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World News

Priest arrested after 11-year-old records herself being abused

by Tola Mbakwe

According to The Times, the girl, who cannot be named, resorted to recording the incident after adults in the church refused to believe her reports of being abused by Fr Michele Mottola in Trentola Ducenta, near Naples.

In one recording, the man is heard saying "Do you want a kiss?"

After the girl refuses, he apparently says: "There is no one here. Are you afraid? Kiss me, hug me."

The Times reports in a second recording, after the sound of heavy breathing and the girl rejecting the priest, he says: "Take this to dry yourself."

It's been reported the girl was too afraid to tell her mother about the incident because she was friends with Fr Michele and he would give her and her daughter gifts.

Instead, she played the recording for two parishioners who didn't do anything about it, and then begged the priest to stop the abuse.

Fr Michele asked if she had told anyone and when she said she did, he reportedly told her mother that she was a liar and told the girl: "You are like an Islamist bomber. You kill people and move on."

Eventually the girl's mother believed her daughter's claims and confronted the priest who reportedly confessed.

The Catholic Church suspended Fr Michele in May but he was only arrested when the girl's recordings were aired on a current affairs show called Le Iene.

The girl has been hailed a hero.

Her older sister said: "She was not afraid and did everything she could because she couldn't take it any longer."

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