By a Broken Rites researcher, article updated on 19 November 2018

Jesuit priests and brothers operate some of Australia's most prominent schools, with famous ex-students such as former prime minister Tony Abbott. After Brother Victor Higgs committed sexual offences against boys at one of these schools (St Ignatius College, Adelaide), the Jesuits kept Brother Higgs as a member of the Jesuit Order and moved him to their famous Sydney school (St Ignatius College Riverview), thus putting Sydney boys in danger. One of the Adelaide victims finally reported Brother Higgs to the South Australian police and, in 2016, Higgs was jailed for some of his Adelaide offences. Now, in October 2018, a Sydney court has found Higgs guilty of sexual offences also at the Sydney school. Higgs will be sentenced for his Sydney offences on 23 November 2018.

Sydney's St Ignatius Riverview has a long list of well-known ex-students who have gone on to carve out distinguished careers in politics, law and professional sport. Apart from former Prime Minister Tony Abbott, other Riverview students include federal minister for agriculture Barnaby Joyce and former NSW Premier Nick Greiner. Others include Chief Justice Tom Bathurst of the Supreme Court of New South Wales and Australian Test fast bowler Jackson Bird.

Likewise, St Ignatius College Adelaide has some famous ex-students, including former federal Coalition leader Brendan Nelson, federal Coalition minister Christopher Pyne and leading legal figures like Federal Court Judge Anthony Besanko.

Brother Victor Higgs

According to statements made in the Adelaide District Court in 2016, Victor Thomas James Higgs was born in the late 1930s, the youngest of nine children. After a period of training with the Jesuits, he became a Brother in the Australia-wide Jesuit religious order in 1963, aged in his twenties. He later spent three years working at St Ignatius College in Athelstone, Adelaide (1968 to 1970, inclusive, when he was aged around 30). He mostly did administrative duties for the school, although he taught some classes (for example, in religious education and in commerce).

After a complaint by a parent in Adelaide, the Jesuits transferred Brother Higgs to St Ignatius College Riverview in Lane Cove, Sydney, where he committed sexual offences against boys between 1971 and 1981.

A former student at another Jesuit school (St Aloysius College in Milson's Point, Sydney) has told Broken Rites that Brother Victor Higgs was at St Aloysius College in the early 1990s. This student says that Higgs accompanied some senior boys from St Aloysius on a trip to the Jesuits' beach house at Gerroa on the New South Wales south coast. Broken Rites has found church documents which listed Br Victor Higgs as being at St Aloysius College until 2000.

Broken Rites is trying to find out where Br Victor Higgs was located during the 1980s (between St Ignatius and St Aloysius).

Protecting the image

Broken Rites has learned that, by about 2001, the Jesuits were finding it wise to pay compensation to victims of Higgs. Each victim was given the impression that the payment would require the victim to keep the matter confidential. These settlements were expected to protect the public image (and the assets) of the Jesuits. Each settlement was a modest amount of money — much less than a victim would achieve if he sued the Jesuits but an agreed settlement was much easier than suing.

In 2001, when Brother Higgs was in his mid-sixties, the Jesuits arranged for him to retire from his Jesuit duties. This retirement would help to protect the image and assets of the Jesuits.

However, eventually an Adelaide victim spoke to the South Australian Police (instead of merely speaking to Higgs's colleagues in the Jesuit Order) about Higgs's crimes. And Sydney victims began speaking to the New South Wales Police. Thus, the public finally learned about Higgs' career of crime and about the church's culture of cover-up.

Offences in Adelaide

Higgs was interviewed by South Australian police in early 2013 regarding boys from St Ignatius, Adelaide. When charged, Higgs indicated that he would plead not guilty, meaning that he would fight the charges in court. Eventually, nearly three years later, he changed his plea to guilty, which meant that no trial would be needed (a judge would merely have to impose a sentence).

On 29 January 2016, Higgs (then aged 78) was sentenced in the Adelaide District Court for indecent assault of two boys at St Ignatius Adelaide (one charge for each boy). These were not the only allegations that police had made against Higgs in Adelaide. These two charges were those to which he finally agreed to plead guilty.

Judge Gordon Barrett sentenced Higgs to a maximum jail sentence of two years and three months jail. He said that Higgs would be able to apply for parole after serving one year behind bars.

Broken Rites has obtained a transcript of Judge Barrett's sentencing remarks. Judge Barrett told Higgs:

"The first [charge] involved a boy who would have been about 12 at the time. You took him into your room, made him take down his pants and there fondled his genitals. You did so on the pretext of giving him sexual counselling and assessing his development. You touched him on only that one occasion.

"In relation to the other boy, he was about the same age. He had misbehaved in class. You made him turn up at the canteen where you got him to take his pants down and bend over. He was expecting to be caned for his misdemeanour. Instead you touched his buttocks with a feather duster. The boy asked you what you were doing. You told him to get out. He reported the matter to his parents who raised it with the school. Whether as a result of that report or for some quite other reason, I am not sure, but you left the college in Adelaide and moved to a brother school in Sydney.

"While the two offences consist of a single episode of touching each boy in the ways that I have described, and it is not alleged that you touched other boys, your behaviour has to be seen in a context. That context is that you used to get boys into a private room, make them take down their pants and look at their genitals. You engaged them in sexual talk. All of this, the charged and the uncharged acts, were on the pretext of checking the boys’ development or counselling them, but it is quite plain that you were doing nothing of the sort. You were engaging the boys in this way for your own sexual gratification.

"The reaction of the two boys to your offending is instructive. The first boy appears to have suffered sexual abuse at the hands of another teacher at the school and so it is hard to separate the effects of your offending from the effects of the other teacher’s offending. However, his account of what happened after he came out of your room where you had indecently assaulted him is indicative of the consequences of your offending. Other students noticed the boy come out of the room. They asked him if he had let you touch him. Whatever his response, the other students assumed he had. He was taunted, suggesting he [the boy] was a homosexual. It appears your proclivities were widely known among the students. That boy’s trust in teachers and trust in that school has been damaged forever. It has caused frictions in his own family. When he disclosed what had happened to them, they either did not want to know about it or they told him to get over it. He has continuing anger. In addition, although this may have more to do with the offending by the other teacher, he has had some sensitivities in his personal life.

"The other boy’s reaction was different. He stood up to you. He immediately told his parents. His parents did something about it. He has not provided a victim impact statement. I do not know, but it is possible that he has not been affected in the same way as the first boy. However, that is just chance..."

Judge Barrett said that originally Higgs claimed to the police that, in his encounters with the boys, he had merely been  "counselling" them about sexual matters.

In sentencing, Judge Barrett told Higgs:

"You did tell the police that you had counselled boys about sexual matters, but in that interview there is a surprising lack of insight into your own motivations and the likely harm that you were causing the students. You really conceded no more than that you went about a legitimate task in the wrong way.

"You have entered your guilty pleas at a very late stage...

"I will give you the credit that the law entitles you to for your guilty pleas. It is up to 10%. A more timely guilty plea would have reduced the anxiety of the victims and the witnesses further, and would have entitled you to a greater leniency...

"This is serious offending. It was a breach of trust for you to behave as you did to these boys. If you did not know before, you know now of the consequences that your offending can have, and has had. You are to be sentenced only for two charges to which you have pleaded. Each is a single act of indecent touching but the acts do have to be understood in their context.

"The maximum penalty for indecent assault at the time was seven years imprisonment. I must sentence you on the law as it was then. I will impose one prison sentence for both offences but take both into account. If it were not for your guilty pleas, I would have sentenced you to two-and-a-half years imprisonment. I reduce that by about 10% to two years and three months. I fix a non-parole period of one year.

"The question of suspension [that is, postponing the jail term] is a difficult one. You are elderly and in ill health. You have no other court appearances. In many ways, you have led a productive life. On the other hand, your behaviour was a gross breach of trust. The students and their parents were entitled to your protection, not your abuse.

"I think the offending is too serious for me to be able to suspend the sentence. I have shown what leniency I can in fixing the non-parole period which is lower than I would otherwise have fixed. You will have to serve the sentence. It will begin to run from today."

Convicted in Sydney

By the time of Higgs' jailing in South Australia, some of Higgs' Sydney victims had each decided to report him to the New South Wales police (that is, instead of merely speaking to the Jesuits). The New South Wales police investigation was conducted by detectives (including Detective Sergeant Eugene Stek) from the NSW State Crime Command's Sex Crimes Squad (based at the NSW Police headquarters in Parramatta).

In a Sydney local court on 31 January 2017, NSW Police filed charges against Victor Higgs (then aged 79) for indecently assaulting a number of children during his time at Sydney's St Ignatius College Riverview in the 1970s. This first court-mention was a brief preliminary procedure, with a magistrate, to enable the charges to go on the waiting-list for the next steps in the judicial procedure.

Eventually, in Sydney's Downing Centre District Court in 2018, Higgs faced 16 charges of indecent assault committed against six teenage students at St Ignatius Riverview. Higgs pleaded not guilty, thus necessitating a jury trial.

The court was told that Higgs would summon boys into his office, or a bedroom, or other private locations at the school and at a beach house at Gerroa on the New South Wales south coast. At those locations he would make them strip and perform sexual acts.

On 9 October 2018, the jury returned a verdict of guilty on all the charges.

The sentencing process (with Judge C. Robison) is scheduled for 23 November 2018. Meanwhile, because Higgs needs to consult medical doctors, he has been released on bail until the sentencing. The court's case numbers for Victor Higgs are 2016/00390307 and 2017/00392653.

• By a Broken Rites researcher, article updated 20 December 2018

Father Paul Chris Pavlou is a relatively recent recruit to Australia's Catholic priesthood. He was originally a school-teacher but, in his thirties, he began studying to become a priest. Later, in his forties, he was elevated to the priesthood and began ministering in parishes of the Melbourne archdiocese. Soon after this, he admitted in court that he was committing sexual offences against children before and after becoming a priest. Now he is in a remand prison, awaiting his sentencing in the Melbourne County Court on 3 December 2018. Pavlou's story raises questions about how the church selects its priests.

After studying for the priesthood, Paul Pavlou was ordained as a priest in 2004. His religious status (while studying for the priesthood — and afterwards) gave him access to children. Two victims have succeeded in getting Pavlou convicted in court for offences which he committed between 2003 and 2006:

• Pavlou's first conviction (in court in 2009) was for sexually abusing a 14-year-old boy (this abuse occurred in 2006). Originally, the abuse had been discovered by the boy's mother but, unfortunately, she merely reported the crime to the church authorities who then (as usual) managed to conceal the matter from the police. Eventually, however, the family spoke to Victoria Police child-protection detectives, and this resulted in Pavlou being convicted in court in 2009.
• Later, another Pavlou victim spoke to the detectives, stating that he was abused around 2003-2004, when he was aged 12. With the help of the detectives, Pavlou was convicted again in September 2018 regarding this boy. As the charges in the 2018 court case are more serious than in the previous case, the 2018 judge has ordered that Pavlou be placed behind bars while waiting his sentencing on 3 December 2018. The 2018 court case is mentioned towards the end of this article.

Some background

Research by Broken Rites has ascertained that Paul Pavlou was born in Australia in 1959, in a family of Greek Cypriot origin. The third of six children, he grew up in Melbourne suburbs (he attended primary school at East Burwood and high school at Richmond and Syndal).

He studied engineering at Melbourne's Monash University for a year before completing a Diploma of Teaching (Primary) at Melbourne’s Frankston State College in 1981, majoring in physical education and social science. He began teaching in state primary schools at Hallam and Mount Waverley (both in Melbourne’s east).

Other members of his family identify with the Greek Orthodox Church but Paul Pavlou became a Catholic and began taking an active role in Catholic affairs.

After spending ten years teaching, he began preparing for a career in religious life. In 1997, he graduated with a Bachelor of Theology at Melbourne’s Catholic Theological College and became a Brother in a Catholic religious order, the Salesians of Don Bosco.

Brother Pavlou lived in Salesian establishments in Melbourne’s east (at Oakleigh, Lysterfield and Ferntree Gully). At Ferntree Gully, Brother Pavlou taught at St Joseph's Regional College, which is conducted by the Salesian order.

In his forties, he was accepted by the Melbourne Catholic archdiocese as a mature-age entrant for the priesthood and did his training at the church's Melbourne seminary.

After being ordained during 2004, he worked as an assistant priest at Croydon (Sacred Heart parish) in Melbourne's outer east. Broken Rites has ascertained that Pavlou was listed as a priest, for the first time, in the next edition of the Australian Catholic Directory (compiled in early 2005).

In late 2005, Paul Pavlou took up duties at the Healesville parish (St Brigid's). He was listed there (as the administrator, or acting priest-in-charge) in the next edition of the Australian Catholic Directory (compiled in early 2006).

The 2009 court case

Father Paul Pavlou of the Melbourne Catholic archdiocese, pleaded guilty in the Melbourne Magistrates Court on 29 June 2009 (when he was aged 50) to one charge of committing an indecent act with a 14-year-old boy and another charge of possessing child pornography.

The offences occurred while Pavlou was ministering at a parish at Healesville, north-east of Melbourne, for about a year in 2005-2006, the court was told. Healesville is within the Melbourne Catholic diocese.

For an indecent act with a child under 16, Father Pavlou was sentenced to 18 months in jail, which was suspended for 24 months.

For knowingly being in possession of child pornography, he was sentenced to a two-year Community-Based Order. As a condition of the CBO, Father Pavlou was ordered to do a program for sex offenders and 50 hours of community work.

The court ordered that Pavlou's name be placed on the Sex Offenders Register for 15 years.

An additional charge of indecent assault was withdrawn following discussions between the prosecutor and the church's defence lawyer.

The church's cover-up

The complaint regarding the 14-year-old boy first came to the surface in October 2006, when the boy’s mother became concerned about the 47-year-old priest's persistent interest in her son, including telephone calls and text messages and regular sleepovers at the priest's home.

The mother notified her concern to the principal of St Brigid's primary school. The mother was then directed to the Melbourne archdiocese’s internal investigation system. This system was supervised by a Melbourne barrister, Peter O’Callaghan, QC, who is engaged by the archdiocese.

As part of the church’s internal process, the church sent two female representatives of the archdiocese to conduct a series of tape-recorded interviews with the boy. Under the church process, Father Pavlou was notified about the boy’s allegations, thus enabling him to prepare his defence.

During the church's internal investigation, Pavlou left the Healesville parish after being there for only 12 months. The reason for his departure, according to the next edition of the Australian Catholic directory (compiled in early 2007) was "sick leave", and his forwarding address was given as "care of the archdiocesan office".

Police investigation

Meanwhile, the mother became dissatisfied by the church process and she decided to consult the police. Unlike the church process, the police acted decisively.

In 2007 the police interviewed Pavlou and checked his computer. Because he had been forewarned by the church process, Pavlou had deleted files from his computer. However, police were still able to retrieve evidence that Pavlou had been using the computer for child pornography.

Police from the Lilydale criminal investigation unit eventually issued Pavlou with a court summons. The case was listed for a mention in court in 2008, and again in early 2009.

Originally, the defence indicated that Pavlou would contest the charges. Normally, this would entail a long hearing, perhaps over several days, with witnesses being examined and cross-examined.

When the "contested hearing" date (29 June 2009) arrived, the defence indicated that Pavlou had decided to plead guilty. This meant a relatively short hearing.

The prosecution agreed to amalgamate the two counts of indecent acts into one charge.

Pornography on computer

The 2009 hearing was told that, during their investigations, police seized a computer hard-drive. Police retrieved a large number of photographs depicting children under 16 in pornographic situations, the court was told.

"The vast majority of the images depicted young adolescent males," the police prosecutor said.

Originally, in the police investigation, Pavlou claimed ignorance about the pornography but police found evidence that he paid for the porn himself. This persuaded Pavlou to change his plea to guilty.

Sentenced in 2009

After Pavlou's guilty plea in 2009, the hearing was largely devoted to submissions by the defence, seeking a lenient sentence.

Church defence lawyer Brian Bourke told the court that, at the age of 50 (in 2009), Pavlou now had little prospect of employment in any field for which he was trained.

As requested by the defence, the magistrate took into account the guilty plea when deciding the sentence.

In sentencing, Magistrate Anne Goldsborough told Pavlou: "These are charges of the utmost significance not only for you but for the young victim involved."

The victim and his family were present in the court for the magistrate's summing up and sentence.

The prosecuting agency in Pavlou's 2009 case was the Lilydale branch of the Victoria Police's criminal investigation unit. The police contact at Lilydale was Leading Senior Constable Mark Molloy.

The 2018 case

On 10 September 2018, Paul Pavlou appeared in the Melbourne County Court, charged with offences committed against another child (a 12-year-old boy) in 2003-2004. The police investigator was Detective C. Wastell, who has since transferred to the Warrnambool Criminal Investigation Unit in western Victoria. The charges in the 2018 case include sexual penetration (this is classified as a serious offence). Previously, when this boy's case was first filed in court, Pavlou had indicated that he intended to fight these charges with a "not guilty" plea but in the County Court he changed his plea to guilty. The sentencing is due to be held in the County Court on 3 December 2018 (court case number G12284483). Until then, Pavlou is in custody in a remand prison.

Meanwhile, the Victoria Police detectives are available to receive any further information about Paul Pavlou's previous activities.

Further reading

Father Paul Pavlou wasn't the first priest from St Brigid's parish in Healesville who ended up in jail. A previous priest there, Fr David Daniel, was offending while at this parish in the early 1990s. To see a Broken Rites article about Fr David Daniel, click HERE.

Eight months before Paul Pavlou's 2009 conviction, another Melbourne Catholic priest (Father Fr John Haines) was jailed for similar offences. Haines was sentenced on 4 November 2008, after pleading guilty to six counts of an indecent act with a child under 16, procurement of a minor for child pornography and possessing child porn.

For another example of a priest who was involved in child-pornography, see the Broken Rites article about Father Adrian van Klooster.

A feature article about Paul Pavlou in the Melbourne Age, on 10 August 2009, can be seen here.

• By a Broken Rites researcher, article updated 20 November 2018

In the 1960s, Brian Spillane began training towards a career in the Catholic priesthood. In 2018, he is in jail in New South Wales for sexual crimes which he committed against boys (and also some girls) during his religious career. While he is in jail, police have investigated some additional allegations about Spillane. Now, in late 2018, he is being charged in court (aged 75) with having raped a ten-year-old boy in Sydney in 1964. He is to face a committal hearing on a future date.

The case involves one offence of buggery allegedly committed against the ten-year-old boy in a public toilet during a picnic for boys on Shark Island, off Rose Bay, Sydney Harbour, between August and December 1964.

The court's case number is: 2018/00263034.

The next step in the case was adjourned to 20 November 2018, and the subsequent process could continue into 2019.

Spillane's lawyer made no application for bail and it was formally refused, with Spillane therefore remaining behind bars.

Some background

Reverend Brian Spillane, C.M, was a priest in the Catholic order of Vincentian Fathers and Brothers (also called the Congregation of the Mission — hence the initials "C.M." after his name). The Vincentians are an Australia-wide order, not confined to a particular diocese. As well as establishing the St Stanislaus boys' boarding school in Bathurst, NSW, the Vincentians have also provided priests for several parishes in Sydney, Melbourne and Queensland.

Broken Rites has researched Spillane's life in electoral rolls and church documents.

Born about 1943, he began training for the Vincentian religious order in Sydney in 1960. The Australian electoral rolls from 1964 to 1968 listed Brian Joseph Leonard Spillane as a student, located at a Vincentian address in Balaclava Road, Marsfield, Sydney.

After completing his training, he was evidently ordained as a priest in the late 1960s (the 1969 Australian electoral roll listed him at St Stanislaus College, Bathurst, as a priest).

According to a St Stanislaus College yearbook, Father Spillane served two periods at this school, totalling 19 years. The first was from 1968 to 1978, during which he had various roles: a form master of various forms from year 7 to year 12; a dormitory master; a full-time teacher of many subjects, mainly language; a sports coach; the dean of discipline; a lieutenant in the cadet unit; and supervisor of the band.

The pupils boarding at St Stanislaus came from towns and farms throughout New South Wales.

Vincentian priests and brothers were living in bedrooms on the St Stanislaus College premises.

From 1979 to 1983, Father Spillane was away from St Stanislaus, doing parish and mission work including a period at St Anthony's parish in Marsfield, Sydney.

For three years from early 1981, Spillane joined a "renewal team" led by the Australian head of the Vincentian order which visited Vincentian parishes around Australia, promoting Catholic teachings. These visits to various parishes (and to families) gave him access to girls as well as boys (Spillane was a danger to both genders).

From 1984 to 1991, he was again at St Stanislaus College as the school chaplain. He was the Superior (that is, the leader) of the Vincentian clergy living at this school.

After leaving St Stanislaus College, Spillane was still remembered in the school's 1992 yearbook, in which the two Year Seven classes were each named after a teacher (one of these classes was labelled in the 1992 yearbook as "Year 7 Spillane").

In the early 1990s, Father Spillane ministered at a Vincentian parish (Mary Immaculate) at Southport on Queensland's Gold Coast. From 1995 to 1997, his postal address was the Catholic Mission, Oxenford, near the Gold Coast.

From 1998 to 2004 he was listed as the Parish Priest at a Vincentian parish (St Vincent's) in Ashfield, Sydney.

The above-mentioned addresses were Father Spillane's official workplaces but these were not necessarily his only residential addresses. For example, from the late 1980s onwards, Father Hugh Murray of the Vincentian order conducted a community centre in Tempe House, at Arncliffe, Sydney; and Fr Murray has said that Vincentian priests who spent time living at this address included Brian Spillane.

In 2004, Brian Spillane left the Vincentian order and began living privately in Sydney.

Spillane's previous court proceedings

In 2008 and 2009, after an investigation by NSW Police detectives, the NSW Office of Public Prosecutions charged Brian Joseph Spillane with sexual offences against a number of boys and girls.

Spillane had a legal team to fight the court proceedings on his behalf. He pleaded Not Guilty to all charges.

Spillane's legal costs (to 2016) are estimated to have exceeded a million dollars. It would be interesting to find out where these dollars came from. Did the defence funds include money placed on the collection plate in parishes? Or from school fees paid by parents? Did a friendly bishop or archbishop make a contribution from diocesan funds?

The prosecutors chose to hold the girls' case first. In 2010, a jury convicted Spillane regarding the girls and he was jailed for these particular incidents.

The prosecutors then began preparing for the St Stanislaus College boys' case which was more complex. Spillane's legal team tried to obstruct, or delay, the process. For legal reasons, the boys were eventually divided into several groups, with each group being handled by a different jury. These trials were to be held one-at-a-time.

St Stanislaus College (and the Vincentian religious order) had already gained public notoriety for child-sex crimes, and fears were expressed in court that this notoriety might affect the consecutive juries, thus damaging the whole procedure. Therefore, the court placed a temporary media-suppression order regarding all the St Stanislaus boys' proceedings, so as to prevent any jury being influenced by media reports of a preceding St Stanislaus trial.

The media-suppression order was finally lifted on 5 December 2016 after the final Spillane trial was finished. Spillane is still in jail, and on 16 February 2017 he was sentenced regarding the most recent St Stanislaus trials.

Convicted regarding female victims

In Sydney in November 2010, a New South Wales District Court jury found Brian Joseph Spillane (then aged 67) guilty of indecently assaulting three girls aged between six and seventeen.

The jury convicted Spillane on nine counts of indecent assault against three girls. The alleged events occurred in the 1970s and early 1980s in various circumstances:

• Some of the offences against girls allegedly occurred when Spillane visited a family in a rural area in north-western New South Wales. Spillane had become acquainted with this family as a result of his work in Bathurst.
• Other offences against girls allegedly occurred while Spillane was working (in 1979 onwards) from a Vincentian base in Marsfield, a Sydney suburb. He became the leader of a group of Vincentian priests and brothers at Marsfield and he also carried out duties in the local Catholic parish (which was staffed by Vincentians) and at the local parish primary school.

