A Ro­man Catholic priest in St Vin­cent ap­peared in the Fam­i­ly Court here on Mon­day charged with two counts of sex­u­al of­fences.

The priest, a for­eign na­tion­al, was ar­raigned on two counts or rape and two counts of in­de­cent as­sault and ap­peared in cam­era be­fore Mag­is­trate, John Bal­lah, sit­ting in his ca­pac­i­ty as deputy pres­i­dent of the Fam­i­ly Court.

Me­dia re­ports said that the cler­ic is al­leged to have com­mit­ted the un­law­ful sex acts on a teenaged fe­male and was not called up­on to plead to the in­dictable of­fences. He has been grant­ed and was grant­ed bail to ap­pear be­fore the Fam­i­ly Court, whose pres­i­dent would con­duct a pre­lim­i­nary in­quiry.

The court would then de­cide if there is enough ev­i­dence to send the mat­ter to tri­al be­fore a judge and a ju­ry.

The priest left the court in the com­pa­ny of a se­nior mem­ber of the Dio­cese of Kingstown, who told CMC that he has no com­ments to make re­gard­ing the al­le­ga­tion against the priest.