• By a Broken Rites researcher

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.

Glennon was jailed for some (but not all) 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 (then 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

The Catholic Church advertises its priests as being "celibate", but priests can have private relationships (either "gay" or "straight") if this is hidden from the public. For example, Father John O'Callaghan, of Melbourne, had a relationship with a woman, who gave birth to Father O'Callaghan's two daughters. These girls have grown up into adulthood, knowing that they are the offspring of Father John O'Callaghan. The private life of Fr John O' Callaghan is no secret among the Melbourne clergy of his generation but the public did not know about it.

Several Melbourne priests have confirmed the O'Callaghan matter to Broken Rites. And a relative of O'Callaghan has spoken to Broken Rites, confirming the matter.

This kind of "private life" is accepted by a priest's colleagues (many of whom have a "private life" of their own). Meanwhile, bishops and other church leaders (some of whom may have a "private life" themselves) look the other way, hoping that the practice does not get into the media. Any media exposure would damage the church's corporate brand-name.

Father John O'Callaghan was born in 1929, the third child in a family of eight. In those times, it was common for a large Catholic family to channel one of its sons into a career in the priesthood — and a lifetime of (nudge-nudge, wink-wink) "celibacy".

O' Callaghan died in 1995, aged 66. He is survived by his two daughters.

The Catholic Church authorities still advertise their clergy as "celibate" but, as shown by the O'Callaghan case (and others), "celibate" merely means "not married".

Father John Ignatius O'Callaghan's adult relationship was not a criminal offence. However, several people have complained about having been abused by O'Callaghan when they were minors. To read more from Broken Rites about these complaints, click HERE.

Also see these articles about two other cases of "celibacy":

• Part-time celibacy: How this woman, Jane, was left holding a priest's baby
  AND
• More part-time celibacy: The story of Zelda, a girl who had two children fathered by a Catholic priest

• By a Broken Rites researcher

Broken Rites is doing further research about a Sydney Catholic priest, Father Kevin Cox, who sexually abused vulnerable girls. For example, one victim (Broken Rites will refer to her as "Mandy") has revealed that Father Cox sexually abused her for six years from the age of eleven. Furthermore, the sexual abuse resulted in a pregnancy at age 17 — and then the priest paid for an abortion. But the church continued to protect Father Cox. Church leaders and fellow-priests continued to regard Father Cox as a church hero.

After abusing "Mandy" for six years, Father Cox reluctantly apologised to the family for his sexual abuse of the girl. He also reluctantly admitted the sexual abuse to his bishop. However, the diocese granted him a transfer to another parish and allowed him to continue working as a priest for the next 15 years, until Mandy finally reported the sexual abuse to the police when she was nearly 32.

After the police charged Father Cox in court with his earliest sexual crimes against the child (at the age of 11 to 13), his supporters in the church sprang to his defence. After a jury convicted him of these crimes, church leaders and priests wrote "good-character" references for him, asking the court for a lenient sentence. A judge gave Cox a part-time jail sentence but church lawyers appealed to a higher court against the criminal conviction and won an acquittal for the priest.

Privately, a church leader apologised to Mandy's mother, acknowledging that the priest had broken his priestly vows in doing what he did to Mandy.

And, to cap it all off, when Father Kevin Cox died in 2008, the Catholic Church gave him a grand funeral service, jointly conducted by three bishops and more than fifty priests. He went to his grave as a church hero.

The priest's background

Broken Rites has ascertained that Father Kevin Nicholas Cox was born in Dublin, Ireland, in 1930, of an Irish father and Australian mother. Immediately after leaving school, he entered the Catholic order of Cistercian monks (also known as the Trappist order) at Roscrea, County Offaly, Ireland, to train for the Catholic priesthood.

He was transferred to Australia, when the Cistercians established a monastery at Yarra Glen, near Melbourne, in 1954. A year later, aged 25, he was ordained in Melbourne as a Cistercian priest, with Melbourne's Irish-born Archbishop Daniel Mannix performing the ordination ceremony. Cox adopted the "religious" name Father "Dominic" Cox, after the medieval monk Saint Dominic.