The court was told that Spillane gained access to children through his role as a Catholic priest. The prosecutor, Brad Hughes, told the court that Spillane "would not have been within a bull's roar of these girls if he hadn't been a priest."

The court was told that friendly families welcomed him to their homes. He conducted Mass in their sitting rooms, played games with their children and, according to the evidence, abused their daughters. Spillane would sometimes appear at a family’s house uninvited, the court was told. One mother told the court how Spillane brought presents for the parents and the children.

The court heard how Spillane’s role as a priest protected him. Some of the children mentioned vaguely to their parents that Father Spillane had touched them. There was no evidence in court that any of the parents (or any of the church authorities) reported Spillane to the police at the time of the incidents.

The court was told that, while hearing Confession of children in his parish, Spillane would invite children as young as eight to sit on his lap. Spillane told the court that this “was my pastoral approach to break down the barrier between the fearful God and the loving God."

The court charges in the Sydney court proceedings were confined to incidents that allegedly occurred within New South Wales. The court heard about an incident involving a girl in Queensland but this matter is outside the jurisdiction of the NSW courts.

Bail refused in 2010

On 30 November 2010, after the jury verdicts, the court heard an application by Brian Joseph Spillane, seeking to be released on bail while he would be waiting for further court proceedings. Spillane was refused bail and was removed from the court in custody pending his next court appearance.

Attempt to stop the proceedings

Meanwhile, in 2010, Spillane's legal team raised certain objections regarding the proposed sentence proceedings (involving the female victims) and also regarding subsequent proposed court proceedings (involving a number of male victims).

These objections needed be debated at length in the courts, including the New South Wales Court of Appeal, and this caused a delay in the proceedings.

Finally, in early April 2012, the NSW Court of Appeal cleared the way for the Brian Joseph Spillane proceedings to resume.

Sentenced regarding the girls, April 2012

On 19 April 2012, after Spillane had been in custody for 17 months, Judge Michael Finnane sentenced him in the Sydney District Court regarding the female victims.

In his sentencing remarks, the judge called each assault "serious, planned and callous". He said Spillane's position as a priest and his "standing in the community" allowed him to gain access to the homes of his victims, many of whom came from devout Catholic families.

Some of the offences occurred when Spillane was alone with his victims in their bedrooms for night-time prayers. One happened in a car after he had said Mass at a memorial service.

"He was very trusted and the parents of each of the victims readily gave him access to their daughters because of that trust and the esteem in which he was held," Judge Finnane said.

"The victims in this trial were all girls to whom he got access when he was conducting parish missions or ... when he was visiting a country town.

"It was sexual abuse carried out by a trusted priest and was a major breach of trust."

The judge said Spillane had shown no remorse and no contrition for his offending "which means that there can be little hope of rehabilitation".

Jailed regarding the girls, 2012

Judge Finnane sentenced Spillane, then aged 69, to jail for nine years with a right to eventually apply for release to serve the final part of his sentence on parole. (This jail sentence was reported in the media.).

Charges regarding boys, 2013-2016

The cases regarding St Stanislaus College were held between 2013 and 2016, using separate juries (hence the need for a non-publication order during these trials, so that the cases would not be jeopardized by the media).

The boys' cases resulted as follows:

• After a trial in 2013, Spillane was convicted of assaults on five St Stanislaus College boys.
• In 2015 he pleaded guilty to assaults on four St Stanislaus boys, committed in the late 1980s.
• During 2016, he was convicted of assaults on five St Stanislaus boys, committed between 1974 and 1990.
• In early December 2016, a jury found him guilty of 11 charges, including sexual assault, indecent assault and buggery on four St Stanislaus boys between 1976 and 1988. He was acquitted of one charge of buggery.

The media-suppression order was finally lifted on 5 December 2016 after the final St Stanislaus trial was finished. Spillane was already in jail, still serving his sentence for his crimes against the girls.

Another jail sentence, 2017

On 3 February 2017, Judge Robyn Tupman held a pre-sentence procedure for Spillane regarding the boys. This was an opportunity for any victim to submit an impact statement showing how Spillane's crime (and the church's cover-up) affected this victim's life. The Judge takes these impact statements into account when preparing Spillane's sentence.

On 16 February 2017, Judge Tupman sentenced Spillane to at least nine years in jail (with a maximum of 13 years) for 16 offences (including buggery) against the male victims. As the sentences (for the girls as well as the boys) will run partially concurrently, Spillane's eligible release date has been extended by five years to November 2026.

The judge said Spillane abused his position of trust as a teacher and chaplain and "used religious rituals to increase his power over his victims".

"Most of the complainants were boarders [at St Stanislaus College], a long way from home and in many cases away from home for the first time," she said.

"Many of the complainants didn't realise what was happening was inappropriate, in large part because he was a priest.

"They didn't tell anyone for many years. Perhaps more insidiously, they didn't expect to be believed.

"He knew that he could act with impunity and there was almost no chance his offending would be revealed."

A victim speaks out, 2017

Outside the court, after the sentencing on 16 February 2017, one St Stanislaus College victim (Damien Sheridan) was interviewed by television, radio and newspaper reporters. He authorized the media to publish his name and photograph. Damien also released copies of the typewritten Victim Impact Statement that he had submitted to the court's February 3 pre-sentence hearing.

Damen said: "I was a shy, well-mannered boy from a small country town of Forbes with very little wisdom in the ways of how the world works. I was raised a Catholic with strict catholic morals, although no one ever told me to be aware that there are wolves dressed as sheep out there."

Damien said that Spillane's abuse (and the church's cover-up) devastated his later development, leaving him with post-traumatic stress disorder. He has had difficulty getting and keeping employment.

Charged again in 2018

In 2018, Spillane is in jail but police have charged him regarding a ten-year-old boy who was allegedly sexually abused by Spillane in a public toilet in Sydney in 1964 while Spillane was a trainee with the Vincentian religious order. The case had a brief procedural mention in Sydney Central Local Court on 20 November 2018, with a committal hearing to be held on a later date.

The investigation was conducted by officers attached to the NSW Police Force Marine Area Command. The officers issued a Future Court Attendance Notice to Brian Joseph Spillane, who was in a Correctional Centre at South Nowra, NSW.

By a Broken Rites researcher

A convicted priest (Father David Edwin Rapson, who belonged to one of Australia's most prominent Catholic religious orders, the Salesians) has "blown the whistle" on his colleagues in this religious order, declaring that they too were committing sexual offences on schoolboys. Broken Rites has discovered Rapson's claim in some court documents.

The priests and brothers of the Salesian religious order operate schools and parishes around Australia. That is, they do not belong to a specific geographic entity such as the Melbourne archdiocese).

Broken Rites has just obtained a transcript of proceedings at the Melbourne County Court (on 17 October 2013), when Judge Liz Gaynor sentenced Rapson on charges involving eight boys at a Melbourne Catholic boys' school (this school was operated by Rapson's religious order).

Before sentencing Rapson (for multiple rapes and indecent assaults), Judge Gaynor acknowledged that Rapson's lawyer wanted the judge to take some other things into account on behalf of Rapson. For example:

• According to the defence lawyer (quoted in Paragraph 28 of Judge Gaynor's sentencing remarks), "it was clear [that] older and more experienced priests were engaging in sexual abuse of the students" [at this school]."
• Judge Gaynor noted [in Paragraph 31] that Rapson began his teaching career at this boarding school, "which, I accept, harboured priests and brothers engaged in sexual abuse of their students."
• Judge Gaynor told Rapson [in Paragraph 33]:  "...These were dreadful crimes against powerless and vulnerable victims who were entirely in your power as residents of the school and by virtue of the enormous authority and stature granted to Catholic priests by Catholic congregations and by parents who unwittingly placed their sons in your entirely predatory hands."
• Judge Gaynor told Rapson that, at this (his first) school, "you very soon became an enthusiastic member of the sexually deviant group of religious [people] operating at the school at the time."

Judge Gaynor was sentencing Rapson after a jury found him guilty of 14 charges (five charges of rape and nine charges of indecent assault), during Rapson's two periods of work at this Melbourne Catholic boys' school (firstly from 1973 to 1977 and secondly from 1987 to 1990).

By a Broken Rites researcher, article updated 1 November 2018

In the early 1970s, a boy complained to the Catholic Church about being sexually abused by a Sydney priest (Father Robert Flaherty) but the church merely transferred the priest to a new parish, thus giving him easy access to more children, a Sydney court has been told. Years later, another victim contacted the detectives, followed later by a third boy (all from different parishes). In court in 2016, Father Flaherty (then aged 72) was jailed regarding the three boys. The Nine Network's program "A Current Affair" ran a story on 24 July 2018 about how the church is still supporting Father Flaherty. If you click a link at the end of this article, you can view the item from "A Current Affair".

In the early 1970s, according to court documents, one of Flaherty's victims (Boy A) complained about Father Flaherty to Bishop Edward Kelly, who was an assistant to Sydney's archbishop. But Father Flaherty was kept in the priesthood for the next 40 years, and, likewise, Bishop Kelly continued his own career.

Robert Francis Flaherty (born 14 June 1943) is a priest in the Sydney archdiocese. After eventually retiring from being in charge of parishes (aged in his mid-sixties), he continued living in a presbytery, working as a hospital chaplain, until the police interviewed him in 2013 (40 years after the first alleged offence).

The three boys in the court case, aged between 11 and 15, did not know each other. They lived in three of Father Flaherty's parishes to the west of Sydney. These parishes, in which Flaherty worked as an assistant priest under the parish-priest-in-charge, were:

• "Our Lady of the Rosary" parish in the suburb called St Mary's;
• St Patrick's parish in Blacktown; and
• St Monica's parish in Richmond.

These three were not necessarily Father Flaherty's only victims. They are merely the three who were interviewed by the detectives. The detectives then interviewed Flaherty.

In a Local Court in 2013, police charged Flaherty regarding these three complainants.

The offences occurred in western Sydney or during visits to Father Flaherty's holiday house at Mollymook, 220 miles from Sydney on the New South Wales south coast, near Ulladulla.

The earliest of these three victims (Boy A in 1971) was being driven home in Flaherty's VW Kombi van after a youth group when Flaherty stopped the vehicle and committed the offence. This boy was assaulted, also, on Flaherty's bed in the parish residence, the presbytery.

Another victim (Boy B) was assaulted at the Mollymook holiday house in 1981. He was woken in the night when Flaherty tried to grope him sexually. Chronologically (according to the year of the offence), this was the third victim in the court proceedings. This victim told his wife in 1996 and then complained to police but there was insufficient evidence for the police to proceed with a prosecution at this time.

Meanwhile, in about 1977 (between Boy A and Boy B), there was another boy ("Dwayne"). This boy was taken to Flaherty's holiday house at Mollymook, where the abuse occurred. Therefore, when Dwayne finally contacted the police in 2012, this third complaint prompted the police to proceed with a prosecution relating to all three of these victims.

In 2013, preliminary proceedings were held by a magistrate in a Local Court, where the charges were all filed. Next, the matter proceeded to a judge in Sydney's Parramatta District Court. with Flaherty facing five charges:-

• In 2014, in the Parramatta District Court, Flaherty pleaded guilty regarding Boy A (two incidents) and Boy B (one incident). The offences against Boy A were very serious but Flaherty agreed to plead guilty if the charges regarding Boy A were reduced to a less serious category, and Boy A agreed to this down-grading of the charges.
• Flaherty pleaded not guilty to two charges ("indecent assaults of a male") regarding the 1977 victim ("Dwayne"). The charges relating to "Dwayne" were in two separate categories (in the child-sex crime laws). Unlike Boy A, Dwayne refused to reduce these offences to a less serious category in return for getting a plea of "Guilty", and therefore Flaherty contested the charges, hoping to defeat them. On 7 September 2015, after a trial conducted by Judge Richard Cogswell, a jury returned a verdict of "Guilty" on these two charges regarding "Dwayne" (the official number of this court case was 2013/00201461).

Pre-sentence proceedings

In February 2016, Judge Cogswell conducted pre-sentence proceedings for Flaherty. The judge began by hearing pre-sentence submissions from the prosecution and the defence about the kind of sentence that Flaherty should receive

The judge then quoted extracts from the victims' impact statements, where one victim talked of the shame, guilt and anger he had been left with.

"It was the leaders of the church who contributed to the mess my life has become," the statement read.

"What happened has robbed me of having faith.

"How can I have faith in a church that allows a paedophile to move from parish to parish, giving them a playground of vulnerable children?"

Another victim said he felt isolated from his family and had had difficulties in relationships since the assault.

Justice Cogswell said the abuse occurred in circumstances involving a very serious breach of trust.

He also noted pre-sentencing reports which said Flaherty had shown little victim empathy.

He said imprisonment was the only appropriate sentence.

"To my mind the offending behaviour ... is such that it would not be appropriate to allow Mr Flaherty not to serve full time in prison," he said.

However he said Flaherty's health problems meant the period behind bars would be significantly shorter.

Jail sentence

Judge Cogswell sentenced Flaherty to a jail term of two years and three weeks, although Flaherty would be eligible to apply for parole after six months behind bars.

The prosecutors indicated that they would appeal against the shortness of the time behind bars, as it was too lenient considering the seriousness of some of the incidents.

Flaherty's lawyer gave notice that Flaherty would lodge an appeal against his conviction on the serious charges relating to "Dwayne", plus an appeal against the jail sentence.

Flaherty remained on bail during the appeals process.

Result of the appeals

On 24 August 2016, the NSW Court of Criminal Appeal dismissed Flaherty's challenge to the jury's "Guilty" verdict regarding the offences against "Dwayne".

Regarding the length of the jail sentence, the three Appeal Court judges dismissed the Crown request for a longer sentence, while two judges (making a majority) agreed that Flaherty's sentence should be cut to two years, with a non-parole period of three months.

After this appeal decision, Reverend Father Robert Flaherty was taken into custody to spend his first night in jail.

Police investigation

Detectives from Blacktown Local Area Command established Strike Force Nemesis to investigate the allegations against Flaherty. The police investigator was Senior Detective Mick Mahoney, of Blacktown Detectives Office.

Flaherty's other Sydney parishes included Guildford and Woy Woy and (in his final years) Auburn and Clemton Park. In 2011, after he retired from being in charge of a parish, the Sydney archdiocese continued to list him in the printed annual Australian Catholic Directory as one of its priests (a hospital chaplain, residing in the Clemton Park presbytery). After the police charged him in 2013, the archdiocese discreetly removed Flaherty's name from the 2014 edition of the directory, so as to cover-up the matter. When he appeared in court, Flaherty was living an address at Wentworth Falls in the Blue Mountains, although officially the church still regards him as a priest in retirement (that is, a priest without church appointment or duties).

The story of one victim — "Dwayne"

One of the victims in the Flaherty court case has told his story in a written statement. Broken Rites is referring to this victim as "Dwayne", which is not his real name, and we have deleted some personal details, so as to protect the privacy of the victim.

"Dwayne" stated:-

"My family members were devout Catholics. In their eyes, priests could do no wrong.

"Father Robert Flaherty was a friend of my parents. When I was aged about 12, he took me down to his holiday house at Mollymook. I slept in a single bed. During the night, I woke from a deep sleep to find Fr Flaherty making an invasive sexual assault on me, followed by another sexual assault. Evidently this was Fr Flaherty's idea of 'sex'.

"This was my first-ever so-called 'sexual' experience and it was a disastrous introduction to so-called sex.

"Fr Flaherty told me that I must not tell anyone, especially my family, because (he said) I would not be believed as my family would trust a Catholic priest more than they trusted me. And (he said) my parents would be disappointed in me for making up such a story.

"Therefore, I was forced to remain silent about the attack but I eventually stopped going to church, and my rejection of the church has continued to be a sore point with my very-Catholic parents. In this way, Fr Flaherty's sexual assault of me (plus the church's code of cover-up and the disruption of my relationship with my parents) continued to hurt me and it damaged my teenage years and my adult life.

"After leaving school, I found it difficult to hold down a job. I became unmotivated to find work

"I resented anybody who had authority over me. I should have been able to ask the church for help but it was the church that got me into this situation.

"I had a series of girlfriends but I lost each of them.

"So I developed addictions. which became a big problem for me for several years, until I eventually managed to overcome this. A counsellor advised me to seek support from my family but there is no way that I could tell my parents about a priest's sexual abuse. Even if they believed me, it would crush their world and this would further damage my relationship with them.

"With the recent headlines about Australia's child-abuse Royal Commission I finally decided to do something about it. I would like the offender to be brought to justice, while still protecting my parents."

Flaherty and the church: exposed on TV

After being released from jail, Father Robert Flaherty is still a priest (and he is still "reverend"), although he is retired from parish work. The Catholic Church provides financial support for him, with a car which the church replaces for him every three years. With help from the victim "Dwyane",the Nine Network's "A Current Affair" program ran a story on 24 July 2018 about how the church is still protecting Father Flaherty. The program includes an interview with Father Flaherty. To see the TV program, click HERE.

By a Broken Rites researcher, article updated 24 September 2018

In the 1970s and 1980s, Father Richard Cattell was a Catholic priest in western Sydney. In the early 1990s, the Catholic Church promoted Cattell to become the Vicar-General of the Parramatta diocese, supervising 48 parishes in western Sydney on behalf of the bishop. In 2015, Cattell was jailed for sexual crimes committed against boys during his time in western Sydney. Since then, detectives have received additional information about Cattell's career. Therefore, in late 2018, police filed additional charges against Cattell in a magistrates court. The new charges will go to a judge in a higher court, the New South Wales District Court (see details towards the end of this article).

Some background research by Broken Rites

Broken Rites has ascertained that Father Richard St John Cattell was ordained on 18 July 1964 for the Sydney archdiocese. He was in the same graduating group as another New South Wales priest, Vincent Kiss, of the Wagga Wagga diocese. (Vincent Kiss was eventually jailed for sexual crimes against children.)

Cattell worked in various parishes (Broken Rites has compiled a list of these) until one victim managed to get Cattell convicted in court in 1994. (The 1994 case is described later in this article.) Since 1994, various Cattell victims have contacted Broken Rites which has advised these victims to have a private chat with NSW Police detectives These victims are from several parishes (and various years) and they do not know each other. In 2014, the New South Wales Office of Public Prosecutors selected one of these victims ("Zachary") as the case most suitable for laying charges in court, resulting in a jail sentence for Cattell in 2015.

The victim in the 2015 sentencing

The police investigation in Zachary's case was conducted by Plain Clothes Senior Constable Peter Shedden, of the Taree Detectives Office, because it was he who conducted the first interview with this victim. (Other alleged victims of Cattell have spoken to Detectives Offices at other police stations around Sydney.)

Zachary told the police how he came from a broken, disadvantaged family (his father was absent from the home). Zachary encountered Cattell in the early 1980s at the age of 11. Cattell used his status as a Catholic priest to take control of Zachary's life.

The abuse of Zachary began at Cattell's holiday house in Mollymook on NSW south coast, 225 miles from Sydney. That is, Zachary was away from home and in Cattell's custody. The abuse continued, at various times, in Cattell's parish house (the presbytery) in western Sydney.

Zachary has stated that he was intimidated into remaining silent about the crimes, because (according to Cattell) "nobody" would believe complaints about a Catholic priest. This church cover-up damaged Zachary's teenage and adult development.

Although Zachery suffered multiple incidents, the Office of Public Prosecutions selected (for court purposes) two representative incidents (occurring after Zachary reached the age of 12).

Jailed in 2015

In Sydney's Penrith District Court on 20 February 2015, Judge Jennifer English sentenced Cattell on two charges (one charge called sexual assault and one called indecent assault) regarding this one boy, "Zachary". Cattell had pleaded guilty to both charges. Cattell was sentenced to 1 year 6 months on one charge and 2 years 6 months on the other charge, with parole possible. These jail terms were to be served concurrently, with. Cattell becoming eligible to apply for parole after 18 months behind bars — on 19 August 2016. He received a discount on his sentence because of his guilty plea.

How the 2015 case began

Father Richard Cattell retired from parish work after his 1994 conviction. He later lived privately at Port Macquarie on the New South Wales mid-north coast and, recently, on the Gold Coast in Queensland. On 28 February 2014, New South Wales detectives travelled to the NSW/Queensland border, and interviewed Richard Cattell about one former altar boy ("Zachary"). who alleged that he was sexually abused while Cattell was based at parishes in western Sydney in the 1980s. The matter was officially filed in a NSW Local Court on 24 March 2014.

At the time of the offences against Zachary in the 1980s, Father Cattell was based at a parish called "Our Lady of the Rosary" in a suburb called St Marys [situated 45 kilometres west of the Sydney central business district, near Penrith]. According to a church website, Reverend Richard Cattell was the parish priest in charge of Our Lady of the Rosary parish 1982 from to 1994.

Police alleged (in court documents) that, during three years between 1984 and 1987, the priest interfered with the young boy’s genitalia.

During 2014 the case began going through its next steps at the magistrate level in Local Courts in western Sydney. In late 2014, Cattell pleaded guilty to two charges.

The guilty plea meant that Cattell was convicted. Therefore, the victim was not required to appear in court.

The case was then passed on to a higher court, the Penrith District Court, for sentencing by a judge on the particular charges relating to the guilty plea. The District Court case number is 201400062169.

Pre-sentence procedures in the 2015 case

In Penrith District Court on 20 February 2015, Judge Jennifer English began by hearing submissions from the prosecutor and the defence.

The defence requested a suspended, non-custodial sentence, claiming that Cattell had been successfully rehabilitated after he served a jail sentence in the mid-1990s for similar offences.

The prosecutor, however, called for a “full-time custodial sentence” as the victim was just 12-years-old when the sexual assaults began and the assaults took place when “the victim was under the authority of the accused”.

The court was told that one of the early assaults involved Cattell handling his young victim’s genitals in a fold-out bed of Cattell’s church residence at St Marys.

Similar sexual assaults took place during holidays at other locations in country New South Wales.

“The behaviour of the accused represents a gross breach of his trust and position,” the prosecutor stated. “The offences were not isolated and occurred over a number of years,” the prosecution stated.

Victim impact statement in the 2015 case

As well as giving police a written statement about the crimes, Zachary was invited to compile a separate statement (called a victim impact statement), which was submitted to the judge to help her in preparing for the sentencing. 

Zachary's impact statement (tabled in court) said:

"As a 43 year old father of four and a survivor of child sexual assault, I recognise this crime as hideous and horrific perpetrated by cowards for deviant purposes.  But as an 11 year old victim, you, Richard Cattell, stole my childhood and robbed me of a normal adult life. Your actions have both pervaded and devastated my life for the past 30 years.

"You were aware that I came from a broken family and that we didn’t have much, and in 1982 when my mother started volunteering at the local Catholic Church you saw this as an opportunity to take me under your wing where you started grooming me with holidays, gifts and pocket money for doing odd jobs.

"Your holiday house in Mollymook is where the abuse started.  I was only a child, I was petrified, hurt, confused and very alone.  This is the day you exploited your position of trust, violated my innocence and destroyed my ability to trust another human.

"If this wasn’t enough, you then started to control all aspects of my life – I found myself sleeping over at the presbytery on weekends; you also engineered a change of school. I had no way of escaping your cycle of abuse. My helplessness often turned to uncertainty as you would tell me you loved me and what you were doing to me was normal.  If it was so normal, why was it a secret?

"I was conflicted internally —  'tell someone' [but]  'they’ll never believe you'—  thoughts raced through my head constantly about wanting to speak up, but shame and fear held me back. 

" I spent my late teens isolating myself from friends and family, so they didn’t see the guilt, shame and toxic thoughts I carried with me. (Feelings of worthlessness and wanting to hurt myself.)  This isolation lead to a period of unemployment as I spiralled into a world of depression, abandoned to face the demons of the abuse you inflicted.  I simply lost the ability to see any joy and have fun.

