A Tipperary priest, based in California, is facing a civil legal action over allegations that he sexually abused a child.

Fr Michael Kelly (59), who served in a number of Californian parishes over 35 years, was placed on administrative leave in September 2007 while his diocese investigated the charge.

It was alleged that he sexually assaulted a boy in 1984. Kelly was re-instated at St Joachim's Catholic church in March 2008 after the diocese of Stockton investigated and found no basis for the allegation.

Bishop of Stockton Stephen Blaire cleared Kelly of wrongdoing following an internal investigation and said the man who made the accusation refused to cooperate with the investigation. In a statement, he also said that the man's legal team also refused to cooperate. "We made numerous attempts to contact the claimant as soon as the matter was brought to our attention by a third party," Blaire said in a statement.

Attorney Patrick Wall, whose firm specialises in representing clerical-sex-abuse victims, said the Stockton diocese has a poor record of protecting minors from abuse by clergy, so he wouldn't allow his client to talk with the bishop and had little faith in their investigation. "The only way for all the facts to emerge in this case is for a civil action, which we have filed," he told the Sunday Tribune.

The man who alleges the abuse is now a 33-year-old pilot employed by the US airforce. He claims the abuse happened in the family home in Stockton when Kelly was babysitting him as a child when he was under 10 years of age.

Kelly, originally from Ballingarry, Co Tipperary, trained as a seminarian in St Patrick's College in Tipperary before being sent to California.