After 20 years in the Melbourne monastery, Father Cox transferred from the Cistercians, on loan, to the Sydney archdiocese, changing his name back to Kevin. The Sydney diocese used him as a relief priest at Kogarah (St Patrick's parish) in 1974-75 and Caringbah (Our Lady of Fatima parish) from 1975 to 1982.

Here is Mandy's story

Mandy's life has been shattered by Cox's sexual abuse, the breach of trust, the loss of faith, her disrupted adolescence, the pregnancy, the abortion and the church's hypocrisy and cover-up.

Broken Rites has digested the following account from typed, sworn statements, made by Mandy, her mother Beryl and other family members, and witnessed by a police officer. The statements were later submitted in the preliminary court proceedings.

Mandy, born in mid-1964, is from a large, devout Sydney Catholic family in Caringbah (in Sydney's south), where the family's life revolved around the "Our Lady of Fatima" parish.

When Father Kevin Cox (then aged 45) joined their parish in 1975 as an assistant priest, he began visiting this family. He eventually took a particular interest in "helping" Mandy, aged 11, who was then a pupil at Father Cox's parish school.

The family trusted Father Cox with Mandy "because he was a Catholic priest". He began meeting Mandy for an early-morning jog at an oval near the Caringbah parish school. After one of these jogs, he jokingly put his hand inside Mandy's shorts and underpants for the first time.

He began spending more time alone with Mandy than the family was aware of — almost daily, either before school or after school or at weekends.

He molested her regularly in the Sacristy (a room near the church altar), telling her that, if anybody knocked on the door of this room, she was to hide. Later, other offences occurred regularly in a spare room at the school, in the presbytery, and in a parked car (sometimes after Saturday evening Mass),

At first, the abuse consisted of Father Cox fingering Mandy's genital area. At first, innocent Mandy did not realise that this was "sex", especially because he was a Catholic priest. On later occasions, the priest made Mandy touch his genitals, and he would ejaculate on her naked body. He told her: "If you tell anybody about this, it will cause a scandal for you."

This forced Mandy to bear the burden of secrecy and deception. She was prevented from telling her parents about the abuse.

Meanwhile, during the years of abuse, Father Cox continued to be a "friend" of Mandy's gullible family. He conducted a wedding ceremony for one of Mandy's sisters and baptised one of Mandy's nephews.

Pregnancy and abortion

Until Mandy was 16, the abuse always stopped short of sexual penetration but, at age 16, it progressed to full sexual intercourse. The intercourse continued for about a year and, at 17, Mandy became pregnant. Around this time, she was finishing Year Eleven at high school.

Father Cox then told Mandy to have an abortion. One of her sisters has made a sworn statement that the priest handed cash to the sister for the abortion, which was performed (after her 17th birthday) at a clinic in Surry Hills in inner-Sydney.

After the abortion, Mandy's mother Beryl was told about it. She was devastated because abortion was contrary to Catholic Church teachings and she was doubly shocked to learn that her daughter had been sexually abused by Father Cox. This undermined the whole basis of the family's Catholicism. At this stage (with Mandy aged 17) her mother presumed that the sexual abuse was relatively recent (perhaps for a year), not realising that it had been going on for six years.

The mother told the police in her sworn statement:

• 'I was very shocked, and upset... I remember he [Fr Cox] picked me up in his car and drove to the Camelia Garden, Caringbah. We sat in the car and talked. I said to him something like, "You were a friend of all of us, I don't know how I'm going to tell [my husband], he'll want to kill you."

  'I don't remember what he [Cox] said exactly, he was making excuses. He said, "I'm sorry, it's a terrible thing."

After Cox mumbled his apology, the mother demanded that he tell his bishop about the sexual abuse, which he did. She also demanded that he leave this parish. The mother's statement says: "Father Cox must have spoken to the bishop because he left the parish very soon afterwards. I believe he went to the Pyrmont area [in inner-Sydney]."