"During my 20s and into my 30s I struggled to keep jobs having had 14 different jobs in total.  I continued to suffer socially and now I was feeling the full economic stress of my past. 

"The burden of your abuse weighs heavily on my marriage and my children, your actions have not only impacted my childhood but theirs.  I’m overly protective, lack the confidence to trust people in their lives and they go without wonderful childhood opportunities so they never have to carry the pain and suffering I endured at your hands.

"The impact of your crime has also passed to my extended family and handful of friends, who have also struggled.  You conducted the wedding for my sister and brother-in-law, who now feel guilty, as they should have known…or should have been there for me.

"It took until 1998 before I had the courage to tell my wife and for the first time in my life I felt a little less dirty.

"In February 2012 I decided it was time to change my life.  I consulted a psychiatrist and was diagnosed with Major Depression.  I’m currently taking anti-depressants and have been seeing a clinical psychologist on a fortnightly basis for the past two and a half years.

"It is with this help I understand why this happened to me. I did nothing wrong. I was an easy, vulnerable target for a predator.

"For the first time since you attacked and assaulted this 11 year old boy in Mollymook all those years ago, he now has the strength and courage to say no more.

"Today I leave this courtroom with my head held high." 

The sentencing in 2015

In handing down the jail sentence, Judge English read extracts from the victim’s impact statement, for example, where the victim described being “deprived of a normal childhood”.

Judge English said she had taken into account Cattell’s age (74 years in 2015) and his recent good behaviour but, she said, a full-time custodial sentence was important because “a message must be sent to those who abuse trust”.

After the judge handed down the details of the jail sentence, Richard Cattell was removed from the court in custody.

In 2018, after more alleged victims contacted the police, additional charges were laid against Cattell.

The priest's career

Broken Rites has searched through old editions of the annual Australian Catholic Directory to compile a list of Cattell's parishes. His early parishes included: Concord West and Lakemba in the 1960s; and Liverpool, Windsor and Castle Hill in the 1970s. These are in Sydney's west.

In addition, he spent time at Forestville (Our Lady of Good Counsel parish), in Sydney's north, about 1970; plus some some time at the East Gosford parish, north of Sydney, in the 1970s.

In 1982, Cattell was listed as being in charge of St Matthew's parish, Windsor, in Sydney's north-west.

For the remainder of the 1980s, until 1994, he was listed (in the Australian Catholic Directory) as the parish priest in charge of the "Our Lady of the Rosary" parish in the outer-western Sydney suburb of St Marys, near Penrith. The "Our Lady of the Rosary Parish" includes the suburbs of Claremont Meadows, Colyton, Oxley Park, St Marys and Werrington.

In the mid-1980s, parishes in Sydney's outer-west were separated from the Sydney archdiocese to form a new separate western-suburbs diocese, which is called the "Diocese of Parramatta" (because the bishop is located in Parramatta). Father Richard Cattell became a senior priest in the new diocese; and in the early 1990s he was listed as the Vicar-General, helping Bishop Bede Heather to administer the new diocese.

More complaints

Apart from the above-mentioned story of "Zachary", Broken Rites has received complaints about Richard Cattell from other parishes. For example, "Percy" (a former altar boy at St Patrick's parish, Gosford) told us:

"In the early 1970s, Cattell wanted to take me from Gosford to a religious retreat at Orange. My parents liked this idea. Near Orange, Cattell merely took me to an isolated house where I would be staying the night alone with him. He molested me in my bed but I managed to ward him off.

"Cattell apologised for his action. He begged me to keep quiet about it.

"I didn't tell my parents, or anybody else about it, because I didn't think I would be believed. Years later, I told my father, who said that if he had known at the time, he would have flattened Cattell."

More background:

The bishop supported Cattell, ignoring the victims

• The following information was written by Broken Rites while researching the 1994 court case.

In 1973, when Father Richard Cattell was a Catholic priest in the Liverpool parish in Sydney's south-west, he sexually abused a boy ("Albert") who eventually reported this crime to the police twenty years later. This resulted in Cattell being jailed in 1994 after pleading guilty. This 1994 court case, researched by Broken Rites, demonstrates that church victims should report sexual crimes to the civil authorities, not to the offending organisation (the church).

In the early 1990s, Cattell was the vicar-general of the newly-created Parramatta diocese, administering it on behalf of Bishop Bede Heather. In his role as the vicar-general, it was possible that Cattell could be approached by church-abuse victims wanting to report the crimes of one of  Cattell's fellow-priests.  It was after his appointment as the vicar-general that "Albert" (a victim of Cattell from the 1970s, at  the Liverpool parish) spoke to detectives from the New South Wales Police, resulting in the 1994 court case.

In the Penrith Local Court on 19 August 1994, Richard St John Cattell (then aged 54) pleaded guilty to five counts of indecent assault on a male. The court was told that in 1973 (when Cattell was aged 33, working at the Liverpool parish), a 14-year-old boy ("Albert") went to him, reporting that he had been sexually assaulted by a schoolteacher. Instead of helping the boy (for example, by getting the teacher punished), Cattell allegedly told the boy that this sort of experience was "normal". Cattell then committed indecent assaults against the boy several times during the next three years.

The sentencing process began in Penrith District Court on 25 November 1994. The prosecution brief was compiled by Det. Sgt. Malcolm Hockenberg (of Penrith), working in association with Detective Sue Lightfoot of Penrith.

On 9 December 1994, Judge Saunders sentenced Richard Cattell to three years jail, with parole possible after serving two years behind bars. 

On the day of the sentencing, the head of the Parramatta diocese (Bishop Bede Heather), wrote to Cattell's former parishioners, supporting the convicted criminal Richard Cattell, rather than supporting the victim.

Bishop Heather wrote:"The Church's message is one of mercy.From me and the priests of Parramatta Father Richard will receive forgiveness and support.He continues to be our brother priest..."

Bishop Heather's attitude demonstrates why church victims should report the crime to the civil authorities — not to the offending organisation, the church.

On 19 December 1994, Heather wrote to his clergy about the Cattell case and several similar cases in his diocese. He gave Cattell's prison address, with suggestions for those priests "intending to visit". He also indicated his depressed mood about all the scandals, saying that "priestly ministry has suffered a severe setback in the eyes of many people." (That is, it was unfortunate that the scandals had become public.)

The Liverpool victim ("Albert") who got Cattell jailed in 1994 was setting an example which could be followed by other victims. Broken Rites knows the contact address for child-protection units in each Australian state, where a victim can have a confidential chat with a specialist detective.

Cattell in retirement

Broken Rites has ascertained that, after retiring from parish work in the 1990s, Richard Cattell lived privately at Port Macquarie on the New South Wales mid-north coast. At the sentencing in the Penrith District Court on 20 February 2015, the court was told that Cattell left Port Macquarie after local people learned about his connection with child-abuse.

The Port Macquarie house was then put up for sale. The real estate agent's advertisement (which Broken Rites has examined) said that the house was being sold because the owner was "moving interstate". Indeed, Cattell went to live with his brother on the Queensland Gold Coast — until the New South Wales police caught up with him in 2014, resulting in his conviction in 2015.

New charges in 2018

In late 2018, prosecutors filed multiple additional charges against Cattell with a magistrate in the Penrith Local Court. The court's case numbers for Cattell are: 2017/00370653, 2017/00073102, 2017/00370870 and 2018/00086112.

Next, these charges will proceed to a judge in a higher court, the Penrith District Court, with a first mention scheduled for 30 November 2018, to be followed by further proceedings on a later date.

• By a Broken Rites researcher, article updated on 26 November 2018

Catholic Church authorities knew for years about Christian Brother Desmond Eric ("Neil") Richards'sexual crimes against schoolboys in New South Wales but the crimes were concealed from the police (and from the public). Eventually, Richards was transferred to Rome (away from the NSW police) but NSW detectives arrested him when he returned to Australia in 2013. Richards was jailed in Sydney in 2014 for some of his crimes. On 16 December 2016 (aged in his mid-seventies), he was sentenced to additional time in jail after more of his victims contacted the NSW detectives. Richards pleaded guilty regarding all these victims. On 17 October 2018, he was sentenced again to more jail time for more of his crimes. Other victims of Richards have remained silent but it is still possible for them to speak to the detectives; therefore, the investigation will continue.

Brother "Neil" Richards has spent more than half a century as a Christian Brother, including as a headmaster, in Catholic schools in Sydney and regional New South Wales. According to statements made in court, Richards began teaching as a Christian Brother in 1961 and (it was stated) one of his first sex crimes was committed against a boy in 1962.

In those years, a new Christian Brother would normally adopt a new forename. Hence, Desmond Eric Richards became Brother "Neil" Richards.

Richards' offending continued, in several schools, during his teaching career, and eventually (after he retired from teaching duties) the Christian Brothers organisation transferred him to Rome to be in charge of their website for their Oceania province (that is, for Australia and the Pacific). Thus, a Catholic international website was administered by a child-abuser.

How the police investigation began in 2013

Some years ago, one of Richards' victims contacted Broken Rites, which advised him to have a private interview with a Detectives Office of the NSW Police. Later, another victim from a different school came forward. Detectives then investigated and found two more of Brother Richards' victims.

These four victims were abused between 1972 and 1982.

In 2013 the detectives learned that Richards was working at the Catholic Church headquarters in Rome. When he re-visited Australia, police arrested him in November 2013.

During early and mid-2014, Richards appeared before a magistrate in a Local Court, charged (under his birth name, Desmond Eric Richards), regarding the four victims who had spoken (separately) to the police. The court was told that, after the boys had been sexually assaulted by Brother Richards, they were regularly beaten with a strap.

The court was told that one 12-year-old boy, who had never been the subject of any punishment before the indecent assault, was later strapped on more than 60 occasions at St Patrick’s Christian Brothers College in Albury, while Richards was headmaster there in the early 1970s.

Another boy was regularly singled out for punishment and ordered to stand in the corner of the classroom, while a third was strapped once a fortnight and made to stand outside class, the court was told.

One boy, then aged 11, was assaulted while on a school camp (at Arcadia in north-west Sydney) when Richards got into bed with him.

Richards pleaded guilty to the abuse of four boys aged 11, 12 and 13 at St Patrick’s Albury and Bishop Henschke school in Wagga Wagga (both of these schools are in southern New South Wales) and at St Patrick’s Strathfield (in Sydney). In mid-2014, Richards was placed on bail pending the sentence proceedings to be held later in the year.

On 7 November 2014, Judge Peter Zahra conducted a pre-sentence procedure for Richards in the Sydney District Court. The judge was hearing submissions from the prosecutor and the defence lawyer about what kind of sentence should be imposed on Richards.

During these submissions, the court was told that the Catholic Church authorities had known for many years about Richards being an offender.The church authorities kept the matter "in-house" and it was not reported to the police. Later, the police evidently did learn about one of Richards' victims, and, as a result, in 2006 Richards pleaded guilty to a criminal charge about a previous indecent-assault offence at Gosford on the New South Wales Central Coast, but he was not sent to jail.

In his submission to Judge Zahra on 7 November 2014, Richards' defence lawyer recommended that, because of Richards' guilty plea to the 2014 charges and his remorse, he should be given a non-custodial sentence.

But Judge Zahra disagreed, stating that the need to deter others from committing such serious offences demanded a jail sentence.

"The need for deterrence and community retribution weighs very heavily in favour of full-time custody," he said.

The judge revoked bail and ordered that Richards be taken into custody.

On 27 November 2014, Judge Zahra gave Richards a jail sentence of 3 years and 3 months, with a minimum of two years behind bars before he becomes eligible to apply for parole.

Jailed again in 2016

After Richards' 2014 sentencing, Broken Rites was contacted by a former student who encountered Richards at St Edward's Christian Brothers school in Gosford, on the NSW central coast, in the late 1970s. Broken Rites told this ex-student where he could contact the appropriate unit of NSW Police detectives.

In 2015, another former student of the Gosford school contacted Broken Rites, who again explained where to contact the detectives.

Later, police charged Brother Richards regarding the Gosford offences. The case went through a Local Court, where Richards pleaded guilty on 7 April 2016 regarding two Gosford victims. A week later, the case had a brief procedure with a judge in the Sydney District Court.

Meanwhile, during 2016, police found several more Richards victims. Therefore, he appeared in court during 2016 regarding six victims.

In the Sydney District Court on 16 December 2016, Richards was sentenced to more jail time for these six additional victims. These assaults happened in various years (from the 1960s to the 1980s) and, according to the NSW criminal statutes, the offences were in various categories of seriousness. Therefore, the judge had to impose a different amount of jail time for each incident (according to the penalty that was prescribed in the NSW criminal statutes in the year when a particular incident occurred). And the judge was obliged to give a reduction to the total jail time because of the Guilty plea.

Richards was given a maximum jail sentence of six years.

It is still possible for any more of Brother Richards' victims to speak to the detectives (the investigation is continuing).

More jail time in 2018

On 17 October 2018 in Parramatta District Court, Desmond Eric Richards was sentenced to additional jail time for certain offences at St Patrick’s College Strathfield in 1986 and 1987. This abuse occurred in primary years 5 and 6. Richards will be eligible to apply for release on parole after 15 December 2021.

Broken Rites research

Brother "Neil" Richards has spent more than half a century as a member of the Christian Brothers, where he was sometimes listed (in Christian Brothers documents) as "Brother D.N. Richards".

He has been located in many parts of New South Wales. For example, in the early 1980s he was the headmaster of a Christian Brothers primary school at Concord (in Sydney's inner-west).

Evidently Richards was living at Gosford in 1990, because a list of Australian Christian Brothers in 1990 mentioned "Brother D.N. Richards, Gosford" in that year.

In the 1990s, Brother Richards was associated somehow with the Broken Bay Diocese, which covers parishes in Sydney's northern suburbs and the NSW central coast. In 1997 a church website, reported the minutes of a Broken Bay Diocese committee (held at Waitara) and it said: "A folder, on internet and access, is being put together by Brother Neil Richards from the Diocesan Office."

After retiring from teaching in schools, Brother Neil Richards worked on the Christian Brothers website for their Oceania province (that is, for Australia and the Pacific). On 11 November 2014, well after Richards had been arrested, Broken Rites was still able to access a Christian Brothers worldwide website, which gave the contacts for Christian Brothers webmasters in various parts of the world. One item said:"Christian Brothers Oceania Province Centre ...Webmaster: Neil Richards cfc."

In December 2009, an announcement by the Christian Brothers stated: "A large gathering of Brothers came together today to say farewell to Neil Richards and to congratulate him on his new position on the [Christian Brothers] Congregation website in Rome."

Presumably, even though he was now located in Rome, Richards would still have been able to work on the Christian Brothers' Australian website from Rome, amongst any other duties in Rome.

Brother Desmond Eric ("Neil") Richards' new location in Rome meant that he was out of the reach of the Australian police. But the police were waiting for Desmond Eric Richards when he returned to Australia in late 2013.

• By a Broken Rites researcher

According to Broken Rites research, the Melbourne Catholic archdiocese has been forced to admit that Father Anthony (Tony) Bongiorno committed sexual crimes against children during his 30 years working in Melbourne parishes. Anthony Bongiorno began training for the priesthood about 1960, aged 25. Father Bongiorno's child-sex crimes were covered up until some of his victims exposed him in the mid-1990s. The total number of Father Bongiorno's victims is unknown. For example, in 1980, a woman (named Maria James) learned that her son (aged 11) was a Bongiorno victim but this woman was murdered before she could expose Bongiorno about her son's abuse.

The child-sex crimes

A Melbourne man, "Rex", has been awarded compensation from the Victorian Government's Crimes Compensation Tribunal for sexual crimes committed upon him by Father Bongiorno. The tribunal, in 1997, accepted evidence that Father Bongiorno had indecently assaulted the boy repeatedly at St Ambrose's parish in Sydney Road, Brunswick beginning in 1981-82. The compensation was for the damage that this church-related abuse caused to the victim's adolescent development.

Bongiorno has also been investigated by the commissioner on sexual abuse for on the Melbourne Catholic Archdiocese, Peter O'Callaghan QC. Mr O'Callaghan accepted that Bongiorno had committed child-sex abuse while at Brunswick.

Rex's story

Acccording to legal depositions, Rex testified that in 1981 Father Tony Bongiorno invited him to stay overnight at the Brunswick presbytery, where he shared the priest's bed. Bongiorno touched the boy's genitals in the bedroom and again later while showering with the boy. This genital touching continued regularly for years.

In 1985, Rex told a social worker about Bongiorno's sexual abuse.

When the Catholic diocesan office heard the complaint, it asked another priest (who was a close friend of Bongiorno from seminary days) to "investigate". Bongiorno denied the allegation and the "investigator" reported this orally to the archdiocese, which dropped the matter.

The Children's Court made an order banning Rex from Bongiorno's presbytery but Bongiorno continued to have Rex living at the presbytery, on and off, often sleeping in the priest's bed.

Bongiorno provided Rex with food, presents (clothes and watches) and money (amounting to about $3,000).

Three complainants

In 1995, aged 25, Rex realised that his adolescent development had been damaged. He contacted police who soon found two more alleged victims of Bongiorno.

At the Melbourne Magistrates Court in February 1996, police charged Bongiorno (then aged 61) with multiple counts of indecent assault (genital touching) involving three boys, "Rex" (when aged 11 onwards), "Fred" (when aged 8) and "Adam" (when aged 12) between 1981 and 1987. There was also one charge of sexual penetration (oral sex) involving Fred. Bongiorno pleaded not guilty to all charges.

Magistrate Cotterell committed him for trial, commenting that the witnesses appeared to be credible and that there was indeed enough evidence for a jury to convict him. As people left the courtroom, the vicar-general of the Melbourne archdiocese (Monsignor Gerald Cudmore) was at the rear of the courtroom, handing out a statement inviting victims of church sexual-abuse to contact the archdiocese [that is, instead of reporting the crimes to the proper authority, the police].

In August 1996, at the Melbourne County Court, the prosecution presented Bongiorno for trial regarding Rex and Fred. Rex and Fred are not connected but they gave similar evidence.

A Broken Rites researcher was present in court, taking notes about the proceedings.

Two other priests lived at Bongiorno's presbytery. Father Gordon Gebbie, who lived at the presbytery in 1981-2, testified in court that he saw Rex in Bongiorno's bedroom and bathroom. [However, Gebbie neglected to report this matter to the child-protection authorities.]

From time to time, various laypersons also lived in the presbytery, paying rent. Three laypersons testified that they saw Rex, or at other times Fred, in Bongiorno's bed. Witnesses also said they knew that Bongiorno was showering with Rex and later with Fred. One witness, Anne, said she and others complained to the diocesan headquarters about this in 1993.

Fred's story

Fred, an altar boy, said that one Sunday in 1983, he soiled his pants. After Mass, Bongiorno took him to the presbytery and showered him. He said Bongiorno then touched the boy's genitals on the bed and performed oral sex on the boy. Fred said he was upset and struggling; he tried to phone his mother to get her to collect him but Bongiorno hung up the phone. Fred did not tell his mother about the assault because he was too ashamed. Fred said Bongiorno repeated the assault on later occasions in 1983-7 and tried to get Fred to perform oral sex on the priest. Fred said Bongiorno used to give him money.

The court was told that both Rex and Fred had immigrant parents and both were having trouble with the parents. This made the boys vulnerable to Bongiorno.

An old Spanish custom

Three witnesses (Andrew, Anne and Greg) said they had heard Bongiorno referring (approvingly), on several occasions, to "the old Spanish custom where the altar boy sleeps with the parish priest".

On one of these occasions, Bongiorno was sitting in a chair with Fred on his knee.

While Bongiorno was in the witness box, the prosecution asked him: "Well, is it really an old Spanish custom?"

Bongiorno replied "Yes".

In response to Judge Crossley, Bongiorno said: "The Catholic Church in Spain, Italy and the Philippines is quite different from in Australia. As students for the priesthood we were often amazed at these differences and we often used to refer to this or that old Spanish custom."

Separate trials

The prosecution wanted the cases of Rex and Fred heard by one jury, so that the jury would know that there was more than one complainant. However, the church's lawyer sought to have a separate jury for each boy. Judge Crossley granted this request. Therefore, each jury was told about only one boy. And each jury thought that there was only one complainant and that his evidence was "uncorroborated". (In such cases, a jury will assume that "he can’t be guilty or he would have done it to more than one victim".)

Because these alleged assaults were "historical" (that is, they occurred in the past), the judge warned each jury to be cautious about returning a guilty verdict. The Bongiorno juries followed the judge's advice.

Therefore, the first jury (regarding Rex) acquitted Bongiorno and so did the second jury (regarding Fred). The second jury was shocked when it learned, after leaving the courtroom, that there had been a previous victim. To save expense, the Director of Public Prosecutions cancelled the third trial (regarding Adam).

Justice at last

However, Bongiorno's victims were able to seek justice through the Victorian Government's Crimes Compensation Tribunal. The Tribunal's decision, accepting that Bongiorno had committed child-sex crimes, was reported in the Melbourne Age, 8 November 1997. (About a year after this, this system of taxpayer-funded compensation was curtailed by Victoria's Liberal state government; but Victorian victims can still claim compensation from the church.)

The Bongiorno victims also were able to obtain some financial compensation through the Melbourne archdiocesan sex-abuse commissioner, Peter O'Callaghan QC.

After all this adverse publicity, the Melbourne archdiocese kept Bongiorno "on leave", instead of having him return to his parish.

Bongiorno died on 15 February 2002. A funeral service was held at the church of St Peter and St Paul, South Melbourne, attended by a number of priests. The congregation was told that Father Graham Redfern had a leading role in arranging the funeral service.

Bongiorno's parishes

By combing through the annual Australian Catholic Directories, Broken Rites has compiled a list of Bongiorno's parish appointments in Melbourne:

• Maidstone (Our Lady of Perpetual Help parish, Footscray West), late 1960s;
• Brunswick West (St Joseph's parish), early 1970s;
• Fawkner (St Mark's parish), mid 1970s;
• Thornbury (St Mary's parish), late 1970s to 1980;
• Reservoir North parish, 1981;
• Brunswick (St Ambrose's parish, 287 Sydney Road), May 1981 to 1995.

Murder investigation

In 1980, a woman named Maria James (aged 38) was murdered (by stabbing) in Father Bongiorno's Thornbury parish. The Victoria Police homicide squad investigated but was unable to solve the murder.

In 2012 (32 years after Maria's murder), Senior Sergeant Ron Iddles obtained some new evidence from Maria's youngest son Adam, who was 11 when his mother was murdered. Adam James told Sgt Iddles that when he was a young boy in the Thornbury parish, he was sexually abused by Father Bongiorno. In his sworn statement, Adam James, who is intellectually impaired, said he told his mother about the sexual abuse just days before his mother was murdered and that his mother intended confronting Father Bongiorno about the sexual abuse.

Sergeant Iddles decided to obtain the DNA of the late Father Bongiorno, so that this could be compared with DNA which the killer of Maria James left at the murder scene in 1980. However, Bongirono's sister refused to help police to obtain the Bongiorno DNA. If she had agreed, her DNA might have helped to clear or implicate her brother, according to Sgt Iddles.

Sgt Iddles considered the abuse of Adam James, along with other information (from a new witness who claimed he saw Father Bongiorno with blood on him on the day of the murder), was enough to warrant exhuming the priest’s body to get his DNA. Therefore, in 2012, Sergeant Iddles asked Victoria's coroner for permission to dig up the body of Father Anthony Bongiorno to obtain his DNA. The coroner, however, refused because (he said) there was not sufficient evidence for making such an order.

Sgt Iddles left the Homicide Squad in 2014 to become secretary of Victoria's police union. Cold-case squad detectives issued a press release in 2015 to say they were no longer investigating Father Anthony Bongiorno regarding the Maria James murder.

