and during a trip to the Isle of Wight.

"He whipped up enthusiasm in church around the Coston Lodge project. A lot of very well-intentioned people put an enormous amount of energy into the project.

"I think those at Coston Lodge are victims as well. Michael Ingram was an extremely enigmatic man, a classic sociopath. They were not to know."

He believes Ingram was not working alone and was a member of a paedophile network.

"There were other men who, to my knowledge had no connection with the congregation, would come and stay (at Coston Lodge) for a night. I have no doubt it was a base for paedophile activity."

He said youngsters in the 1970s were relatively naive about the dangers of child abuse. "Sex was a taboo subject then, and children did not know much about it. A child of 10 now knows so much more than a child did then."

Since being contacted by police, he has been supported by family and friends.

He said: "I am maintaining anonymity because I didn't want to be hounded by the tabloids. I don't want anybody to think I have anything to be ashamed of.

"If anything, I have something to be proud of, in having gone through with the court case, secured the conviction and protected children in the future.

"What I have done, I didn't just do for myself. I did it for all the survivors of sexual child abuse who cannot speak out and those who have tragically not been able to carry on living with the experience of abuse and have killed themselves.

"I don't think there's anything to celebrate here, even though it was vital to get a conviction. We have to see this case as yet another tragedy that could have been prevented."

Now the trial is over, he says the Catholic Church needs to make changes to ensure people like Ingram cannot operate.

"The church needs to come clean about what has been going on and open itself up to public scrutiny on the issue."

But he takes a dim view of the News of the World's naming and shaming campaign.

"It is clouding the real issue which is that the most dangerous social paedophiles are not necessarily loners. They are respected members of the community. It would not have made any difference to have had Sarah's Law in Michael Ingram's case.

"We have got to stop seeing child abuse as an evil on the edges of society. It is a sickness deeply rooted in society."

This story was first published in the Leicester Mercury

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