Cover-up

The Caringbah parish gave Fr Cox a farewell party but the parishioners were not told the real reason why he was leaving.

The sex abuse did not affect Father Cox's career. Indeed, at his later parishes, he was rewarded with a promotion from "Assistant Priest" (at Caringbah) to "Administrator" or "Parish Priest" (that is, in charge) of Sydney parishes. Broken Rites has found him listed at:

• Pyrmont (St Bede's), 1982-87;
• Auburn (St John of God), 1988;
• Woollahra (Holy Cross parish), 1989-91, acting as the parish administrator on behalf of retired archbishop James Carroll; and
• Enmore-Tempe (St Pius V parish), as the Parish Priest in charge, 1992-96.

The congregations in these parishes were not told the reason why Father Cox had been rescued out of the Caringbah parish.

The impact on Mandy

Because of the priest's sexual abuse, Mandy's personal development was crippled. For example, when assaulting Mandy, the priest used to tell her: "Look what you are making me do — you naughty girl, you!" This blaming of Mandy convinced her that she is a "bad" person, and she is still suffering from the effects of this guilt.

Mandy's mother still did not realise that the sexual abuse began at the age of 11, not just 17. The mother had been puzzled for years why Mandy developed into such a disturbed and "naughty" girl from about age 11 onwards.

Another impact was that the priest monopolised Mandy's adolescent years, so she did not develop proper relationships with boys and girls her own age. And because her first "sexual" experience was with a Catholic priest, this damaged the way in which she would later be expected to develop a sexual relationship with an appropriate person of her own choosing.

She married in 1986 (aged 22) but the marriage broke up. One problem was that the trauma about the priest haunted Mandy's mind and it hindered her sexual relationship with her husband.

Mandy was now living in poverty with her two children, whereas the church was still providing accommodation and income for the priest. Depressed, Mandy tried to take her own life.

The church shuns Mandy

For many years after the abortion, Mandy remained silent about what Father Kevin Cox and the Catholic Church had done to her life. Like many church-abuse victims, she felt powerless to tackle the Catholic Church.

Early in 1996, Mandy began having counselling with a Sydney nun (Sister "Mary") but Mandy's emotional health was deteriorating. After consulting Mandy's family, Sister Mary notified the Sydney archdiocese about what Father Cox had done to Mandy and her family. Around Easter 1996, the archdiocese withdrew Fr Cox from the Enmore-Tempe parish, announcing that he was going "on leave".

To help her healing, Mandy wished to have a meeting with church officials, with Fr Cox present, so that Cox would offer her an apology in person. However, no such a meeting or apology was granted.

During 1996, the Australian bishops announced a new strategy on managing church sexual-abuse complaints (the "Towards Healing" project). On 26 November 1996, one of Mandy's close relatives (let us call her "Abbie") wrote (in confidence) to a leading spokesman for "Towards Healing", pleading for help for Mandy through "Towards Healing". This letter (and Broken Rites has examined a copy) explained how Mandy's life had been disrupted by Cox (damaging her faith and leaving her in poverty) and asking the church to help her to achieve "healing".

However, the archdiocese failed to help Mandy. This neglect was contrary to the "Towards Healing" document, which had promised (in paragraph 17 on page 4 of the 1996 edition): "The church authority shall immediately enter into dialogue with victims concerning their needs and ensure they are given such assistance as is demanded by justice and compassion."

Police charges

From this time on, Broken Rites received an occasional phone call from one or other of Mandy's relatives, reporting on developments and discussing strategies for obtaining justice.

Rejected by the archdiocese, Mandy no longer felt any obligation to maintain the church's code of silence about its sexual abuse. Therefore, she contacted Sydney's Petersham police station and was interviewed by Detective Stephen Rae. In May 1997 (aged 31) she made a sworn, signed police statement, outlining her encounters with Father Cox from the age of eleven onwards.