In November 2018, the Acting State Coroner for the state of Victoria (Iain West) said he would reopen the coronial investigation into the death of Maria James.

.

• By a Broken Rites researcher, updated 6 December 2018

This Broken Rites article is about the career of Australia's Archbishop Philip Wilson. Late in his career, police alleged that Wilson had covered up for a priest (Father James Fletcher) who indecently assaulted a ten-year-old boy (Peter Creigh). Police alleged that, when they were investigating Father Fletcher in 2003-2004 regarding a different victim (Daniel Feenan), Archbishop Wilson possessed information (about the abuse of Peter) which might help the case against Fletcher but Wilson concealed this information, thus protecting the criminal Fletcher. A court convicted Archbishop Wilson regarding his concealment of Peter's abuse. On 6 December 2018, a court quashed Wilson's conviction. This court case, however, was regarding only one of the church's victims, Peter Creigh. What did Wilson know about other criminal priests?

According to Broken Rites research, Philip Edward Wilson was born in 1950. The eldest of five children, he grew up within the Maitland-Newcastle diocese, north of Sydney. This is one of the eleven regional Catholic dioceses in New South Wales.

After finishing his schooling, he was accepted by the Maitland diocese as a candidate to enter a seminary in Sydney to study in for the priesthood.

After being ordained a priest of the Maitland Diocese in August 1975, aged 25, he was appointed as an assistant priest in the town of Maitland (St Joseph's parish). This put him at the centre of the diocese, which then had its headquarters in Maitland.

He was well regarded by Maitland's bishop, Leo Clarke, who administered this diocese from 1975 to 1995. Beginning in the late 1970s, Wilson gradually developed a role as a reliable functionary in this diocese. He soon became an assistant to Bishop Clarke. The bishop resided at "Bishop's House" in Maitland.

During this work in the late 1970s and the 1980s, Father Wilson worked alongside some of this diocese's criminal priests.

In 1978 and 1979 (according to one version of his own curriculum vitae), Father Philip Wilson was the Maitland-Newcastle diocesan Director of Religious Education. While holding that position, he also taught religious education at St Pius X Catholic High School in Adamstown, in the city of Newcastle. Wilson has stated (in a 20-minute video-taped conversation with journalist Alan Atkinson on 21 May 2010) that in 1978-79 "I lived at St Pius X for nine months and taught there for a year." There were six priests teaching at this school, and they lived in bedrooms located within the school building, not far from the classrooms. Yes, a school with bedrooms for the teachers. This school became notorious for child-sex crimes committed by priests such as Father John Denham.

In 1980 (according to his curriculum vitae), Father Wilson became the secretary to Maitland's Bishop Leo Clarke, as well as Master of Ceremonies for the diocese. That is, from 1980, Wilson's secretarial role involved spending time at the "Bishop's House", where Bishop Clarke lived in Maitland.

(Wilson had already been spending time in the town of Maitland, since he was appointed as an assistant priest in his first parish — East Maitland in 1975. And even while working in the city of Newcastle in the late 1970s, he made regular visits to Bishop's House in Maitland.)

During the early 1980s (according to the annual Catholic directories in the early 1980s) Bishop Clarke had a fellow-resident at Bishop's House — Father James Fletcher. For some years, Fletcher had been the administrator (i.e., priest in charge) at the Maitland cathedral and had also been the master of ceremonies for Bishop Leo Clarke.

By 1982 (according statements made by Wilson), Wilson too was residing at Bishop's House as a full-time resident, along with Leo Clarke and Jim Fletcher (whereas in the earlier years Wilson, according to his own account, had been spending time there as an occasional visitor).

In the mid-1980s, Bishop Clarke transferred Fletcher from the Maitland Cathedral parish to other, less important parishes. In 2005 Fletcher was jailed for child-sex offences committed against one of his victims in the 1990s.

According to the police involved in Fletcher's court case, Bishop Clarke knew in the late 1970s that Fletcher's liking for young males was a potential public-relations problem for the cathedral.

Fletcher died in 2006, aged 65.

The Catholic Church continued to support Father Jim Fletcher, even in death. Fletcher was buried in the priests’ section of Sandgate Cemetery near Newcastle, with a marble headstone celebrating his achievements. The honours outraged Fletcher’s victims, who described the elaborate burial plot as a "final insult".

Wilson's later career

Meanwhile, Father Philip Wilson's career blossomed. In 1987, he was appointed as the Vicar-General of the Maitland-Newcastle diocese — that is, the chief administrator, immediately under the bishop.

This was the year that the Maitland-Newcastle diocese was facing exposure and embarrassment because of child-sex abuse committed in parishes by Father John Denham (so this diocese brazenly transferred Denham to Sydney to work as a chaplain at Waverley Christian Brothers College, thereby putting more children in danger). Wilson, however, has told the ABC that Denham's transfer was arranged not by him but by Bishop Clarke.

Around this time, 1987, the Maitland-Newcastle diocese transferred the sexually-abusive Father Denis McAlinden thousands of kilometres away to a parish in Western Australia.

In 1996 Wilson was appointed as the Bishop of Wollongong (south of Sydney) to clean up a public-relations disaster there, caused by Wollongong's church-abuse scandals.

In 2001, he became of the Archbishop of Adelaide.

After this, Wilson was a member of the Australian bishops' National Committee for Professional Standards (the committee that is concerned with managing the church's sex-abuse crisis) and later he had ten years as the president of the Australian Catholic Bishops' Conference (again, at the centre of the church's sex-abuse crisis).

The charges in court

Father James Fletcher had multiple victims. In May 2003, New South Wales Police charged Father James Fletcher with having committed "a serious indictable offence (namely, indecent assault)" against one of those victims (this was Daniel Feenan).

Fletcher's case had to wait during 2003-2004 for the court process to be completed. Fletcher was finally convicted in December 2004. By then, Philip Wilson was the Archbishop of Adelaide; that is, by 2003-2004, Archbishop Wilson was a senior official of the church, not a junior priest.

Later, in Newcastle Local Court, prosecutors began laying charges against Archbishop Wilson regarding concealment.

The prosecutors alleged that, during 2003-2004, Archbishop Wilson allegedly knew or believed that James Fletcher had committed an offence against another victim — a ten-year-old boy, Peter Creigh. That is, Wilson's concealment regarding Peter occurred in 2003-2004.

Archbishop Wilson (according to the prosecutors) allegedly knew or believed that he had information which might be of material assistance in securing the prosecution of James Fletcher but Wilson failed to bring that information to the attention of the police. Archbishop Wilson, the prosecutors said, did not have a reasonable excuse for the failure.

[Broken Rites normally doesn't publish the names of victims, but both Daniel Feenan and Peter Creigh have authorized their full names to be used in the media.]

Lengthy court proceedings

Wilson hired an expensive defence lawyer to fight the case on his behalf, thus indicating that the judicial contest could be a lengthy one, with long delays before the case might be scheduled for a hearing.

After being charged, Wilson announced (on 20 March 2015) that he was going on indefinite leave. He appointed his vicar-general to administer the archdiocese during his absence.

However, in December 2015 Wilson announced that he intended to resume his role as the Archbishop of Adelaide in January 2016, despite still facing a criminal charge of allegedly concealing Father James Fletcher's crime.

On 25 September 2015, the concealment charge had its first mention in Newcastle Local Court for a preliminary procedure (but Wilson was not required to appear for this preliminary mention). After this, Wilson's lawyers took legal legal action, for two years, trying to block the case from going ahead. But in this attempt eventually failed. In late 2017, the Newcastle Local Court was ready to start hearing the case.

Wilson's presence was needed for the hearing to begin but in November 2017 his lawyer told the court that Wilson was "too unwell" to attend court because he had recently (at the age of 67) developed "dementia" which (Wilson claimed) is affecting his memory and his cognitive ability, making him unfit to stand trial. However, Wilson also said (in a message to Adelaide parishes on 29 November 2017) that, despite his "dementia", he intended to keep his job as the archbishop of Adelaide until he reaches the retirement age for bishops in eight years time when he would be 75.

On 11 April 2018, the Newcastle Magistrates Court dismissed a submission by Wilson's defence barrister that Wilson had no case to answer.

Guilty

On 22 May 2018, the magistrate handed down the court's verdict — guilty. Wilson was released on bail while he awaited the sentence hearing which was scheduled for mid-2018.

Meanwhile, Wilson said he would not be not resigning from his position as archbishop unless "it becomes necessary and appropriate." On 23 May 2018, Wilson announced (apparently with an air of reluctance) that he would "stand aside" (but not resign) from his archbishop dutiesfor the time being.

Wilson says: "Please pray for me"

On 23 May 2018, a "pastoral letter" from Wilson was sent to parishes (including Catholic schools) throughout the Adelaide archdiocese. The letter starts off with Wilson announcing his decision to "stand aside" due to his recent conviction.

He then goes on to list the “great things” the archdiocese has done - "in parishes, schools, social services, health and in aged care."

“I want to assure you that all of these essential pastoral aspects of the life of the Archdiocese will not be affected by my standing aside.”

“While the legal process runs its course, I want to assure the Catholic faithful in the Archdiocese of my continued prayers and best wishes.”

Wilson signed off the letter by asking recipients to: “Please continue to pray for me”.

(Did this mean that families who have children in Catholic schools were being asked to pray for a church leader who had been convicted of concealing child sex-abuse crimes?)

Sentence and appeal

In Newcastle Local Court on 3 July 2018, Magistrate Robert Stone conducted the sentencing procedure.

The prosecution had recommended that Mr Stone should impose a jail term. The church's defence lawyer had urged Mr Stone to release Wilson if promising to be of good behaviour.

Mr Stone sentenced Wilson to 12 months in custody (the maximum length for this offence), with release possible after six months if Wilson observes the conditions. Mr Stone proposed that, in view of Wilson's claims about health problems, he would be allowed to serve this jail sentence via home detention [at a relative's house on the NSW Central Coast], rather than behind bars.

Philip Wilson accepted the home-detention sentence but he lodged an appeal to the NSW District Court against his conviction.

On 6 December 2018, NSW District Court judge Roy Ellis quashed Wilson's concealment-conviction regarding Father Fletcher's abuse of one of Fletcher's victims, Peter Creigh.

• By a Broken Rites researcher, article updated December 2018

Broken Rites is continuing its research about Father Damian Colbourne, who has spent many years as a priest in the Catholic order of Capuchin Franciscan Friars, ministering in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. In Brisbane in May 2017, Colbourne (then aged 75) was jailed for sexually abusing an eight-year-old Brisbane schoolgirl in 1974 (when he was in his thirties). Colbourne was charged by Queensland police in 2016 after the victim reported him to Australia's national child-abuse Royal Commission. In court, Colbourne pleaded guilty regarding the Brisbane girl.

The Capuchin Franciscans, who wear brown monk-like robes, are a comparatively small order in Australia, based in Australia's eastern states.

Father Damian Colbourne's birth name was Anthony Francis Colbourne. When he joined the Capuchin religious order, he was given a "religious" name — "Damian".

Colbourne's Brisbane offences occurred while he was the parish priest at the Guardian Angels church in Wynnum, a Brisbane suburb. This same site also includes the Guardian Angels Catholic primary school, where the girl was in Year 4.

The offences in 1974 occurred on several occasions in the priest's house (the presbytery) and his office.

According to the prosecution, Colbourne allegedly threatened the girl that she and her parents would go to hell unless she performed sex acts with him.

The preliminary proceedings began in a magistrates court in 2016. The charges included indecent treatment of a child under 14 and indecent assault. Colbourne was represented by a Catholic Church-funded lawyer.

In a police statement, the victim said Colbourne told her she had to fondle him because she was “a good girl who wants to go to heaven with your mummy and daddy”.

He allegedly also forced her to perform oral sex on him and he touched her vagina.

The woman told police that her belief at the time was that priests were the closest beings to God and “you must do as they say”.

The prosecutor said the victim was 14-years-old when she finally told her mother what happened, but was not believed.

Colbourne appeared in the Brisbane District Court on 23 May 2017 for sentencing. Judge Tony Moynihan took into account Colbourne's advanced age and his guilty plea. The judge sentenced Colbourne to a total 18 months in jail. Colbourne was ordered to spend four months behind bars, and the remainder of the jail sentence would then be suspended. The judge said that this time behind bars would be onerous for the elderly priest despite his relatively good health.

After completing his jail time, Father Damian Colbourne continued to be accepted by the Capuchin religious order as one of their priests — still living in a Capuchin residence..

The schoolgirl in the Brisbane court case was not Father "Damian" Colbourne's only victim -- she was merely the victim who contacted the Royal Commission and who then was interviewed by the Queensland Police.

Broken Rites has interviewed other females who encountered Father Damian Colbourne during their childhood in Sydney or Brisbane.

Two allegations in Sydney

A Sydney woman ("Cynrthia") has told Broken Rites:

"Fr Damian Colbourne was a very young priest at St. Fiacre's parish in Leichhardt (Sydney), when my sister and I attended school there.

"One day Fr Colbourne turned up at my family home to visit my parents. Colbourne was always a bit creepy, so I went into my bedroom to avoid him. I was reading on my bed when he walked into my room and sat on my bed. I had been lying on my stomach and as he sat down he put his hand on the back of my thigh. I scrambled up immediately to the opposite end of my bed and told him I should go out and help Mum. He rushed out, said a hurried goodbye to my parents and left. I didn't tell my parents about Colbourne because it was too difficult to complain about a Catholic priest.

"Colbourne left our parish very suddenly for Brisbane, not long after that.

"Years later, when my sister and I were each married with kids and were visiting my Mum, she told us that Fr Colbourne was coming back to Leichhardt. That day, I told Mum what had happened all those years before. And I was horrified when my sister told me he had, on another visit to our home, walked into her bedroom and touched her breasts. She too had got out of his way and hid until he had gone.

"Mum, very soon after, went to see Father Ted Harrop at the Leichhardt parish and told him that if they brought Fr Colbourne back to Leichhardt, she would speak to the police.

"I am sorry to learn now how he continued his indecent assaults in Queensland. I wonder what other children had a similar experience during Colbourne's time here in Sydney."

By a Broken Rites researcher

Research by Broken Rites has revealed that the Catholic Church knowingly harboured the paedophile priest Father Denis McAlinden for 40 years, thus inflicting him on young girls in parishes around Australia and also overseas. The church has been paying small out-of-court settlements to some of McAlinden's victims, thus avoiding a larger court-based settlement. In November 2016, two sisters began to sue the Catholic Church in the New South Wales Supreme Court for a proper amount to settle their abuse by McAlinden. At the last moment, the church agreed to pay these two women a confidential out-of-court financial settlement, thus preventing the church's other victims from knowing the size of a court-related settlement. This Broken Rites article explains the background about Fr Denis McAlinden and the church's cover-up.

The latest developments are reported towards the end of this article under the sub-heading "Civil action against the church in 2016." But here, first, is some background:-

Broken Rites began researching McAlinden (and the church's cover-up) in 1994. This research eventually helped to bring about the New South Wales government's decision to establish a Special Commission of Inquiry in 2013 to investigate how church officials and police had handled allegations of child-sex crimes by Father McAlinden (and another priest) in the Maitland-Newcastle diocese, north of Sydney.

Father McAlinden belonged to the Maitland-Newcastle diocese from 1949 onwards. From Day One, he was a danger to young schoolgirls but, for the next four decades, the church authorities knowingly inflicted him on more and more victims.

Beginning in 1994, Broken Rites has been contacted by women who were sexually abused by McAlinden when they were children.

Broken Rites research has ascertained that:

• For years, the Maitland-Newcastle diocese transferred McAlinden backwards and forwards between New South Wales and Western Australia after he abused children in those states.
• The Maitland-Newcastle diocese also allowed him to work in Papua New Guinea for several years, in the middle of his career, thus putting PNG children in danger.
• The Maitland-Newcastle diocese also allowed him to spend a year doing parish work in New Zealand, thus protecting him from exposure in Australia. Again, he offended in New Zealand.
• Towards the end of his career, McAlinden also went to the Philippines to work as a priest there, although officially he still belonged to the Maitland-Newcastle diocese.
• During McAlinden's career, he was protected by each of the three bishops who administered the Maitland-Newcastle diocese during that time: Edmund Gleeson (to 1956), John Toohey (1956-75) and Leo Clarke (1976-95).
• When the Maitland-Newcastle diocese allowed McAlinden to transfer from state to state, and from country to country, it neglected to warn his new parishioners that he was a danger to children. Thus, the Maitland-Newcastle diocese inflicted him on new victims, thousands of kilometres away. This therefore leaves the Maitland-Newcastle with a legal liability. A Papua New Guinea diocese and a New Zealand diocese also share this culpability.
• The Catholic culture discouraged victims from reporting McAlnden's crimes (and certainly not to the police). Thus, the church authorities were able to keep the information in-house, thereby inflicting McAlinden on more children.
• In 1991, one of McAlinden's West Australian victims (let's call her "Susan"— not her real name) wisely contacted the W.A. police (more about Susan later in this article). In a W.A. court in 1992, McAlinden managed to defeat Susan's charges but church authorities in New South Wales feared that other McAlinden victims in New South Wales might contact the NSW police, thereby causing bad publicity for the church.
• During the remainder of the 1990s, the church authorities successfully kept McAlinden beyond the reach of the Australian police until he died in Western Australia in 2005.

How the church recruited Father McAlinden

Broken Rites has ascertained that Fr Denis McAlinden was born in Ireland on 24 January 1922 — the fourth child in a family of seven (he had three brothers and three sisters).

In Ireland it was common for boys to drift into full-time Catholicism as a career. At the age of 12, Denis McAlinden entered a Catholic "juniorate"— a school for boys who "aspired" to become priests. This juniorate was run by priests of the Redemptorist Order. After completing this schooling, young Denis was recruited to a Redemptorist seminary, where he trained for the priesthood. He was ordained as a priest in Ireland in 1949.

Documents tendered to the New South Wales Special Commission of Inquiry in 2013  reveal that, in 1949, the Redemptorist authorities  in Ireland wanted to get rid of McAlinden - and the Maitland diocese in Australia seemed to be a suitable dumping ground.

Conveniently, Maitland's Bishop Edmund  Gleeson was himself a former member of the Redemptorist order.

So, in 1949, the head of the Redemptorists in Limerick (Father John Treacy), wrote to Maitland's Bishop  Gleeson, asking if "there be any possibility of taking one of our students".

Fr Tracey did not specifically mention sexual crimes, and said merely that McAlinden was a "difficult" person.  Fr Tracey wrote: "You will very justly say then: 'What is wrong with him, so why do you not wish to retain him? Well, his difficulty is community life . . . he is a bit hard to get on with in ordinary life... His temper is difficult."

Fr Tracey said that this bad temper made McAlinden unsuitable for living in a religious order such as the Redemptorists and claimed that McAlinden would be better suited for working in a regional diocese.

In a subsequent letter, Fr Tracey thanked Bishop Gleeson for accepting McAlinden.

Thus, later in 1949, aged 26, McAlinden arrived in the Maitland-Newcastle diocese. He was one of a significant number of Irish priests who surfaced, often unaccountably, in Australia around that time. Too often, these priests from Ireland molested children in Australia.

McAlinden's crimes begin

Soon after McAlinden's arrival in Maitland-Newcastle in 1949, talk started about him touching young girls. By the early 1950s, his crimes included rape, but the church's "holy" status intimidated his victims into silence.

Broken Rites has checked McAlinden's parish appointments in the annual editions of the Australian Catholic directories. In the 1960s, his parishes in the Maitland-Newcastle diocese included Singleton, Mussellbrook, Murrurindi and Greta.

The directories indicate that in 1969 he was transferred on loan from the Maitland diocese to a diocese (called Mendi) in Papua New Guinea, where he spent about four years.

By 1974, he had been brought back to Maitland diocese to become the Parish Priest (that is, in charge) at the Kendall parish (a coastal town, north of Newcastle). But, extraordinarily, within a couple of years, he was removed from this position.

In a letter dated 17 MAY 1976, the Maitland diocese's vicar-general (deputy bishop) Monsignor Patrick Cotter told Bishop Leo Clarke: "Fr Mac has an inclination to interfere ... with young girls - aged perhaps 7 to 12 or so ... I had a long session with Fr Mac at the presbytery. Slowly, very slowly, he admitted some indiscretions but then agreed that it was a condition that had been with him for many years."(Broken Rites possesses a copy of this letter.)

The Maitland-Newcastle diocese allowed McAlinden to stay in the ministry as a relieving priest, filling in for other priests who were away. Broken Rites has ascertained that, by the late 1970s, the diocese was listing him among its "supplementary" priests, doing "relief duties" at its Nelson Bay parish (north of Newcastle).

Western Australia

Broken Rites has ascertained that in 1980 the Maitland diocese arranged for McAlinden to go out of sight — to minister in a remote part of Western Australia, at Wickham, 1500 kilometres north of Perth (in the Pilbara mining region, between Perth and Broome). Wickham parish is administered by the Geraldton Catholic diocese.

This strange transfer involved a deal between the bishop's office in Maitland and the bishop's office in Geraldton. The Catholics of Maitland-Newcastle were not told why McAlinden was leaving that diocese, and the Catholics of the Geraldton diocese were not told why this priest was arriving.

In Wickham, McAlinden was the Parish Priest in charge of "Our Lady of the Pilbara". He remained there until late 1983. In Wickham, McAlinden molested young girls — including the above-mentioned "Susan". Susan has told Broken Rites that in 1982, when she was aged ten, McAlinden "befriended" her parents, visiting them about three times a week. On Saturdays, "Father Mac" would get Susan to help him in the presbytery (e.g., doing photocopies of Mass sheets, Susan says that it was on occasions such as this that he mauled her genital area — that is, the crime of indecent assault.

Susan says she could not tell her parents about these assaults because "I didn't think my parents would believe me, Father Mac being so close to the family and also being a priest. I was always taught to trust and respect a priest."

(More about Susan later in this article.)

Significantly, Broken Rites has found that McAlinden was not Wickham's only paedophile priest. McAlinden's predecessor there had been Father Adrian van Klooster, who was eventually jailed for child-sex crimes.

New Zealand

Broken Rites has found that throughout the 1980s, according to the annual Australian Catholic Directory, McAlinden was listed as belonging to the Maitland-Newcastle diocese but he was not always listed in one of this region's parishes.

Broken Rites has discovered that in 1984 McAlinden was in New Zealand, "on loan" to the Diocese of Hamilton, situated in the North Island, where he did "supply" (relieving work) in rural parishes. This kind of transfer involved an arrangement between the Maitland-Newcastle diocese and its New Zealand counterpart. Victims of McAlinden in New Zealand can take civil legal action against the Diocese of Maitland-Newcastle (for turning McAlinden loose in New Zealand), as well as against the Hamilton Diocese (for accepting a problem priest from Australia).

In New South Wales again

McAlinden was back in Maitland-Newcastle in the mid-1980s but the Australian Catholic Directory in the late 1980s gave McAlinden's address merely as care of the bishop's office in Maitland.

Broken Rites has learned that, in fact, McAlinden was ministering at the Merriwa parish from late 1984 until early 1988. Merriwa is in the north-west of the Maitland-Newcastle diocese, about as far away as he could be sent in this diocese. McAlinden continued to offend while at Merriwa.

Mike Stanwell, principal of a small Catholic school at Merriwa, became concerned about reports from young children who had been in the adjoining church with Father McAlinden. Mr Stanwell says there were consistent stories of what the priest did when he sat children on his lap. Mr Stanwell went to see Bishop Leo Clarke, who said he would send McAlinden away. McAlinden was moved to a parish closer to Newcastle. After receiving further reports about the priest and a child, Mr Stanwell again went to see Bishop Leo Clarke.

By early 1988, Bishop Clarke was considering whether McAlindan could go on loan to to some other diocese. In a letter (dated 1 February 1988), Clarke told a bishop in Papua New Guinea:

• "In your letter you asked for some comment on his character. So in all honesty I must tell you the following in strict confidence. Towards the end of last year, allegations were made by some parents and the head teacher that Father's [i.e. McAlinden's] behaviour with small girls was worrying them because of his imprudent relationship...

  "In view of the allegations, in his [McAlinden's] own opinion it would be unwise for him to continue to working in this diocese [Maitland-Newcastle]. It would be a charity for some bishop to take him on, knowing the problems that have arisen."

Charged in Western Australia

Broken Rites has ascertained that in 1988, the church authorities arranged to evacuate McAlinden to do a second stint in Western Australia, this time in the Bunbury diocese (south of Perth), where he was listed as the Parish Priest in charge of St Bernard's parish at Kojunup until 1992.

In 1991, while McAlinden was at Kojunup, one of his victims from his previous West Australian parish (the above-mentioned "Susan", from the Wickham parish) finally decided to bring McAlinden to justice by talking to detectives in the child-abuse unit of the the W.A. Police. By 1991, Susan was 19 years of age, married with two children (one aged 30 months and one aged nine months). Now feeling independent from her parents, she told her mother about the 1982 assaults. Her mother complained to the bishop's office but Susan realised that it would be a smarter idea to have a chat with police detectives, which she did. Susan made a signed, sworn police statement. The police then arrested McAlinden at Kojunup. (Bishops do not arrest or charge paedophile priests.)

In a W.A. magistrates court, on 4 March 1992, the police charged McAlinden (then aged 69) with three incidents of indecent dealing with a child. McAlinden contested the charges, which went to a jury trial in the Perth District Court in July 1992. Broken Rites has examined the transcript of the trial, amounting to 277 pages.

The prosecutor told the court that another girl ("Maria") was present during two of these three incidents, and that Maria, too, was indecently touched by McAlinden. Maria gave evidence in court, describing how McAlinden touched Maria on the genital area. However, although she gave this evidence in support of Susan's complaint, Maria did not want to press charges of her own against McAlinden because her family would be upset is she took such action against a Catholic priest.

Thus, Susan was left as the only complainant and the jury had to decide how harshly, or leniently, it should treat the priest in view of the fact that there was one complainant. The jury returned a verdict of "Not Guilty".

By 1992, Susan and Maria had both left Wickham, each of them moving to a different part of Australia. Susan and Maria then lost contact with each other but Broken Rites eventually managed to interview each of them.

Broken Rites is still in contact with both Susan and Maria.

The cover-up after 1992

Until 1992, church leaders had presumed that McAlinden (like other sexually abusive priests) was safe from criminal prosecution (and therefore the church was safe from bad publicity). However, the 1992 West Australian court case prompted New South Wales church authorities to go into "damage control" regarding McAlinden. They tried to persuade McAlinden to quietly leave Australia, out of the reach of Australian police, so as to protect the public image of the church.

In 1993, Bishop Leo Clarke removed McAlinden from working in parishes within the Maitland-Newcastle diocese, but this ban applied only to this diocese.

According to Broken Rites research, McAlinden continued to be listed in each of the annual Australian Catholic directories from 1994 to 1998 as still belonging (officially) to the Maitland-Newcastle diocese, but was listed as "on leave" from parish duties in this diocese. His forwarding address was care of the Maitland-Newcastle diocesan office.

So what was McAlinden actually doing during his "leave"? Even after 1993, the Maitland-Newcastle diocese continued paying a priestly stipend to him. Therefore, after 1993, Father McAlinden was living a "nomad" type of life, sometimes operating as a priest in various parts of the world (but not, of course, in Maitland-Newcastle).

For example, McAlinden has stated in a letter that his priestly work during his leave (in the mid-1990s) included working as a Catholic chaplain in the Philippines. There (in the San Pablo diocese) he was responsible to "over 7500 pupils, ranging from kindergarten through primary, secondary, teachers college, university and including medical college." And, he says, he dealt with "thousands" of children in the Confessional (where children were required to reveal their "sins" to the priest).

Meanwhile, McAlinden's victims in Australia were not aware that he was still allowed to operate as a priest outside Australia.

Broken Rites and the media

McAlinden's name did not come to public notice until after the Broken Rites website in 2007 published an article about how the Maitland-Newcastle diocese concealed the crimes of Father Vincent Gerard Ryan. The Newcastle Herald daily newspaper immediately publicised the Broken Rites story about Vincent Ryan, which in turn prompted Herald readers to contact the newspaper about Vincent Ryan and other clergy, including Denis McAlinden.

Beginning on 29 September 2007, the Newcastle Herald published a series of articles about Denis McAlinden, written by staff journalist Joanne McCarthy with help from Broken Rites. Within a few weeks after the first McAlinden article, the Herald became aware of at least 20 victims of McAlinden in New South Wales.

As well as the victims who contacted Broken Rites or the Newcastle Herald, some other victims merely contacted the Maitland-Newcastle diocese (unfortunately, this is merely like a burglary victim reporting the burglary to the Burglars' Association).

The church is evasive at first

When preparing its first article about McAlinden in September 2007, the Newcastle Herald contacted the office of Maitland-Newcastle Bishop Michael Malone but he declined to answer questions about the movements of Father McAlinden.

The Herald also contacted the president of the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference, Archbishop Philip Wilson of Adelaide. Wilson was originally a priest in the Maitland-Newcastle diocese and became the diocese's vicar-general (chief administrator). Wilson confirmed to the Herald in late September 2007 that he had been involved with the Father McAlinden matter in the 1980s but declined to give details. A week later, in early October 2007 (after the Herald had begun its McAlinden articles), Archbishop Wilson confirmed in a statement to the Herald that he was aware in 1985 of concerns about Father McAlinden. In 1985, Father Wilson travelled to a Maitland-Newcastle parish at the request Bishop Leo Clarke to "talk to the school authorities after they raised concerns about Father McAlinden".

The Herald sought to interview Archbishop Wilson in person in 2007 about how the church handled the Father McAlinden case but a spokeswoman for Wilson said he was "too busy" to be interviewed. "That's all we really want to say at this stage," the spokeswoman said. She referred any questions to the Maitland-Newcastle diocese.

The church apologises

Publication of the Herald's first McAlinden article on Saturday 29 September 2007 caused a public-relations disaster for the church hierarchy. Six days later, on Friday 5 October 2007, the Maitland-Newcastle Catholic diocese was forced to admit publicly (but reluctantly) that Father McAlinden had been a serial child-molester and that the church authorities had known about his offences for decades. The diocese issued a statement, acknowledging the victims of McAlinden and apologising for his actions and "any instances of abuse by church personnel of people in its care".

The diocese confirmed that McAlinden had many victims, but it said that most were not known to the church.

This indicates that the diocese never bothered to look for McAlinden's victims. And it never helped any victims to arrange a chat with the child-abuse detectives of the New South Wales Police.

Protecting the church's image

The Newcastle Herald has continued to publish allegations that the Catholic Church covered up the McAlinden affair. On 28 April 2010, the Herald referred to documents in which Australian Catholic Church authorities told Father Denis McAlinden that his "good name will be protected" by the church's "confidential process".

These documents, the Herald said, show that two bishops (Leo Clarke and Michael Malone) and a future archbishop (Philip Wilson) were involved in managing the Father McAlinden problem.

Bishop Leo Clarke was in charge of the Maitland-Newcastle diocese until 1995, when he was succeeded by Bishop Michael Malone.

Father Philip Wilson was then the secretary of the diocese, and his duties included assisting the bishop in the 1980s and 1990s in matters regarding Father Denis McAlinden.

In 2001 Wilson became the archbishop of Adelaide in South Australia. He also became the chairman of the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference. And he has been a member of the church's National Committee on Professional Standards, the group which supervises the management of the Catholic Church's sex-abuse issue throughout Australia.

A one-way plane ticket

On 8 October 2011 the Newcastle Herald reported that, after Father McAlinden successfully evaded police charges in Western Australia in 1992, Australian church authorities considered giving him a "one-way ticket to England" in order to protect the church from bad publicity in Australia.

Documents obtained by the Newcastle Herald and handed to police show that in October 1995 (when McAlinden was in Western Australia) senior Australian church officials had roles in an attempted "speedy" secret defrocking of McAlinden as police investigated another Maitland-Newcastle diocesan paedophile priest, Fr Vincent Ryan.

Broken Rites Australia possesses a copy of these same documents.

One document (a letter from Bishop Leo Clarke to McAlinden, dated 19 October 1995) urged McAlinden to co-operate with the church's plan to laicise (that is, defrock) him. Clarke said this laicisation would be "for the good of the church" (that is, to protect the church's public image).

Clarke's letter assured McAlinden that "your good name will be protected by the confidential nature of the process". [Broken Rites takes this to mean that McAlinden's record in New South Wales would not become public or, if it did, the media would describe McAlinden as a "former" priest.]

Clarke's letter also indicates that the church authorities were seeking to hide McAlinden from the New South Wales Police. Clarke wrote: "A speedy resolution of this whole matter will be in your own good interests as I have it on very good authority that some people are threatening seriously to take this whole matter to the police."

Other documents seen by the Herald show that a Newcastle region family told a bishop in the early 1950s that McAlinden had sexually assaulted their primary school-aged daughter three times. The assaults occurred only four years after he arrived in Maitland-Newcastle diocese from Ireland in 1949, aged 26.

The Herald said that a warrant was issued for McAlinden's arrest in 1999 when the woman reported the sexual assaults to police, who were advised by the church that the priest was not in Australia. Maitland-Newcastle diocese paid the woman more than $130,000 in compensation in 2002. Another McAlinden victim was paid compensation the following year.

In October 2005, church authorities finally revealed McAlinden's address. A senior Maitland-Newcastle diocese representative phoned Newcastle police to advise that Father McAlinden was dying of cancer in a Catholic Church-run aged-care centre at Subiaco, Western Australia. WA police visited the priest and confirmed he was too ill to be extradited to NSW. He died one month later and is buried in Perth.

Civil action against the church

As McAlinden is dead, it is no longer possible for the police to charge him in the criminal courts. The best way for McAlinden victims to obtain justice now is by demanding substantial compensation from the Maitland-Newcastle diocese through a solicitor but the solicitor must be one who has had previous experience in tackling the Catholic Church on behalf of victims. Broken Rites knows the contact details for such solicitors.

In 2016, two sisters filed a civil law suit in the New South Wales Supreme Court for abuse which (they said) was inflicted on them by McAlinden in NSW when they were young girls in the 1970s and 1980s. This law suit was aimed at the estate of the late Maitland-Newcastle bishop Leo Clarke and the trustees of the Maitland-Newcastle diocese.

In their lawsuit, the sisters said the church knew about the paedophile activities of Father Denis McAlinden long before the two girls were abused. They said that, prior to their being abused, complaints had been made over the years about McAlinden's abuse of other children, but the church took no action against him.

The case came before the NSW Supreme Court case on 21 November 2016 but, the next day, the judge was told that the parties have reached a confidential settlement.

The agreement prevented the church's cover-up from being publicly aired in the court and in the media.

The judge agreed to the church's request that the amount of the settlement be recorded in a sealed envelope on the court file and not be opened without the permission of a judge.

[The church's aim was to discourage other church-victims from taking Supreme Court action. The church prefers it when victims don't file a law suit in the Supreme Court.}

Summing up

Broken Rites is proud of having helped to expose the Catholic Church's cover-up of Father Denis McAlinden.

There is still more research that can be done on the Denis McAlinden case. Father McAlinden talked in Maitland-Newcastle about working in Aboriginal communities in Western Australia. This is an alarming issue which would need to be investigated in Western Australia.

The Broken Rites exposure of Denis McAlinden was helped by another Broken Rites article, which exposed the church's cover-up of Father Vincent Ryan. To read about the Vince Ryan cover-up, click HERE.

• By a Broken Rites Australia researcher

The Catholic diocese of Maitland-Newcastle in New South Wales has admitted that it paid an expensive team of lawyers to defend a paedophile priest in a child-abuse court case. The priest, Father James Patrick Fletcher, pleaded not guilty in 2004 to multiple counts of anal and oral sexual penetration of an altar boy, Daniel Feenan. The offences began in 1990, when Daniel was 12. A jury found Fletcher guilty on all charges. Legal experts have told the media that Fletcher's legal costs for the 11-day trial exceeded $200,000. The church's defence team included a Queen's Counsel, plus a second barrister and a solicitor. Fletcher had various victims, most of whom were still remaining silent. This court case in 2004 was about one victim, Daniel.

After the guilty verdict, the media questioned Fletcher's superior (the Bishop of Maitland-Newcastle, Most Reverend Michael Malone) about aspects of the case, including how the defence team was financed. Malone said that Fletcher "availed" himself of an "offered loan facility" to help fund his defence. It is not known how the "loan" was supposed to be "re-paid", especially seeing that Fletcher was about to be jailed for the crimes. It is not known why Bishop Malone called this payment a "loan".

Bishop Malone also admitted he was aware of "one priest from one parish" donating part of the parish's Christmas collection to help pay Fletcher's lawyers. [The parishioners of this generous priest did not know that their Christmas donations were to be used to help another priest, Father Fletcher, to evade child-sex charges.]

Daniel was merely the first Fletcher victim who eventually contacted the police - in 2002 at the age of 25.

After Fletcher was charged in 2003, additional Fletcher victims (from Fletcher's other parishes) began contacting the police.

Victim's identity

When the the Broken Rites website first published an article about Fletcher's 2004 court proceedngs, Broken Rites did not reveal Daniel's real name. (This is in line with Broken Rites policy, which is to protect the privacy of victims).

However, in July 2008, Daniel Feenan gave an interview to the Newcastle Herald daily newspaper, stating that he now would like the public to know his name.

And in late 2012, Daniel's mother (Patricia Feenan) published a book, entitled Holy Hell: A Catholic family's story of faith, betrayal and pain , about how the Catholic Church inflicted the criminal Father Fletcher on her son Daniel and how this betrayal has hurt the whole family.

Therefore, in updating this article, Broken Rites is publishing the victim's real name, Daniel, in accordance with the family's wishes.

Towards the end of this article, more information is given about Patricia Feenan's book.

The priest's background

One of the victims who contacted police in 2003-4 said he was abused by Fletcher as early as 1978 - 12 years before Daniel's time. In 1978, Fr Jim Fletcher had been the administrator (i.e., priest in charge) at St John's Cathedral, Maitland. He was also the master of ceremonies for the then bishop, Bishop Leo Clarke. (Bishop Clarke was in charge of the Maitland-Newcastle diocese from 1976 to 1995.) Fletcher's position at the cathedral was a prestigious one. Fletcher's colleagues at this cathedral (as shown in the Catholic directory for 1983-4) included another up-and-coming young priest, Father Philip Wilson, who eventually became the Archbishop of Adelaide.

Fletcher took a particular interest in altar boys. Years later, his victims told how Fletcher had "groomed" them before sexually abusing them.

According to police, Bishop Clarke knew in the late 1970s and early '80s that Fletcher's liking for boys was a potential public-relations problem for the cathedral. Therefore, in the mid-1980s, Bishop Clarke removed Fletcher from Maitland (a demotion that he resented thereafter). However, instead of removing Fletcher from parish work altogether, Bishop Clarke transferred him to other, less important parishes, including Gateshead (in Newcastle) and later Denman (a rural parish) in the mid-1980s. In these parishes, the congregations did not know about Fletcher's past, so he was able to continue unhindered with more altar boys. (Yet another of Fletcher's alleged victims - from 1986-7 - came forward in 2004, as will be explained later in this article.)

By 1988, Fletcher had been transferred to yet another parish. Broken Rites has checked the 1988 edition of the annual Australian Cathholic Directory, which indicates that in 1988 Father James Fletcher became the priest in charge at Dungog (St Mary's parish). (This is a rural parish, 70km north of Newcastle.) Thus, Fletcher now had access to a fresh lot of altar boys and a fresh lot of unsuspecting parents. One of these altar boys (Daniel) ultimately caused the unmasking of Fletcher in 2002.

The story of Daniel

Fletcher, who was known to parishioners as "Father Jim", committed sexual crimes against Daniel (an altar boy) repeatedly from the age of 12 in 1990. The details, as later established in court, were as follows.

As a Catholic priest, Father Fletcher ingratiated himself with Daniel and his family, had meals at their home and lured Daniel away from home to inflict sexual acts upon the boy. Fletcher drove the boy to parks and other public locations around the Hunter Valley. Fletcher, who had enormous authority over the boy as a Catholic priest, intimidated the boy into allowing Fletcher to perform the sex acts. The boy trusted the priest and therefore obeyed him. Fletcher directed the boy to perform oral sex on the priest and these encounters eventually progressed to anal sex.

Daniel testified that, during anal intercourse, "he had never felt pain like it in his life" and had looked at a Saint Christopher medal in the car while the intercourse took place. The boy then cried and Fletcher hugged him, saying that "it was a normal part of life".

After one incident, Fletcher dropped the boy at a bus stop to find his own way home.

Daniel was unable to tell anyone about Fletcher's crimes because, as a priest, Fletcher had an exalted position in the Catholic community and he was a friend of Daniel's parents. Furthermore, to intimidate Daniel into silence, Fletcher warned him that "no-one would believe him" if he told anyone "because priests never lie. And he threatened to hurt Daniel's siblings if the boy ever spoke out.

During these years of abuse, Daniel increasingly became a "difficult" boy but his parents did not know the cause of his grumpiness.

The sexual abuse continued throughout Daniel's secondary schooling but Fletcher was charged only with certain selected incidents in the boy's early teenage years. It was not until Daniel was in Year 12 that he finally broke away from Fletcher's clutches.

By 1995, Fletcher had moved on to a new parish -- St Brigid's parish in rural Branxton, west of Maitland - leaving Daniel to suffer in silence at the previous parish.

This secrecy disrupted Daniel's adolescent development. He became distant, angry and depressed. He became a binge-drinker. At age 19, he tried to commit suicide.

Finally, during a serious personal crisis in 2002, aged 25, Daniel admitted to his parents that he was a sex-abuse victim and that the offender was the Reverend Father Jim Fletcher. He disclosed how Father Fletcher forced him to have sexual intercourse with the priest.

Daniel's father complained about Fletcher to the new bishop, Most Reverend Michael Malone, who had succeeded Bishop Clarke in 1995. But later the family realised that notifying the diocese turned out to be an unwise move.

After telling his family, Daniel made a signed, sworn statement for the NSW police in mid-2002. As part of their investigation, the police contacted the Maitland-Newcastle diocesan office to ask if the diocese had received any previous complaints about Fletcher in any of his parishes. But this was another unwise move because the diocese "tipped off" Fletcher at Branxton parish that he was facing potential criminal charges. This enabled Fletcher to get his story together and to begin marshalling church support for his defence.

According to public promises previously made by Australian Catholic bishops, the Maitland-Newcastle diocese should have transferred Fletcher immediately to other duties or they could have granted him leave (which the church sometimes disguises as "study leave" or "sick leave" for a priest facing sex-abuse allegations), so that he would not have contact with families or children, while the police investigation was proceeding. However, the diocese allowed Fletcher to continue working in his parish among families and children. The diocese was prepared to continue protecting Fletcher as long as it could get away with it.

Indeed, in January 2003 (six months after the police complaint), the diocese even enlarged Fletcher's area of responsibilities, by adding another parish (Lochinvar) to that he already held (Branxton), thereby increasing his parishioners from 2447 to 3125. This additional appointment was documented in the next annual National Council of Priests directory, compiled in January 2003.

By March 2003, it became evident that the police intended to formally charge James Fletcher with child-sex crimes. This meant that the charges eventually would be reported in the media, so, faced with a looming scandal, the diocese finally stood Fletcher down. This was nine months after the diocese learned about the police investigation.

Priest arrested

On 14 May 2003, police arrested Father James Fletcher and laid the charges. Fletcher, with his legal defence strategy now organised, denied the charges. A magistrate granted him bail on condition that he have no contact with children younger than 16.

The Fletcher charges were reported in the media. Newcastle and Hunter Valley newspapers demanded to be told why the diocese had waited so long before withdrawing Fletcher from parish ministry. Why had he been kept in his position during the police investigation?

In a media statement immediately after the laying of charges, Bishop Michael Malone said the diocese had not stood Fletcher down in June 2002 because it "did not deem him to be a risk". [The church's statement did not explain how Fletcher had suddenly become a "risk" only after the media exposure, whereas he had "not been a risk" beforehand while the church was able to prevent Fletcher's parishioners from knowing about the matter.]

In fact, Father James Fletcher obviously had been a huge risk for many years, as shown in the subsequent court proceedings and by the emergence of further victims afterwards.

Thus, by speaking to the police, Daniel ensured that the church's cover-up of Fletcher was thwarted, although Fletcher continued to receive support in church circles during the court proceedings and afterwards.

In the East Maitland District Court in November 2004, James Patrick Fletcher (aged 63) was charged with having performed sexual intercourse (anal and oral) on Daniel on eight occasions in 1990-1. He was also charged with committing an aggravated act of indecency on the child.

Fletcher pleaded "not guilty" to all charges but declined to give evidence in the witness box (to defend himself against the charges). This protected him from being cross-examined.

The jury, comprising eight men and four women, heard the full details of Daniel's abuse. The evidence was thoroughly sifted, at length, by the prosecutor and by the church's lawyers.

Finally, the prosecution produced another alleged victim of Fletcher -- a 30-year-old man who said he was abused by Fletcher at the age of 13. This witness, who can be identified only as "Mr G", told the court that he was he twice stayed overnight at Father Fletcher's presbytery (parish house) in 1986 and 1987. (This was in one of Fletcher's new parishes after he had left the Maitland cathedral.) Mr G said that, both times, Fletcher gave him a goodnight kiss, interfered with the boy's genitals, performed oral sex on the boy and ordered him not to tell his parents. Mr G said he told nobody about this abuse until Fletcher asked a family member for a character reference. Mr G then contacted the prosecutors and arranged to give this evidence in court.

Guilty verdict

On 6 December 2004, after long deliberations in the jury room, the jury unanimously returned a verdict of guilty on all nine charges. Fletcher was placed in prison on remand, pending the sentencing on a later date.

Bishop Michael Malone told the media that he wished to apologise to the victims (plural) and their families and friends "for the immense pain and suffering caused by Father Fletcher's criminal actions". He apologised for not transferring Father Fletcher from parish work immediately after being told about the child-sex charges. He said: "In retrospect, the matter could have been handled better and we have learned that we have to respond more appropriately to these issues."

Malone said that Fletcher would not return to the ministry. [This was a safe assumption because Fletcher had been thoroughly exposed and was facing a jail sentence].

Malone claimed that the diocese was setting up a toll-free telephone number so that people could talk to the church about the matter. [This is a common tactic, which often results in further victims reporting offences - possibly about other perpetrators - to the church instead of contacting the police or a victims' group such as Broken Rites.] However, when a Newcastle Herald reporter rang the toll-free number, nobody answered.

Malone also telephoned the victim, Daniel, telling him that he was courageous for coming forward. Malone also urged Daniel to "keep your faith". Daniel told the Newcastle Herald that this did not amount to an apology.

After Fletcher's conviction, the diocese finally dropped his name from the March 2005 directory of the National Council of Priests. The church did not want to mention that he was in remand prison, awaiting his full sentence.

Jailed

At the sentencing in Sydney District Court on 11 April 2005, Judge Graham Armitage said Fletcher committed an "inexcusable" breach of trust. He said the victim's evidence was the most compelling that he had heard.

Judge Armitage said the victim had presented to the court as a down-to-earth young man who was truthful.

Judge Armitage sentenced James Fletcher, aged 64, to a maximum 10 years in jail, with a non-parole period of seven and-a-half years.

Mother's anguish

Outside the court, Daniel's mother (Patricia) told the media that, for her family, the sentence was "life-long" and no amount of time in prison could restore the joy in faith that they had lost.