Following a police investigation, prosecutors selected three of the many incidents in Mandy's statement. The prosecution charged Father Cox with indecent assault (i.e., non-penetrative sexual activity) involving a child under 16. From the numerous encounters between Cox and Mandy, the prosecution charged Cox regarding three incidents:

1. the first jogging incident at the Caringbah oval (when Mandy was aged 11);
2. the first incident in the church sacristy (aged 11); and
3. one of the early car-parking incidents (at Wanda Beach, aged 13).

The prosecution alleged that these assaults up to age 13 included Cox fingering the girl's genitals and also him rubbing his own genitals against her until he ejaculated on the outside of her body.

The prosecutors confined the charges to these early incidents because the penetrative sex after the age of 16 is more difficult to prosecute if the defendant claims to have had the 16-year-old victim's consent (whereas "consent" is not allowable as a defence if the victim is a child under 16). Nor was it a criminal offence for a priest to pay for an abortion.

When Mandy's mother Beryl (at the age of 71) learned the details of these charges, she realised for the first time that the priest's sexual abuse of Mandy began at age 11, not 17.

Preliminary court hearing

Late in 1997, preliminary proceedings were held before a magistrate at Sutherland Local Court.

Cox's defence was arranged by the legal firm Carroll and O'Dea, who were the solicitors for the Sydney Catholic archdiocese. He was represented in court by a senior (and up-and-coming) barrister, whose sibling was a very senior priest in the Sydney archdiocese.

Cox was driven to court every day by a fellow priest, who sat in the courtroom as Cox's personal support person.

The clergy, however, did not comfort Mandy or her mother or sisters. In fact, in court the church's legal team was clearly trying to defeat Mandy.

In court, armed by the church's legal team, Father Cox entered a plea of "not guilty".

Journalists knew that the charged priest was named Father Kevin Cox, but during these preliminary proceedings, the magistrate imposed a media-suppression order, prohibiting media outlets from naming the priest or the parish. A barrister from News Limited (publishers of the Sydney Daily Telegraph) went to the court, applying for the suppression order to be lifted, but the magistrate refused.

The intercourse, the pregnancy and the abortion at age 17 were mentioned at the magistrate's hearing, and this information helped to demonstrate Father Cox's propensity for sexual abuse.

Following normal practice in a contested case, the magistrate then "committed" Cox (that is, he scheduled him) to undergo a jury trial in a higher court, the New South Wales District Court.

Jury trial

The jury trial was held, chaired by a judge (not a magistrate), in the District Court at Campbelltown (in Sydney's south-west) in October 1998. For jury purposes, the prosecutors again confined the charges to the three incidents that had been selected for the 1997 preliminary hearing.

Before the jury was selected, the judge made rulings about the trial procedure. The judge ruled that the jury must not be allowed to know about the intercourse and the pregnancy, both of which occurred after Mandy's 16th birthday. The judge's reason for this is that the three charged incidents were confined to Mandy's earlier years (at the age of 11 to 13) — well before the pregnancy and the abortion. In any sexual assault case, the victim's 16th birthday is an important cut-off date, because after this birthday a defendant can try claiming that he had the victim's consent, which is not possible to claim under the age of 16.

The judge refused to let the jury hear evidence from Mandy's mother or two sisters.

He allowed the church lawyers to ask Mandy very personal questions about when she entered puberty.

The church lawyers tabled a letter (mentioned earlier in this article) which "Abbie" (a relative of Mandy) had written in confidence to "Towards Healing" about Father Cox's abuse of Mandy and the effects on Mandy's subsequent life. In court, the church lawyers used this letter in an attempt to discredit Mandy, claiming that Mandy's allegations must have been merely a trick to obtain "compensation".

Guilty verdict

In October 1998, the District Court jury found Cox guilty on the first two incidents and it let him off on the third.

The judge heard submissions from the prosecution and from the defence regarding what sort of sentence should be imposed.