Praising her son's courage, the woman described him as "an extraordinarily brave boy".

The mother thanked a New South Wales Police detective, Detective Sergeant (later Chief Inspector) Peter Fox (of Maitland and Cessnock), for his diligence and compassion in helping her son. She said she hoped her son's actions would make it easier for other victims to speak out.

In media statements after Fletcher's sentencing, Bishop Michael Malone admitted that he had handled the Fletcher matter badly. He also admitted that more needed to be done to ensure that those affected by Fletcher's actions got proper attention and support.

Appeals to higher courts

Fletcher's conviction meant that the church was forced finally to distance itself from Fletcher, though not completely. Several of Fletcher's fellow priests continued to organise on his behalf.

Fletcher appealed to the NSW Court of Appeal against his conviction. The church lawyers argued that the trial judge erred in admitting evidence from the second altar boy, Mr G, who said Fletcher performed oral sex on him in 1986 and 1987.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal. One of the appeal judges, Justice Carolyn Simpson, said the trial judge was correct in allowing Mr G's evidence. At the time of the alleged offences against him, Mr G was the same age as the complainant [Daniel] and there were sufficient similarities between the two sets of allegations for the evidence to be admitted, Judge Simpson said.

After losing his appeal in New South Wales, Fletcher then initiated an appeal to the High Court of Australia against the conviction, again opposing the use of Mr G's evidence. A High Court appeal is an expensive exercise but Fletcher had backing for this from his supporters in the church.

More victims

Meanwhile, more victims of Fletcher were coming forward. On 13 December 2004 — while he was awaiting his sentence — Fletcher was charged in Maitland Local Court with having indecently assaulted yet another teenage boy. These incidents occurred at Maitland in January-March 1978 when Fletcher was located at the cathedral. This was a decade before Fletcher went to Daniel's parish. This case was adjourned to 18 April 2005 but, by then, Fletcher was in jail and the prosecutors considered that there was no point in bringing him back to court again. The 1978 victim was not the same as the previously mentioned "Mr G", whose incidents occurred at a different parish in 1986-7.

Fletcher died in jail in January 2006, from a stroke, after serving 14 months of his jail sentence. His funeral service, held in his last parish at Branxton, was attended by Bishop Michael Malone, vicar-general Father Jim Saunders and 31 other priests. Fletcher's long-time friend Father Des Harrigan, who officiated at the service, asked those present to pray for Fletcher.

Fletcher was buried in the priests' section of Sandgate Cemetery, near Newcastle.

Father Harrigan, who was the executor of Fletcher's estate, confirmed that the High Court appeal application would still go ahead. Harrigan said that, as the executor, he had to follow the wishes of the deceased.

Bishop Michael Malone said he would like to see the appeal proceed, so that Fletcher's family, his family and his victims could all "find closure".

A family member of one of Fletcher's victims told the Newcastle Herald: "I cannot understand why his [Fletcher's] supporters keep pushing this. He is dead. Can't they understand that it is just perpetuating the pain for everyone involved, particularly the victims?"

A victim's letter

One of Fletcher's victims wrote a letter to the editor, published in the Newcastle Herald on 10 March 2006, asking Fletcher's supporters not to proceed with the High Court appeal. The letter indicates that the writer's family had encountered Fletcher in the late 1970s

The letter said, referring to Fletcher's abuse: "I am not the courageous young man [Daniel] who came forward, complained and testified about that abuse.

"Nor am I the other brave person ["Mr G"] who gave evidence in support of that claim.

"I am, however, the survivor of years of grooming and sexual abuse at the hands of Father Fletcher.

"I met him as a shy nine-year-old, a member of a devout Catholic family whose devotion to the church meant that closer to a priest was to be closer to God.

"For 25 years I tried to forget what Fletcher did to me and for 25 years I did not tell a soul. For the past two years, I have been forced to confront my reality over and over again, and I have had to contend with people who cannot see the truth.

"The Catholic Bishop and Diocese of Maitland-Newcastle believe my story, as do the NSW police. Sadly, though, Father Des Harrigan and a (hopefully) small group of other people believe that me and Fletcher's other victims are liars and that we and our families should keep on suffering. Witness this week's appeal by Father Harrigan to the High Court.

"I feel very sorry for Jim Fletcher's mother, family, friends and supporters. It must be a terrible burden to have to confront the double life of someone you love. Nonetheless, I would like to ask them all, and Father Harrigan in particular, to stop trying to clear his name.

"It can do Fletcher, his supporters and his victims no good.

"It is time that they too confronted their reality - they were deceived, and in their own way abused, by a man who was driven by his own desires." [End of letter. Name and address withheld. ]

On the same day that this letter was published, the High Court dismissed Father Harrigan's application to appeal. Chief Justice Murray Gleeson said: "We [the judges] are of the view that the evidence in question [by Mr G] was correctly admitted in the particular circumstances of this case and we are not persuaded there has been any miscarriage of justice."

By April 2006, six of Fletcher's sex-abuse victims had contacted the NSW police. However, police told Broken Rites that the police can do nothing further about Fletcher because of his death. Therefore, the police said, these new complainants should seek justice by claiming compensation from the Catholic Diocese of Maitland-Newcastle. The payouts by the church would be a kind of fine for the church's negligence in inflicting Fletcher on his victims.

Family hurt by the church

A close friend of Daniel's family told Broken Rites in early 2006: "The whole process of the past three years has been traumatic, especially by the Maitland-Newcastle Diocese giving Fletcher a tip-off that the victim had gone to the police.

"The church's compensation process is slow and the Catholic Church seems to be trying to minimize the damage done to this young man and his family. After five years of this trauma, the family is struggling to keep their head up.

"The church claims that it was not responsible for the priest. However, we believe, from things that we have heard, that the diocese knew that Fletcher was a danger to children but it protected him. I believe the church is responsible. They have a duty of care. And they claim that priests are people that you could welcome into your home and lives. It was a huge breach of trust."

An interesting aspect of the Fletcher case is that in the late 1990s, while Daniel was suffering in silence about his sexual abuse, his local bishop (Bishop Michael Malone) was appointed as a member of the Australian Catholic Church's National Committee on Professional Standards, which supervises the church's handling of sexual abuse. And Adelaide's Archbishop Philip Wilson, who had begun his own career at the Maitland cathedral in the early 1980s in the heyday of Father Jim Fletcher, became the chairman of this national committee.

Daniel goes public

On 14 July 2008 (three years after Daniel Feenan's evidence put Fletcher in jail), Daniel gave an interview to journalist Joanne McCarthy of the Newcastle Herald. Daniel (then aged 32) said that he would like the public to know his name.

"I'm sick of reading about Fletcher's 'anonymous sexual abuse victim'; I'm sick of constantly being linked with his name and having what he did define me in a public sense because it doesn't define me, and I'm over it," Daniel said.

"I am Daniel Feenan. This has gone on for 20 years. Enough. For two-thirds of my life I've lived with this and I'm tired of it...Time to move on."

Mother's book published

After Patricia Feenan's book (HOLY HELL: A Catholic family's story of faith, betrayal and pain) was published in 2012, the Maitland Mercury daily newspaper published the following article on 24 November 2012:

• Patricia Feenan and her family were devout Catholics. They had complete trust in the godliness and integrity of the church and its leaders, until a black-hearted priest by the name of James Patrick Fletcher took away their son’s innocence forever.

  There was a lot priestly business in the Feenan family home. John Feenan was the business manager of the Maitland Newcastle Diocese and Patricia was a special minister at the church in Clarence Town.

  “I had a traditional Catholic upbringing where the priest was almost like God,” Patricia said.

  “I guess [James Patrick] Fletcher groomed the whole family; he didn’t only did groom Daniel and his brothers – his brothers weren’t abused – but that was part of this thing . . . to groom us all and he had other families with sons. The places where he went had sons. I think we just thought he was good with boys.

  “It’s hard to reflect now,” she said haltingly. “I had four sons; I never got out of the kitchen or the laundry - I was trying to do a bit of teaching, John was really busy in his job and we just tried to do the right thing and attend mass ... live your life like Christians. We had evil in our midst, but we didn’t know it.”

  The eldest of four boys, Daniel was brought up surrounded by love. A champion cricketer, he cherishes the happy memories, especially of playing backyard cricket with his father, brothers and cousins at every opportunity.

  But the normally happy boy began to exhibit worrying behaviour as he grew into manhood. His behaviour worsened and was erratic.

  “Daniel’s behaviour was pretty worrying as he began to show a fair bit of anger and he started to abuse alcohol,” Patricia said.

  “When we knew about the abuse, it explained his risk-taking behaviour, which included a suicide attempt. A typical victim when you look at the research and the profile of an abused child. We had no idea and eventually he disclosed to me that he was [sexually abused] when I asked the question.

  “It was the only question I hadn’t asked about what would explain his bad behaviour and the fact that he didn’t seem to respect himself – he lived life on the edge. I don’t know why I asked that question, it just came into my head.”

  Daniel was 24 years old when he made this admission to his mum, but she said some people never let their secret be known.

  With the recent announcement [by the Federal Government, in November 2012] of a Royal Commission, men and women in their 60s and 70s have begun to speak out.

  “[The announcement] has opened up quite a discussion,” Patricia said. “Paedophiles operate under silence and their victims stay silent because they somehow put the guilt and the shame onto them [the victims] – they say no one will believe you and they stay silent and victims just try to get on with their lives, if they can.”

  She said it took 11 months for Daniel to give his statement to police – it was that harrowing.

  “He was hospitalised a few times during that time and he was fairly traumatised and stressed,” Patricia said. “It took over 50 hours of sitting with [Detective Inspector] Peter Fox; he took Daniel very carefully and gently through that process.”

  After word that Daniel had gone to the police began to circulate, it wasn’t long before disparaging rumours about the Feenans, particularly Daniel, also began to leach through the community.

  Priests, including Bishop Michael Malone, chose to give solace to Fletcher. The Bishop has since apologised to the family.

  The priest, as Patricia refers to Fletcher, was jailed for 10 years on nine charges of child sex abuse.

  “There could have been many more charges, but the DPP [Department of Public Prosecutions] settled on the nine they thought would have a good chance of successful prosecution.

  “He died in jail 14 months after he was sentenced in early 2005.”

Mother still feels the hurt

Here is an extract from Patricia Feenan’s book, Holy Hell: A Catholic family's story of faith, betrayal and pain , published in 2012:

• “On the day I was to start giving my statement to the police I drove slowly towards Maitland, trying to stay calm so that my words would be coherent.

  “I had left myself plenty of time for the half hour drive but as I approached Maitland, I began to get upset.

  “Memories of the priest’s involvement in my family began to bubble around in my head and so I pulled into a little park located about 10 minutes from the town centre.

  “I was actually physically sick. I was alone. I remembered the meals I’d cooked for him, zucchini pie was his favourite, and the buttons I’d sewn on his black shirts.

  “Exchanges of Christmas and birthday gifts and dinner parties for his mother and sister and social gatherings with friends of his were past memories that crowded into my thoughts.

  “Dozens of snippets of conversations I had had with him were also recalled and I remembered the times we had asked him for advice when we were worried about Daniel.”

Broken Rites is proud to have helped in reporting the Father James Patrick Fletcher case (and the Catholic Church's cover-up) since the court proceedings in 2004.

• By a Broken Rites researcher, article updated 14 December 2018

For 34 years until 1995, Father David Joseph Perrett was a Catholic priest in New South Wales. In 2018 (aged 81 and retired) he has been charged by police with committing sexual crimes against 30 children throughout his priestly career. That is, his alleged 30-year crime spree occurred under the noses of the church authorities. The charges against Perrett include buggery, carnal knowledge of a child under 10, aggravated sexual assault, aggravated indecent assault and assault occasioning actual bodily harm. The prosecutor has previously told a court that some of Perrett's charges are so serious that he could perhaps spend the rest of his life in jail if convicted. In court on 29 October 2018, additional charges were filed in Perrett's case. A court has ordered that Perrett must remain in custody while prosecutors continue compiling the documentation for his charges. He will face court again in 2019.

Perrett has spent his priestly career in the Armidale Catholic diocese. This is the same diocese which remained silent for three decades about the crimes of another priest, Father John Joseph Farrell, who now is serving a long jail sentence).

The Armidale Catholic diocese is one of eleven regional dioceses covering New South Wales. The Armidale diocese (comprising two dozen towns in the north-west of New South Wales) extends up the New England Highway to the Queensland border. The bishop resides in the city of Armidale.

Arrested in Queensland

Until 2017, Perrett had been living in retirement (apparently in a Catholic Church convent) in Wallangarra (on the Queensland-NSW border, near Tenterfield). In May 2017, NSW detectives extradited him back to NSW, where he was charged regarding several of the alleged victims. While awaiting his next court appearance, he was required to reside with a relative of his at a house in Armidale and was required to report to police four times a week.

Speaking on behalf of NSW police, Detective Inspector Ann Joy said in a media statement in May 2017: "We would encourage anyone with knowledge of any related incident, whether it is a witness or a complainant, to make contact with police. We will investigate those matters thoroughly and as a matter of priority.”

Locked up in custody

During 2017 and 2018, more members of the public contacted the Armidale Detectives Office about David Perrett.

In Armidale Local Court on 22 August 2018, the NSW Director of Public Prosecutions charged Perrett regarding additional boys and also some girls. This makes a total of 30 alleged victims, involving a total of 92 charges. The alleged offences occurred from the 1960s to the 1990s.

[These are not necessarily Perrett's only alleged victims. These are the thirty alleged victims who each had a private interview with the detectives. Police are still prepared to interview any more complainants. Police will not reveal the names of any of the alleged victims.]

At the August 2018 hearing, the prosecutor lodged a detention application to prevent Perrett from being released on bail while he awaits his next court appearance. The prosecutor said eleven of the charges required Perrett to produce evidence as to why his detention was not justified, because these charges all involved sexual intercourse with children under the age of 16.

Two of the charges involve sexual intercourse with a very young child and are punishable by life imprisonment, the prosecutor said.

The court heard that Perrett was ordained as a priest in 1961 and spent time in the towns of Walcha and Moree before being transferred to Armidale for 11 years in 1969. He was then appointed to positions in the church in Guyra, Walgett and Boggabri. He is now retired.

At the August 2018 hearing, Perrett was denied bail by magistrate Michael Holmes. Perrett then left the courtroom in the custody of Corrective Services NSW officers.

On 17 October 2018, the court conducted a brief administrative procedure. the magistrate granted a further adjournment until early 2019 for prosecutors to continue their paper work. Meanwhile Perrett must remain in custody.

Perrett has not yet been required to indicate how he will plead regarding the charges.

Some background (Broken Rites research)

Born 13 July 1937, David Joseph Perrett was baptised at the Warialda Catholic Church which was then a part of the Bingara parish (both these places are within the Armidale diocese). Eventually he was recruited to become a priest in the Armidale diocese.

In the 1970s, Father Dave Perrett was located at the Armidale Cathedral and in 1979 his postal address was the bishop’s house.

In the 1980s he was “chaplain” to the diocese’s “John XXIII Centre for Aborigines”. He was later in charge of rural parishes at Guyra and then Walgett, both of which included Aboriginal families.

In 1996, while he was working as a priest, Father David Joseph Perrett appeared in court in New South Wales, where he pleaded guilty to sexually abusing young boys in north-western NSW. The charges comprised indecent assault of two boys at one parish (Walgett) and sexual assault of one boy at another parish (Guyra). At the sentencing, in Orange District Court on 1 November 1996, Judge Shillington sentenced Perrett to a three-year good-behaviour bond. The annual Australian Catholic Directories continued to list Father Perrett as a priest of the Armidale diocese (“on leave”) until his name was removed in 2001.

Another complaint against David Joseph Perrett was aired on ABC-TV’s “Four Corner” on 11 November 2002. The program featured a written statement by a young Aboriginal, Edward Russell, who said he was sexually assaulted by Father Perrett as a boy at Walgett. However, this complaint never reached a court. Edward Russell (born in 1973) had an intellectual disability and was partially deaf. He had a traumatic adolescence. He went on to be convicted himself of crimes and he eventually committed suicide in jail.

• To see more about the silence of church leaders in the Armidale diocese in New South Wales (regarding another priest, Father John Joseph Farrell), click HERE.

• By a Broken Rites researcher (article updated 16 December 2018)

This Broken Rites article is the most comprehensive account available about how the Marist Brothers allowed the sex-abuse criminal Brother Ross Francis Murrin to remain in their Order, thus giving him access to more child victims. Murrin has been jailed three times (in 2008 and 2010 and 2018) for child-sex crimes committed during his teaching career in Australian Catholic schools. There is evidence that his Marist superiors were aware many years ago about his criminal behaviour but they negligently allowed him to continue teaching, until some of Murrin's victims finally began speaking to the police detectives.

Murrin worked in eleven Catholic schools in New South Wales and Queensland. Here are three examples:

• Murrin's first school was the Marist Brothers boys' primary school in DACEYVILLE (in Sydney's east) in 1974. On 10 March 2008, Murrin was jailed after pleading guilty to 17 charges of indecently assaulting eight boys in Year 5 and Year 6 at this school.
   
• Murrin's third school was St Augustine's College in CAIRNS, Queensland, in 1979-81. Queensland police have taken sworn statements from former Cairns pupils, alleged that they were molested by Murrin. There is evidence that the school administration knew what Murrin was doing. Yet he was kept in the Marist order and was transferred to more schools.
   
• Murrin's sixth school was St Gregory's College in CAMPBELLTOWN (in Sydney's south-west) in 1985-87. On 4 February 2010 he was sentenced to additional jail time for repeatedly committing sexual assaults on a St Gregory's boy. This victim ("Rupert") is now taking civil action against the Marist Brothers and the school, seeking compenation to repair his damaged life. This jailing caught the attention of more of Murrin's ex-stucents, and therefore on 14 December 2018 he was jailed again regarding another St Gregory's College student.
   

Thus, as well as being a significant criminal matter, the Murrin story is also significant for potential civil actions by victims, seeking compensation.

As shown later in this article, the Marist Brothers were negligent in inflicting Murrin on his students, especially when the Marists kept transferring him (as a known offender) to more schools.

Civil action by victims

Canberra solicitor Jason Parkinson (principal of the legal firm Porters Lawyers) is acting for several Murrin victims seeking compensation

He says he possesses evidence that the Marists knew that Murrin was a danger to children.

Jason Parkinson told Broken Rites:

"After he indecently assaulted the boys at Daceyville, the Marist Order transferred Murrin to a school in Queanbeyan [in southern New South Wales, near Canberra] and then to Cairns, Queensland.

"The Cairns school is particularly significant. From 1979 at Cairns, Murrin committed multiple indecent assaults against boarders. Two siblings — let us call them 'Ian Windsor' and 'Gordon Windsor' [not their real names] — were repeatedly assaulted by Murrin when he was their boarding master. Unusually for victims of child sexual abuse, Ian and Gordon told their father, who travelled from a remote part of Queensland to confront the Marist headmaster in Cairns.

"Murrin wrote a letter apologising to the Marist Brothers Order. This letter is now in the hands of the New South Wales Police and has been subpoened by Porters Lawyers. Murrin also wrote a letter of apology to the family.

"Ian and Gordon allege that the Marist headmaster gave them two tickets to a circus by way of compensation for Murrin's assaults.

"After Murrin attacked another St Augustine's boarder during a school camp in 1981, both he and the Marist headmaster left the school. The ex-headmaster later became prominent in Marist 'youth welfare' in Australia nationally."

Murrn's sixth school was St Gregory's College in Campbelltown NSW, where he repeatedly assaulted "Rupert". Jason Parkinson's firm is acting for Rupert in Rupert's action against the Marists and the school for compensation.

Parkinson says that the Cairns background is crucial for Rupert's compensation case, because Rupert's assault occurred long after the Marists undoubtedly knew that Murrin was a danger to children.

The Cairns and Campbelltown schools were both boarding schools and Murrin was assigned to be a boarding master at both schools.

Jason Parkinson says: "During the 1970s and 80's the religious Brothers in boarding schools had more power over the children than their parents did. To repeatedly give a paedophile access to children in that setting is reckless and reprehensible."

Jason Parkinson was present at the Campbelltown sentencing in February 2010. As well as acting for "Rupert", he is also acting in compensation actions for other victims of Murrin from other schools.

Parkinson has been tracking Murrin's movements from his first school (in Sydney's Daceyville) to his next ten schools. Parkinson has travelled from Canberra to Cairns, Brisbane and the Gold Coast locating Murrin victims and gathering evidence.

Broken Rites research

Representatives of Broken Rites have attended Murrin's court hearings in Sydney and Campbelltown, taking notes of the proceedings (for this article) and chatting with victims. In addition, other victims of Murrin have contacted Broken Rites from both New South Wales and Queensland — either before or after the court proceedings.

Broken Rites has obtained this list of the eleven schools at which Murrin worked:

1. 1974: Marist Brothers primary school in Daceyville, in Sydney's east, followed by a year (1975) in training at the Marist Brothers novitiate in Mittagong NSW;
    
2. 1976: Marist Brothers primary school (now called St Gregory's parish school) in Queanbeyan NSW, followed by two years teacher training (1977-78);
    
3. 1979-81: St Augustine’s College, Cairns, Queensland (with boarding-school duties);
    
4. 1982-83: Marcellin College junior school, Coogee in Sydney (as primary deputy principal);
    
5. 1984: Marist High School, Parramatta in western Sydney (secondary);
    
6. 1985-87: St Gregory’s College, Campbelltown NSW (secondary, with boarding-school duties);
    
7. 1988-89: Marist High School, Parramatta, Sydney (secondary);
    
8. 1990-93: St Joseph’s College, Hunters Hill, Sydney (secondary, with boarding-school duties);
    
9. 1994:-2000: Marist College, Ashgrove, Brisbane;
    
10. 2001: St Patrick’s Marist College, Dundas, Sydney;
     
11. 2002: Marist College North Shore, Sydney.

At Coogee and Campbelltown, Murrin's duties included being the "religious" education co-ordinator.

Judge refers to the Marists' folly

According to court evidence, Murrin (born on 10 June 1955) completed his own schooling (Higher School Certificate) in 1972. In January 1973, aged 17, he joined the Marists and spent that year as a "postulant" (that is, as a candidate for admission). As part of his training, he was appointed as a Marist Brother to teach primary classes at the Daceyville school in February 1974, when he was just 18.

At Murrin's sentencing (regarding the Daceyville offences) in March 2008, Judge Helen Murrell told the court: "Despite his youth and lack of teacher training (let alone training in relation to appropriate sexual boundaries), the offender was given responsibility for a Year 5 class of 30-35 students [at Daceyville]. In effect, he was unsupervised."

The judge said: "The folly of placing an 18 or 19-year-old youth in charge of 30-35 Year 5 boys must have been obvious."

[That is, the Marist Brothers put these students at risk from Day One.]

When Murrin's lawyer submitted "mitigating" evidence (seeking a lenient sentence for Murrin), Murrin's psychiatrist told the court that Murrin had fallen victim to a system which had wrongly allowed him to teach at the "extraordinarily young" age of 18 and which had been "very slow to respond to this nature of sexual abuse".

[This amounted to an admission that the Marist Brothers order was negligent in turning Murrin loose upon young boys.]

Offences at his first school

The Daceyville school, where Murrin's first charged offences occurred, was a boys-only campus in Banks Avenue. The school was then being run by the Marist Brothers but the Banks Avenue campus has since been replaced by a full co-ed primary school (St Michael's school), now run by the Catholic Education Office.

The court hearing in 2008 was told that the abuse often occurred when Murrin asked one of the boys to come to his desk and ordered him to sit on his lap. He would then maul the boy sexually in front of the rest of the class.

A number of the offences took place on a "religious" retreat or during detention, with one boy molested while the class was in the library watching a movie.

The most serious incident occurred during a weekend, when Murrin grabbed one of the victims from behind and pinned him to the floor before pulling his pants down.

Murrin's behaviour was "quite open", the court was told. A pupil would witness another pupil being assaulted.

Judge Murrell said that Brother Murrin, even at 18, was tall. She said the victims were intimidated by the status and size of the offender.

The court was told that the victims were forced to remain silent about the abuse. Judge Murrell said: "One victim complained to his parents but he was disbelieved. His parents could not comprehend that a person in the offender's position would breach the trust reposed in him."

The 17 Daceyville charges were not Murrin's only offences. He admitted that there were other occasions he had abused the children for which he had not been charged.

And these eight boys were not necessarily Murrin's only Daceyville victims. They were merely those who were located by the police 30 years later. And they were merely those who agreed to make a signed, sworn statement for court purposes.

One victim died

At a pre-sentence hearing (regarding the Daceyville offences) in Sydney District Court on 1 February 2008, the court heard impact statements, showing how the abuse disrupted the adolescence of Brother Murrin's victims.

One victim ("Gary") ended up as a drug addict, dying of a drug overdose in 1987 aged 22, the court was told.

The assault of "Gary" was witnessed by another boy, whose testimony enabled police to charge Murrin in relation to the deceased victim, the court was told.

Gary's father said in his impact statement that the abuse by Murrin when Gary was 10 in Primary Year 5 completely changed the boy.

"This revelation (caused our family) total emotional distress and heartbreak," the father told the court.

"I'm now in a position to understand my son's disinterest in school matters."

The boy became "secretive and reclusive" and withdrew from the family, and developed a substance addiction to mask his low self-esteem and feelings of little worth.

The boy entered rehabilitation at 18 and left the program 40 times in five years, unable to overcome the demons of his past.

"The family was extremely fearful of his instability, that it would result in the loss of his life, which it did," his father said.

The revelation of Murrin's abuse sparked a "chain of detrimental events" for the family, leading to a "meltdown", he said.

"The effect of this knowledge of the abuse was far-reaching. Our grand-children in Catholic schools, we fear that they are suffering.

"Our belief has been rocked in all things Catholic."

In court, the Marist Brothers' lawyer demanded that the court should not allow this father to describe how Murrin's sexual abuse affected the whole family, instead of just how it affected the boy. The judge therefore prevented the father from reading his full statement to the court.

Another impact statement

Another of Murrin's victims, "Boris", said his faith in God had been destroyed by Murrin's assaults.

"It was only in my adult life that I realised that Ross Murrin betrayed all of us ... everyone in our class of about 30 students," he said.

"He betrayed the local community, he betrayed the New South Wales state government, the Marist Brothers order, the Catholic church and, most of all, our parents."

"My parents entrusted us to the Catholic system of education, they paid with their blood, sweat and tears to get my brothers and I through a more ethical system ... the same system that was supposed to protect us, the same system that my parents had trusted so much."

"I have not reached out and spoken to God for a long time ... I hope God and my father can forgive me for my many years of absence from our faith," the victim said.

Locked up

After this pre-sentence hearing on 1 February 2008, Judge Helen Murrell refused bail and remanded Murrin in custody to be sentenced on a later date.

A Broken Rites representative, who was present in court, saw Murrin being escorted from the courtroom to the cells.

In effect, this was the beginning of his incarceration.

What the judge said

Sentencing Murrin on 10 March 2008, Judge Helen Murrell enumerated Murrin’s charged offences, one by one. For some of the victim's families, this was the first time they had heard the details of Murrin's crimes.

Broken Rites obtained a copy of the judge's 15-page sentencing remarks.

Judge Murrell said the offences were generally "impulsive or opportunistic", but Murrin's position of authority over the students was an aggravating factor.

She said: "Each of the offences is objectively serious because it involved a breach of trust by a person in authority. Through most of the 1974 school year, the offender was a very important authority figure to each of his pupils. His status was secondary only to that of their parents. in addition to educating and supervising his pupils, the offender was supposed to provide moral guidance. Several offences occurred when the offender and his pupils were on a religious retreat. The offender breached the trust reposed in him by his pupils, their parents and the church."

Referring to the impact on the victims, the judge said: "They [the victims] were affected by having witnessed earlier assaults. They felt violated, ashamed and isolated. They lost self-confidence. Some became bullies and/or targets for bullies. Some developed anger management problems.

"Some victims continue to experience flashbacks, sleep disturbance and intrusive thoughts. Most victims have experienced difficulty with trust and with developing close relationships, particularly with women. Some continue to struggle with depression and anxiety. Some turned to drugs or alcohol to alleviate their pain. In 1987 [one victim] died of a drug overdose...

"It is inevitable that significant and repeated child sexual assault that goes unrecognised and untreated will have a substantial impact on the victim."

The judge noted that "in cases of childhood sexual assault, for understandable reasons, victims often delay reporting the misconduct."

The judge noted that in 1974, the age gap between Murrin and his victims was not large. She said that, in Murrin's more adult years, "as far as can be ascertained", he has directed his homosexual orientation towards adult males.

Jailed

For the Daceyville offences, Judge Murrell gave Murrin a maximum jail sentence of three years and three months, with a non-parole period of 18 months.

Murrin was charged under the laws of the 1970s. The judge noted: "In 1974, non-custodial sentences were common for offences of this type. [Since then] the community has come to ... understand that authority figures, even figures of religious authority, are not immune from such conduct."

The offender's career

The court was told that Murrin started out as a primary teacher but in the 1980s and 1990s he did university studies, majoring in French. From about 1984 onwards, his teaching duties were with secondary-level students, teaching "religion", mathematics and French.

The court was told that in 2002 two of his Daceyville victims contacted the church authorities and Murrin spent 2003 in “renewal”. But he continued to be accepted by the Marist Brothers order. When the police investigated him in 2007, Murrin was in Rome, working for the Catholic Church as a translator.

A father's grief

Several of the victims, plus their families, were present in court during the March 2008 sentence proceedings. One spectator was the father (let us call him "Sam") whose son "Gary" died from a drug overdose.

Outside the court, Sam told Broken Rites:

"Sitting in the court during the several days of proceedings, I reflected on the irony of the situation. Here we were -- me and my wife, with my son's three grieving sisters, and their husbands (all Catholic), plus four of the sexually abused victims.

"Also in court were four Marist Brothers. Now I would have expected the Marist Brothers would be supporting the wrecked Catholic victims of the Marist system but, no, the four Marist Brothers were there supporting the offender, Murrin."

Sam said that the office of the Director of Public Prosecutions was "smart" in obtaining a guilty plea. The guilty plea meant that Murrin became convicted automatically. Therefore, there was no contest, and the victims were not required to give evidence in court.

Sam said: "My family and I were satisfied with Judge Murrell's sentence — in a climate where you get only seven years for murder."

Radio interview

On 11 March 2008, the day after the sentencing, broadcaster Ray Hadley interviewed the grieving father, "Sam", on Sydney's radio 2GB.

On air, Sam said he did not know about his son's sexual abuse until police contacted him in July 2007. The police obtained a school photo and located the boys who were in Murrin's class. The police told Sam that other victims had reported that Sam's son "Gary" was one of Murrin's victims. This was a surprise to Sam but it helped Sam to understand the tragic decline in his son's behaviour in the years after the boy left the Daceyvillle school.

Sam told 2GB that, after his Murrin left the Daceyville school, Murrin continued to have contact with "Gary".

In his teens, Gary became secretive and, unknown to his parents, he started consuming marijuana and tablets and later heroin, Sam said.

Sam said he learned recently that two of Murrin's victims contacted the Marist Brothers in 2002. The Marist Brothers "paid them off", Sam said.

But, said Sam, in 2002 the Marists failed to alert other families from Murrin's class at Daceyville to see if there were any other victims who might need help. The Marists remained silent. Eventually, after a victim went to the police, the police contacted Murrin's ex-pupils in 2007 and did what the Marists had failed to do. But it was too late to help Sam's son Gary.

[That is, Broken Rites believes that it was the police, not the Marist Brothers, who provided moral leadership in the whole Murrin affair.]

The story breaks in Queensland

After the 2GB broadcast on 11 March 2008, "Sam" told Broken Rites: "The 2GB telephone receptionist told me that, after Ray Hadley first mentioned the Ross Murrin case, the studio switchboard received a call from a listener, who was a former resident of Cairns in Queensland. The caller did not want to go on air but he told the receptionist that, on his first night as a boarder at a Marist Brothers school in Cairns, the caller had an encounter with Murrin."

Later that week, on 13 March 2008, the phone call regarding Cairns was reported as a news item on page three of the Cairns Post (far-north Queensland daily newspaper). And, in the same newspaper on 15 March 2008, the Marist headquarters in Sydney confirmed that Brother Murrin had indeed taught in Cairns in 1979-81.

Earlier, on 24 February 2009 the Cairns Post had reported that Murrin is under police investigation in relation to a charge of sexual misconduct while he was working at St Augustine’s College in Cairns in 1979-81. Murrin had boarding-school duties at the school.

The newspaper said: "It is feared that there may be many unknown victims of Murrin."

Jailed again, for Campbelltown crimes

The jailing of Murrin in 2008 was reported in Sydney daily newspapers and also in suburban weekly newspapers where Murrin had worked — that is, papers circulating in the Daceyville area and in Campbelltown. This prompted a victim from St Gregory's college in Campbelltown — "Rupert"— to contact the police. He pointed out that Daceyville boys were not Murrin's only victims.

During 2009, while Murrin was in jail, court proceedings were held, at which Murrin was charged with offences against Rupert.

On 4 February 2010, Judge Sorby in the Campbelltown District Court sentenced Murrin for sexually abusing a 14 year old boarder ("Rupert") in his care at St Gregory’s College, Campbelltown in 1982.

During the Campbelltown pre-sentence hearings, adjustments were made to some of the charges. The Campbelltown offences, for which Murrin finally pleaded guilty, included:

• 6 counts of homosexual intercourse with a pupil;
• 1 count of attempted homosexual intercourse with a pupil; and
• 2 counts of assault with act of indecency.

Murrin’s guilty plea qualified him for a discount in his sentence. He was sentenced to additional jail time (on top of his Daceyille sentence), extending to 31 January 2015, with parole possible after 31 July 2014.

After Murrin's sentencing, the Campbelltown victim ("Rupert") said outside the court: "As a boy I needed help, not abuse. Murrin assaulted and abused me in a way no child should ever hear of, let alone experience. My life, as well as my family’s life, has been wrecked by that Marist Brother."

How the church treated this victim - Mr "DK"

One of Brother Ross Murrin's victims, from St Augustine's College in Cairns, has told his story to Australia's national Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. This victim, who is being referred to at the royal commission by the code-name Mr "DK", has given evidence at a public hearing of the commission in Sydney. His evidence tells how he was treated by the church authorities when he tried to obtain justice from the church.

Mr DK became a boarder at Saint Augustine's College in Cairns in 1976 (when he was aged eleven) and stayed there until 1981. He says his life has been disrupted by the Catholic Church. He says that, as well as being abused by Brother Ross Murrin (and other Brothers), he was later re-victimised by the church authorities.

Mr DK said he had put his faith in the Marist Brothers three times, but each time he was betrayed.

The first time was when he was a student at St Augustine’s College, Cairns. He was abused by three different Marist brothers from when he was 11 in 1976. The third Brother, in 1981, was Brother Ross Francis Murrin. This upset him the most because he had turned to Brother Murrin “in my time of need and fear” and thought they were good friends.

Mr DK told the Royal Commission he believes other Brothers at the school and its then-principal (Brother Gerald Burns) knew of Murrin's sexual abuse of boys while it was going on.

“After the abuse by Brother Murrin, I received a number of floggings and was treated differently by the Brothers. I remember being excluded from events and feeling like they were trying to get me to leave the school”, he testified. He said his academic results suffered.

The second betrayal, DK said, was in 2009-2010 when he went through the Catholic Church's Towards Healing process for victims. DK first heard about Towards Healing when he approached the Marist Brothers in 2009. He was given a phone number but was greeted with a voice-mail message. He did not persevere for several months.

In early 2010, DK rang the head office of the Marist Brothers and was put through to the director of professional standards for the Marist order at the time, Brother Alexis Turton. DK said when the mediation session took place in Brisbane on March 30, 2010, he wanted answers from three of the Marist Brothers who he says knew about Murrin's behaviour.

When his session to discuss compensation was organised, Mr Michael Salmon was appointed to co-ordinate the meeting. DK told the hearing that church authorities told him that Mr Salmon was "independent".

DK said that his mediation meeting was "aggressive and destructive." He described Towards Healing as a “sham” (more like Towards HURTING).

DK was paid a settlement out of the Towards Healing process and received a written apology, but much of the investigation took place without engagement or communication with him, he said. DK says he later saw Mr Salmon, on television, defending the Catholic Church. DK says he then learned that Mr Salmon is in fact employed by the Catholic Church (as the director of the Catholic Church’s NSW Professional Standards Office).

DK said that the third betrayal revealed itself in his preparations for the Royal Commission when he saw “terribly hurtful” documents that had previously been kept from him. He was disgusted to read how the Marist Brothers were preoccupied with potential legal liability. They showed “complete lack of concern” for his well-being.

He “read and discovered things that are so morally repugnant” that he thought “those involved in the Towards Healing process have totally lost their way”.

Brother Alexis Turton, who was called to appear at the Royal Commission, admitted to the commission that he brought Mr Salmon in to conduct DK's compensation meeting, even though involving a PSO director was expressly against Towards Healing rules. Turton said it was an “oversight” and he acknowledged the potential conflict of interest.

On 22 January 2014, Mr Michael Salmon appeared at the Royal Commission. Answering questions, Mr Salmon told the inquiry he does not think the person co-ordinating a compensation hearing needs to be impartial.

The Chair of the Royal Commission, Justice Peter McClellan, expressed his concern to Mr Salmon.

"It seems to me that if the purpose of the facilitator is to get the best outcome for the person who has suffered, that a lack of identity with the Church would be fundamental to a perception of a fair process," Justice McClellan said.

Counsel Assisting the Commission, Gail Furness SC, also questioned Michael Salmon about the decision to appoint Church employees.

"Why didn't you, back then, know the importance of properly conveying to a person attending Towards Healing your employment, and doing so in writing before agreeing to engage as the facilitator?" she said.

Michael Salmon responded that he made the decisions "in good faith".

Jailed again in 2018

Media coverage of Murrin's convictions caught the attention of more of his former students, some of whom spoke to NSW detectives. On 14 December 2018, Murrin (then aged 63) faced Campbelltown District Court, where Judge O'Brien sentenced him to 10 months in prison (with a five month non-parole period) for indecent assault of a young student at St Gregory's College in 1985.

• By a Broken Rites researcher, article updated 16 December 2018

Broken Rites is continuing its research about how the Catholic Church enabled the paedophile priest Father Michael Charles Glennon to commit sexual crimes against children in Melbourne. Years later, many of his victims (and their families) are still feeling the impact of the church's negligence. (By a Broken Rites researcher, article updated 16 December 2018.)

Glennon was jailed for some (but not al)l of his crimes) Thanks to Broken Rites and the Victoria Police, Glennon was facing more criminal charges when he died in jail on New Year's Day in 2014.

Broken Rites has been researching Glennon since 1993. We have also interviewed some of his victims, who helped to bring him to justice in his various court appearances.;

In recent years, more Glennon victims have contacted Broken Rites. In 2013 we began telling these victims how they could exercise their right to consult detectives at the newly-established  Sano Taskforce in the Victoria Police sex-crimes squad.

These detectives laid ten new charges against Glennon (aged 69) on 23 December 2013, nine days  before he died.

The new charges related to indecent assault and buggery incidents in Melbourne's northern suburbs (Glennon's old stamping ground) in the 1970s.

On 9 January 2014, the Melbourne Magistrates Court noted that these charges could no longer proceed, because of Glennon's death.

Countless victims

Originally, when the Catholic Church ordained Father Michael Glennon as a priest for the Melbourne Archdiocese, it gave him easy access to children. By the year 2003, Glennon had been convicted five times (and was serving a long jail sentence) for child-sex offences, involving a long list of children, mostly boys.

However, these were not his only victims — they were merely those who eventually spoke to police detectives.

The world will never know exactly how many children Father Glennon abused. Even Glennon himself would have lost count of the real number.

After serving most of his original long jail sentence, Glennon was due to become eligible (in April 2014) to apply for release from jail on parole. But the new charges in December 2013 ended this prospect.

Broken Rites research

Michael Charles Glennon was born in 1944 in a family of ten children and grew up in Melbourne’s working-class northern suburbs, among a mixture of Irish Catholics, European immigrants and Aboriginal families. There, becoming a professional Catholic — a priest — was a means of getting ahead in the world.

The Melbourne archdiocese recruited Glennon as a trainee for the priesthood at Melbourne's Corpus Christi College seminary. Glenon was not the only sex-offender in the seminary. Former students at Corpus Christi have told Broken Rites that Glennon's room-mate for the first six months was Terrence Pidoto, who later ended up in jail for child-sex crimes.

While training to be a priest, Glennon was also acting as a Scout leader but not much is known about those activities. After being ordained in 1971 (aged 27), he became a “chaplain” [nudge-nudge, wink-wink] for boys in the Scouts movement..

By then, he was also "working" with homeless boys. Broken Rites discovered the 1972 annual report of St Augustine's boys' orphanage, Geelong, which stated that students from Corpus Christi seminary, including Father Michael Glennon and Father Terry Pidoto, "have frequently travelled down to St Augustine’s and have given many hours in counselling, holding discussions and helping the boys generally."

It is not clear exactly how Glennon and Pidoto “helped” the boys.

Broken Rites has researched Glennon's career by examining the annual editions of the Australian Catholic Directory. About 1972, Glennon began his first permanent appointment as an assistant priest in Thornbury East (the Holy Spirit parish), followed in the mid-1970s by Moonee Ponds (St Monica’s) and Reservoir (St Gabriel’s) — all in Melbourne’s north, the region where he had grown up.

He acted as a “chaplain” at local Catholic schools. At St Monica’s school in Moonee Ponds, he did football coaching, taught karate and took children on camping trips.

At the Marist Brothers boys’ school (later re-named Redden College and Samaritan Catholic College) in Preston (the suburb where Glennon was born), he conducted “sex education” classes. A former student there has told Broken Rites that Fr Michael Glennon was popular there because he was well known as an expert in karate.

Glennon’s activities ranged far and wide beyond these parish boundaries.

Glennon's rural camp

During the 1970s, he launched a youth group, the Peaceful Hand Youth Foundation, in which he taught karate. Somehow, he acquired a 16-hectare rural property, “Karaglen”, near Lancefield, north of Melbourne.

It is not clear how Glennon managed to afford to acquire this land. The land was on two titles and Broken Rites knows the official folio numbers of both titles. According to a title search, Glennon acquired the first allotment on 12 August 1977 and this was transferred to the Peaceful Hand Youth Foundation Pty Ltd on 23 January 1978. The second allotment was bought by the Peaceful Hand Youth Foundation (not in Glennon's name) on 3 June 1991.

Initially a bunch of huddled tents and scrubby wilderness, “Karaglen” grew to become a collection of huts and a hall attached to Glennon's private bedroom. Groups of children would visit there, staying overnight in sleeping bags, for the karate camps that Glennon regularly held there. Parents trusted Father Michael to look after their children because they trusted Catholic priests. Father Michael was sometimes the only adult present at the camp.

According to evidence by victims, the children were required to take turns in sleeping with Father Michael in his bedroom. However, the children were intimidated into remaining silent about Father Michael's activities.

First jail sentence, 1978

In 1978 the first allegation surfaced when a 10-year-old girl said Glennon had sexually assaulted her in his car at “Karaglen”. Glennon pleaded guilty to indecent assault and was sent to jail, serving seven months of a two-year sentence. This was the only time he ever pleaded guilty. During the next two decades, he would contest all subsequent charges fiercely.

[Much later, it was revealed that in 1979, nine weeks after his release from jail, he indecently assaulted a 16-year-old girl during a sleepover at Karaglen].

After his release from jail, Glennon was still a priest, although the Melbourne archdiocese did not appoint him to another parish. However, the archdiocese had no control over Glennon’s unofficial activities.

Glennon continued to practice as a freelance priest throughout the 1980s. He held Catholic-style religious services at his home at Thornbury (a Melbourne northern suburb), preaching a conservative Catholic liturgy to his flock of poor or immigrant families and Aboriginal families. And, despite his jailing, some parents continued to allow their children to visit (and even to have sleepovers at) “Karaglen”.

Glennon charged again, 1984-85

In 1984, Glennon was charged with indecently assaulting a boy, aged 11, and sodomising another boy, aged 13, during a camp sleepover, but was acquitted on both charges.

Although the Melbourne Catholic archdiocese refrained from giving Glennon any more parish appointments, Father Michael continued to minister privately to his unofficial congregation.

In November 1985, after receiving further complaints about Father Michael, police charged him with several sexual offences, including buggery and indecent assault of five boys and one girl, aged between 12 and 16 years, in 1977-80.

Radio man Derryn Hinch

During the 1985 prosecution process, Melbourne radio broadcaster Derryn Hinch (who likes to be known as "The Human Headline") sabotaged this prosecution by telling the public (and any jury members) about Glennon’s 1978 conviction (instead of letting a jury concentrate on the 1985 prosecution).

It is the role of the court system, not a radio shock-jock, to supervise a prosecution.

Hinch’s interference meant that Glennon’s jury trial had to be postponed (otherwise, the defence lawyers could have used the Hinch blunder as a ground for appealing against any guilty verdict).

Glennon was therefore released on bail and (thanks to Hinch) he continued acting as a freelance priest (and abusing children) instead of being in jail.

Father Glennon’s power in the 1980s

Why were parents so trusting of Father Michael Glennon, even in the late 1980s after the Derryn Hinch publicity? One of Glennon’s later trials (in 2003) heard the testimony of a woman whose nephew was one of Glennon’s victims in the 1980s. She told the court that she saw her nephew in bed with Father Michael at “Karaglen” one night in 1986 when she walked through his room on the way to the bathroom.

Asked by Judge Roland Williams if she trusted Father Michael, the aunt declared: "Of course I did. I'm a Catholic aren't I? I mean, you go by the cloth… Who else do you trust in this world? ...He came around to our houses and we used to sing and we used to talk all hours of the night and enjoy each other's company because he was just good to talk to... I thought this world was good when you talked to a priest."

Similar statements were repeated throughout Glennon’s other trials.

Prosecutor Rosemary Carlin told one court session about Father Glennon’s popularity, charisma and persuasiveness among his followers. She said: "They think the world of Glennon... He is their priest, their friend, their confidant... He has shown them he has a profound understanding and respect for the Aboriginal culture."

During one trial, the jury was shown video footage of an open-air communion Mass which Father Glennon held at “Karaglen” in 1989. The footage included the smiling faces of three boys who were repeatedly abused by Glennon. One of them, aged 12, was dressed as an altar boy, leading a procession of children to make their first Holy Communion.

The video also included a sermon by Glennon, in which he told the congregation: "Everybody here, priest included, is and has been a most wicked, wilful sinner."

This is the kind of things that Father Michael Glennon was doing in the late 1980s, while (thanks to Derryn Hinch) he was out on bail.

Another Glennon trial, 1991

Eventually, in 1991, after the Hinch blunder had faded from the memory of potential jurors, it became possible to hold Glennon’s postponed trial.  Fortunately, this time, Hinch did not interfere with the work of the court. This jury found Glennon guilty of attempted buggery of a boy under 14 and two counts of buggery with violence.

Glennon was sentenced to jail but successfully appealed to the Victorian Court of Appeal, arguing that media publicity had prevented him receiving a fair trial.

Thus, Father Michael was a free man again — and he returned to his faithful followers.

Glennon still a part-time priest

On 29 December 1991, after Glennon's successful appeal, Melbourne’s Sunday Age wondered whether Father Michael Glennon was “still a priest”. Melbourne’s Catholic vicar-general (Monsignor Hilton Deakin) said that, although the archdiocese had stopped appointing Glennon to parishes, "we returned his rights  [to act as a priest] for one day at a time— for the funeral of his mother and the wedding of his sister.”

In other words, Glennon was still a Catholic priest, being allowed officially to minister, on behalf of the Melbourne archdiocese, on specified occasions.

Anyway, Father Michael Glennon told the Sunday Age that he had no plans to rejoin the Catholic Church in an official capacity.

Asked what he planned to do, Father Glennon said he would apply for unemployment benefits, but “what do I say when they ask me what I’m qualified to do? I’m pretty good as a Catholic priest – what have you got in that line?”

Jailed in 1992, 1999 and 2003

Glennon’s successful appeal against his 1991 conviction was short-lived. In 1992 the Victorian state prosecution office successfully appealed to the High Court of Australia against the Victorian acquittal. Glennon was sent back to jail, this time for at least seven years (with no parole possible until mid-1998).

In 1997, as his release neared, Glennon was charged with new sex offences — 65 charges, involving 15 male victims and one female, between 1974 and 1991. The offences included indecent assault, buggery, attempted buggery and rape. Glennon committed many of his crimes while on bail awaiting trial for other sex offences, including during the delay caused by the Derryn Hinch publicity.

The youngest victim was seven years old. The victims included Aboriginal children, and Glennon used his knowledge of Aboriginal traditions to scare his victims into silence.

These proceedings were split into three separate trials, with different juries. Each trial was held in secret so that jury members could not be prejudiced (and, this time, radio shock-jock Hinch did not sabotage the trials):

• In May 1999, in the first trial, Glennon was convicted on all but five of 29 counts relating to the abuse of six children between 1974 and 1978. He immediately began serving a jail sentence for this conviction, with the total jail sentence to be increased if convicted after the subsequent trials.
   
• The second trial began in September 1999 and, after another appeal and a retrial, was decided in August 2003 when Glennon was convicted of sex assaults against an Aboriginal boy in 1983.
   
• The third of the split trials was held in August-October 2003 with a conviction. A jury found him guilty of 23 charges of abuse on three boys from 1986 to 1991.

A police officer told Broken Rites that the third trial was to have included a female victim but this victim was badly damaged and she died of a drug overdose before the case reached court.

Glennon sentenced, 2003

In November 2003, as a result of the three trials, Glennon (then aged 59) was sentenced to a total of 18 years jail, with a 15 year minimum. However, in 2005, after an appeal, some of the charges were quashed and his total sentence was reduced to a minimum of 10 years six months, dating from October 2003.

This meant that, at last, the children of Victoria were safe from Fr Michael Glennon.

Footnote

On 2 January 2014, after Glennon died, one of his victims (Graeme, born 1961) contacted Broken Rites and said:

"In 1978, when I was 17, I got into trouble. At Preston court, a magistrate named Hammond ordered me into the custody of Father Glennon. In court, a police officer (Sgt Anderson) objected to this order, knowing that Glennon was being charged with child-sex offences, but magistrate Hammond over-ruled the sergeant.

"At Karaglen camp, Glennon forced me to sleep with him and molested me. Later that year, Glennon received his first jail sentence, for the crimes that Sergeant Anderson already knew about.

"I didn't go to the police about what Glennon did to me, because I was already preoccupied with my teenage troubles."

Graeme added: "I would like to learn more about magistrate Hammond. Was he personally acquainted with Father Michael Glennon?"

• By a Broken Rites researcher, article posted 19 December 2018

Two former schoolboys (both now aged in their sixties) have finally brought a Catholic priest to justice in Australia for crimes that he committed on them more than 50 years ago. On 18 December 2018, Father Thomas Fulcher (now aged 84) was jailed for a minimum of two years after pleading guilty to these crimes. Father Fulcher, who is "still a priest" (in  reitrement"), is a member of a  Catholic religious order (the Society of Mary) which has branches around Australia.

In the 1960s, Father Fulcher was based at Marist College (a boarding school) in Burnie, northern Tasmania.

Thomas Fulcher pleaded guilty in the Tasmanian Supreme Court to three counts of indecent assault.

He was charged regarding two victims, who were students at the school between 1960 and 1967.

The two victims, now aged in their 60s, came forward and reported the abuse during Australia's national Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, which was held between 2013 and 2016. The Royal Commission advised the victims to have an interview with child-protection detectives from the state police service.

Fulcher, now aged 84, admitted he had made one boy perform a sex act in front of him and had also touched him on the genitals. The priest then put on his Confessional robes and took the boy's Confession about what had just happened.

Fulcher told the second boy to drop his pants so he could check that he was "normal", then performed a sex act on him. The victim told police that at the time he was abused, he had been taught you could not refuse do to what a priest told you to do.

Fulcher was ordained as a Catholic priest on 18 July 1959 and the Catholic Church still lists him as a practising priest.

Fulcher was sentenced to four years in prison. He will serve a minimum non-parole period of two years.

In a statement, Adrian Drane, the current principal of Marist College in Burnie, said the Fulcher case is "a reminder of the mislaid trust placed in some individuals, and is a dark part of Marist Regional College's history".

"One can only imagine the hurt, betrayal and absolute devastation of the survivors of abuse and their families," he said.

• By a Broken Rites researcher, article updated 26 December 2018

Father Paul Chris Pavlou is a relatively recent recruit to Australia's Catholic priesthood. He was originally a school-teacher but, in his thirties, he began studying to become a priest. Later, in his forties, he was elevated to the priesthood and began ministering in parishes of the Melbourne archdiocese. Soon after this, he admitted in court that he was committing sexual offences against children before and after becoming a priest. Now he is awaiting his sentencing, which will be held in the Melbourne County Court in 2019. Pavlou's story raises questions about how the church selects its priests.

After studying for the priesthood, Paul Pavlou was ordained as a priest in 2004. His religious status (while studying for the priesthood — and afterwards) gave him access to children. Two victims have succeeded in getting Pavlou convicted in court for offences which he committed between 2003 and 2006:

• Pavlou's first conviction (in court in 2009) was for sexually abusing a 14-year-old boy (this abuse occurred in 2006). Originally, the abuse had been discovered by the boy's mother but, unfortunately, she merely reported the crime to the church authorities who then (as usual) managed to conceal the matter from the police. Eventually, however, the family spoke to Victoria Police child-protection detectives, and this resulted in Pavlou being convicted in court in 2009.
• Later, another Pavlou victim spoke to the detectives, stating that he was abused around 2003-2004, when he was aged 12. With the help of the detectives, Pavlou was convicted again in September 2018 regarding this boy. The sentencing is being scheduled for a date in 2019. The 2018-2019 court case is mentioned towards the end of this article.

Some background

Research by Broken Rites has ascertained that Paul Pavlou was born in Australia in 1959, in a family of Greek Cypriot origin. The third of six children, he grew up in Melbourne suburbs (he attended primary school at East Burwood and high school at Richmond and Syndal).

He studied engineering at Melbourne's Monash University for a year before completing a Diploma of Teaching (Primary) at Melbourne’s Frankston State College in 1981, majoring in physical education and social science. He began teaching in state primary schools at Hallam and Mount Waverley (both in Melbourne’s east).

Other members of his family identify with the Greek Orthodox Church but Paul Pavlou became a Catholic and began taking an active role in Catholic affairs.

After spending ten years teaching, he began preparing for a career in religious life. In 1997, he graduated with a Bachelor of Theology at Melbourne’s Catholic Theological College and became a Brother in a Catholic religious order, the Salesians of Don Bosco.

Brother Pavlou lived in Salesian establishments in Melbourne’s east (at Oakleigh, Lysterfield and Ferntree Gully). At Ferntree Gully, Brother Pavlou taught at St Joseph's Regional College, which is conducted by the Salesian order.

In his forties, he was accepted by the Melbourne Catholic archdiocese as a mature-age entrant for the priesthood and did his training at the church's Melbourne seminary.

After being ordained during 2004, he worked as an assistant priest at Croydon (Sacred Heart parish) in Melbourne's outer east. Broken Rites has ascertained that Pavlou was listed as a priest, for the first time, in the next edition of the Australian Catholic Directory (compiled in early 2005).

In late 2005, Paul Pavlou took up duties at the Healesville parish (St Brigid's). He was listed there (as the administrator, or acting priest-in-charge) in the next edition of the Australian Catholic Directory (compiled in early 2006).

The 2009 court case

Father Paul Pavlou of the Melbourne Catholic archdiocese, pleaded guilty in the Melbourne Magistrates Court on 29 June 2009 (when he was aged 50) to one charge of committing an indecent act with a 14-year-old boy and another charge of possessing child pornography.

The offences occurred while Pavlou was ministering at a parish at Healesville, north-east of Melbourne, for about a year in 2005-2006, the court was told. Healesville is within the Melbourne Catholic diocese.

For an indecent act with a child under 16, Father Pavlou was sentenced to 18 months in jail, which was suspended for 24 months.

For knowingly being in possession of child pornography, he was sentenced to a two-year Community-Based Order. As a condition of the CBO, Father Pavlou was ordered to do a program for sex offenders and 50 hours of community work.

The court ordered that Pavlou's name be placed on the Sex Offenders Register for 15 years.

An additional charge of indecent assault was withdrawn following discussions between the prosecutor and the church's defence lawyer.

The church's cover-up

The complaint regarding the 14-year-old boy first came to the surface in October 2006, when the boy’s mother became concerned about the 47-year-old priest's persistent interest in her son, including telephone calls and text messages and regular sleepovers at the priest's home.

The mother notified her concern to the principal of St Brigid's primary school. The mother was then directed to the Melbourne archdiocese’s internal investigation system. This system was supervised by a Melbourne barrister, Peter O’Callaghan, QC, who is engaged by the archdiocese.

As part of the church’s internal process, the church sent two female representatives of the archdiocese to conduct a series of tape-recorded interviews with the boy. Under the church process, Father Pavlou was notified about the boy’s allegations, thus enabling him to prepare his defence.

During the church's internal investigation, Pavlou left the Healesville parish after being there for only 12 months. The reason for his departure, according to the next edition of the Australian Catholic directory (compiled in early 2007) was "sick leave", and his forwarding address was given as "care of the archdiocesan office".

Police investigation

Meanwhile, the mother became dissatisfied by the church process and she decided to consult the police. Unlike the church process, the police acted decisively.

In 2007 the police interviewed Pavlou and checked his computer. Because he had been forewarned by the church process, Pavlou had deleted files from his computer. However, police were still able to retrieve evidence that Pavlou had been using the computer for child pornography.

Police from the Lilydale criminal investigation unit eventually issued Pavlou with a court summons. The case was listed for a mention in court in 2008, and again in early 2009.

Originally, the defence indicated that Pavlou would contest the charges. Normally, this would entail a long hearing, perhaps over several days, with witnesses being examined and cross-examined.

When the "contested hearing" date (29 June 2009) arrived, the defence indicated that Pavlou had decided to plead guilty. This meant a relatively short hearing.

The prosecution agreed to amalgamate the two counts of indecent acts into one charge.

Pornography on computer

The 2009 hearing was told that, during their investigations, police seized a computer hard-drive. Police retrieved a large number of photographs depicting children under 16 in pornographic situations, the court was told.

"The vast majority of the images depicted young adolescent males," the police prosecutor said.

Originally, in the police investigation, Pavlou claimed ignorance about the pornography but police found evidence that he paid for the porn himself. This persuaded Pavlou to change his plea to guilty.

Sentenced in 2009

After Pavlou's guilty plea in 2009, the hearing was largely devoted to submissions by the defence, seeking a lenient sentence.

Church defence lawyer Brian Bourke told the court that, at the age of 50 (in 2009), Pavlou now had little prospect of employment in any field for which he was trained.

As requested by the defence, the magistrate took into account the guilty plea when deciding the sentence.

In sentencing, Magistrate Anne Goldsborough told Pavlou: "These are charges of the utmost significance not only for you but for the young victim involved."

The victim and his family were present in the court for the magistrate's summing up and sentence.

The prosecuting agency in Pavlou's 2009 case was the Lilydale branch of the Victoria Police's criminal investigation unit. The police contact at Lilydale was Leading Senior Constable Mark Molloy.

The 2018 case

On 10 September 2018, Paul Pavlou appeared in the Melbourne County Court, charged with offences committed against another child (a 12-year-old boy) in 2003-2004. The police investigator was Detective C. Wastell, of the Warrnambool Criminal Investigation Unit in western Victoria. The charges in the 2018 case include sexual penetration (this is classified as a serious offence). Previously, when this boy's case was first filed in court, Pavlou had indicated that he intended to fight these charges with a "not guilty" plea but in the County Court he changed his plea to guilty. The sentencing was expected to be held in December 2018 but now it is being scheduled for a date in 2019.

Meanwhile, the Victoria Police detectives are available to receive any further information about Paul Pavlou's previous activities.

Further reading

Father Paul Pavlou wasn't the first priest from St Brigid's parish in Healesville who ended up in jail. A previous priest there, Fr David Daniel, was offending while at this parish in the early 1990s. To see a Broken Rites article about Fr David Daniel, click HERE.

Eight months before Paul Pavlou's 2009 conviction, another Melbourne Catholic priest (Father Fr John Haines) was jailed for similar offences. Haines was sentenced on 4 November 2008, after pleading guilty to six counts of an indecent act with a child under 16, procurement of a minor for child pornography and possessing child porn.

For another example of a priest who was involved in child-pornography, see the Broken Rites article about Father Adrian van Klooster.

A feature article about Paul Pavlou in the Melbourne Age, on 10 August 2009, can be seen here.

• By a Broken Rites researcher, article updated 20 December 2018

A Catholic priest (Father Carl Stafford, now aged 79) is listed for proceedings in the Sydney District Court, charged with child-sex offences allegedly committed earlier in his working career. Bishop Peter A Comensoli (formerly of the Broken Bay diocese, in Sydney's north) stated publicly in 2017: "Originally a Marist Brother, Fr Stafford left this Order [the Marists] and took up a lay teaching position with St Gregory’s College Campbelltown before entering the seminary in 1989. Ordained as a priest for the Diocese of Broken Bay in 1994, Fr Stafford held appointments in Mona Vale, Gosford, Toukley/Lake Munmorah and Kincumber parishes." (According to church sources, Father Carl Stafford is still a priest and he is merely retired from parish appointments.)

An official document in the Marist Brothers head-office archive confirms that "Carl STAFFORD (born 8 July 1939)" was originally a Marist Brother but this document does not indicate what year he left the Marist Order.

On 16 October 2017, following an extensive investigation by detectives, police arrested Carl Stafford who was living in retirement at a town in north-west NSW. The police charged him with sexual offences against a number of boys:

• One part of the case is related to when Father Stafford was a priest based in a parish in East Gosford (north of Sydney, in the Broken Bay diocese) in the 1990s;
• Another part of the case is related to the 1980s, when Stafford was working as lay a teacher (known as "Mister" Stafford) at the Campbelltown school (in Sydney's south). St Gregory's College was an agricultural boarding school, with boarders from various regional areas in NSW.

Stafford was granted conditional bail pending his court proceedings. On the court schedule, the defendant's full name is given as Carl Edward Stafford. The case had preliminary procedures in with a magistrate in the Gosford Local Court in late 2017 and during 2018. Stafford is pleading Not Guilty. Now the case is scheduled for a trial, with a judge, in the Sydney District Court, to be held in late 2019 (there is a long queue for hearings in the NSW district courts).

Meanwhile, the Detectives Office at Gosford Police are continuing their inquiries. The Gosford detectives are also handling the other allegations regarding Carl Stafford at St Gregory's College Campbelltown. The Gosford and Cambelltown allegations are being combined in the same police investigation.

Broken Rites has been told that Mister Carl Stafford taught at St John's College, Dubbo NSW, in the 1970s. Mr Stafford told students that he had previously taught at St Gregory's College Cambeltown and that he had been a Marist Brother. He returned to Cambelltown after 1978.

FOOTNOTE: After Father Carl Stafford retired from parish work in 2010, the Broken Bay Diocese section in the annual printed edition of the Australian Catholic Directory continued to include "Rev. Carl Stafford" among the Broken Bay Diocese's list of "Retired Clergy". The 2014 edition of the Directory gave Father Carl Stafford's retirement address in that year as a villa unit at Kincumber.

• By a Broken Rites reseacher, article update 29 December 2018

Broken Rites is doing further research about a Catholic priest, Father Bernard Maxwell Day, who was living at a girls' orphanage in Victoria in the early 1960s. Father Day was one of a series of "chaplains" who occupied a flat at the orphanage. His "duties" including hearing each girl's Confession; this sacred ritual enabled a priest to talk to a girl about sex. A senior nun got Father Day removed after allegations that he was molesting girls at the orphanage. In a submission to a Victorian Parliamentary inquiry in 2013, the Melbourne Catholic archdiocese admitted that Fr Day committed sexual offences against children.

The orphanage (demolished in 1975) was St Catherine's Children's Home, which was situated in St Catherine's Street, Highton (a suburb of Geelong). Operated by the Sisters of Mercy religious order, St Catherine's accommodated about 100 girls each year in the 1960s, aged from 2 to 16.

St Catherine's orphanage had a chaplain's flat, where a priest would live. As Geelong is situated in the archdiocese of Melbourne, the flat was occupied by one of the diocesan priests who worked in Geelong. The priest would act as the girls' chaplain, possibly while also ministering in a neighbouring parish church.

In 1961-63, the flat was occupied by Father Bernard Maxwell Day. The nun then in charge of St Catherine's orphanage was Reverend Mother Aquin. Former inmates of St Catherine's say that Mother Aquin learned about Father Day molesting girls and she therefore had him removed from the institution.

In 1997 a Melbourne Herald Sun reporter located Mother Aquin, who confirmed to the reporter (18 April 1997, page 9) that she had sought the removal of Father Day from St Catherine's in the 1960s. By the 1990s, Mother Aquin had changed her name to Sister Veronica.

Opportunities for abuse

At St Catherine's orphanage, the chaplain's role included hearing the girls' Confessions and giving individual "counselling". The ritual of Confession enabled a priest to talk to a girl about sex.

There was a lack of proper sex education at the orphanage, and many girls obtained their first sexual knowledge through a priest.

The system at St Catherine's provided a chaplain with many temptations and opportunities. After early morning Mass, the priest's breakfast would be prepared in the convent kitchen and a girl would have to take it to the priest's flat. A girl would also be sent to tidy the priest's bedroom and make his bed.

A chaplain had the run of the orphanage premises and it was accepted that he could call a girl to his quarters to give her "individual counselling". There was no independent person outside the orphanage for the girls to complain to.

Many of the girls formed lasting impressions of men from their experience of a priest.

When former St Catherine's girls meet at reunions, they still talk about Father Bernard Maxwell Day.

A former inmate: Liz

Liz, born in 1955, has told Broken Rites:

"I was very young (only about eight) when Father Day was at St Catherine's in the early 1960s and I didn't encounter him but the older girls still talk about Day when they meet after all these years.

"These women say that Father Day used to sit girls on his knee and touch them indecently. These girls assumed that this was the normal job of priests.

"As these girls did not have parents to talk to in the evenings, it was difficult for them to complain about sexual abuse.

"The mother superior, Mother Aquin, learned that Father Day was sexually abusing girls. She got rid of Day and told the girls to keep quiet about it.

"Some girls who were sent to do Day's housework say they found pornographic material in his room."

Another ex-inmate: Beryl

Beryl, born in 1949, has told Broken Rites:

"I was about 14 when Father Day was at St Catherine's. I disliked him and kept out of his way. One day, about 1963, we woke up to find that Father Day had suddenly vanished. Mother Aquin told us girls that Father Day had done things that could bring shame to St Catherine's and therefore we must never talk to anybody about him. We later learned from other girls that Day had sexually abused some girls.

"The priest's house was quite separate, about 200 metres from the orphanage. It had its own gate and fence. It had two bedrooms. I used to do house work there.

"Father Day had a sibling who was a nun in the Sisters of Mercy (the order which conducted St Catherine's) and she was the head of a Catholic girls' school in Geelong, also conducted by the Mercy Sisters. Therefore the church in Geelong was keen to cover up the Father Day scandal."

The priest's background

Broken Rites has researched Day's career through the annual Australian Catholic Directories. Broken Rites ascertained that Day was ordained in 1936 and spent his entire career in the Melbourne diocese (which includes Geelong). His earliest parishes (in chronological order) included Collingwood, Essendon, Altona, North Melbourne, Balaclava, Daylesford, Pakenham and Cheltenham.

He then became chaplain at St Catherine's orphanage in 1961. He is listed at St Catherine's in the Catholic Directories published in early 1962 and early 1963. He was evidently removed from St Catherine's during 1963.

St Catherine's was not the only girls' institution at which Father Day worked. In 1953-54, his address was St Ursula's College, boarding school conducted by the Ursuline nuns, at Macedon, north of Melbourne.

The priest's later activities

After being removed from St Catherine's orphanage, Father Day served in Melbourne suburban parishes (St Roch's in Glen Iris, St John the Evangelist in East Melbourne and St John the Baptist in Clifton Hill).

At the East Melbourne parish, Father Bernard Maxwell Day was listed as "Father M. Day", which indicates that he may also have been known by his middle name — that is, Max Day or Maxie Day.

Broken Rites has ascertained that Father Day continued molesting girls after leaving St Catherine's. In the early 1970s, when he was at the Clifton Hill parish, he visited the local state primary schools to conduct religious instruction classes.

A woman teacher at the North Fitzroy state primary school in 1971-4 has told Broken Rites: "Day used to indecently touch Grade 6 girls in the corridors and schoolyard when he visited the school to teach a weekly catechism class. I complained to the principal and Day stopped coming to the school for a while. However, about 1974 he re-appeared at the school for catechism and resumed the molestation. I reported him again and he was banned from the school again. Girls told me that Day also molested them at the parish church, where it was easier for him to get away with it."

Father Day retired from the priesthood in the late 1970s and died about 1988.

Former St Catherine's girls have also named two other sexually abusive priests from the 1960s.

Cruelty

While some girls at St Catherine's experienced sexual abuse, a greater number experienced physical and emotional cruelty and neglect.

Beryl, whom we quoted earlier in this article, told Broken Rites: "Some of the nuns could be nice. However, it was a harsh place. For example, there were terrible punishments for bed-wetting. A bed-wetter could be forced to parade around with her wet sheets over her head and body."

Beryl said: "Some St Catherine's girls came from large families. In some cases, the whole family was placed in orphanages but the family was split, with one child placed here and the others scattered around in various other institutions. Some St Catherine's girls suspected that they had brothers and sisters but they did not know how to find them. Some St Catherine's girls are still searching for a long-lost brother or sister.

"St Catherine's orphanage had some positive aspects — for example, the friendships they made there. But this is due to the girls themselves, not to the institution," Beryl said.

In 1997, Broken Rites alerted The Age newspaper in Melbourne about the physical and emotional cruelty at St Catherine’s, and the paper published a series of articles about this on 16-18 April 1997. 

Police detectives have charged an elderly Catholic religious Brother (John David Frith) with offences allegedly committed some years ago against boys at a Catholic secondary school — Monivae College, situated at Hamilton in western Victoria, 290 kilometres from Melbourne. The case had its first mention in the Melbourne Magistrates Court on 14 September 2018, and it is scheduled to have its next step in court early in 2019.

The court's case number is J11356360.

The case was investigated by detectives from a specialist unit (the Sano Taskforce) in the Victoria Police, Melbourne. The investigation was concerned with the 1970s and 1980s.

Monivae College was established by a Catholic religious order, the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart. For many years, it was a boarding school for boys only.