Ms Robyn Denes, who appeared in court representing the NSW Director of Public Prosecutions, told court that the seriousness of Father Cox's offences could not be under-estimated.

She said: "The breach of trust is all the more stunning because of the awe and respect the children [in the parish] held him in. He was a priest in a parish who committed offences against a young girl who was part of the parish. The evidence discloses a systematic abuse of a young child. She was eleven years old when it happened."

Ms Denes said that there had been no evidence of contrition or remorse from Father Cox.

The church's legal team had assembled a thick file of "character" references from bishops and priests, all urging a lenient sentence for the priest. This file was submitted in court by the church's defence lawyer Paul Byrne, Senior Counsel. Byrne, who was hired for this trial (though not for the previous preliminary prodeedings), was one of the most prominent criminal lawyers in Sydney.

A part-time sentence

Instead of sentencing Cox to a normal jail term, the judge gave him two years of periodic detention — that is, part-time jail, which could be served (for example) at weekends.

The state prosecutor then asked the judge to lift the media-suppression order on the publication of Cox's name but the judge refused, thereby protecting the priest and the church. At this stage, therefore, Father Cox's name (and his conviction) could not appear in the media. The sentence was reported in the Sydney Daily Telegraph on 31 October 1998, page 15, with the priest not named.

Appeal

The NSW Director of Public Prosecutions appealed to a higher court about the leniency of Cox's sentence, while the church lawyers appealed against the conviction.

Three judges heard the appeal. This was not a re-trial and there was therefore no jury. The three judges reviewed the transcript of the jury trial and based their decision on this reading, plus legal submissions by the prosecutors and the church lawyers.

The appeal judges delivered their written judgement on 31 March 1999. The appeal judges noted that, although Cox was charged with three incidents, Mandy had difficulty in distinguishing each of the three charged incidents from the numerous other similar uncharged occasions.

The judges allowed Cox's appeal on the ground of the complainant's inability in evidence to state precise dates and times of the three charged offences.

They also decided that the two convictions were unreasonable because they were "inconsistent" with the acquittal on the third charge. Therefore, to achieve "consistency", the judges overturned the convictions on the first two charges.

One of the appeal judges, in his written judgement, made several puzzling statements, including:

• This judge rejected the allegation that Cox's sexual assaults occurred almost daily. He wrote: "While this intensity of sexual activity is, of course, possible, to my mind it is improbable." (Really?)
• This judge mistakenly referred to the jogging incident taking place at the "Canterbury" oval instead of the Caringbah oval. (How carefully did His Honour read the trial transcript?)

Media reports

At the appeal hearing, the church lawyers neglected to seek an extension of the media-suppression order. Therefore the appeal result was reported in Sydney newspapers, which published Father Kevin Cox's name for the first time. The Daily Telegraph named Cox on (1 April 1999, p. 15.

Later, Mandy's family was keen for the church's behaviour to receive more detailed media exposure. Mandy gave an interview to the Sunday edition of the Sydney Morning Herald (the Sun-Herald), which published a feature article by senior journalist Alex Mitchell. This article, too, named Cox.

Thus, the cover-up was exposed.

Despite Cox "getting off" in the criminal courts, the church hierarchy acknowledged privately that Father Cox did indeed break his priestly vows in his sexual abuse of Mandy. According to the church's "Towards Healing" document, the breaking of priestly vows constitutes sexual abuse.

A senior member of the Sydney archdiocese hierarchy later visited Mandy's mother and apologised on behalf of the church for what Father Cox had done to Mandy and to the family.

"Still a priest"

From the time he was charged by police in 1997 until the appeal court result in 1999, Father Kevin Cox was listed in the annual Australian Catholic Directory as "on leave", although still living in church premises. Mandy's family members believe that, during his court proceedings, Cox was residing in the Leichhardt parish (in Sydney's inner-west), where a friend of Cox was working as a priest.

After his successful appeal, the Sun-Herald reported that Cox would continue as a priest, possibly overseas. (This indicated that Cox still had the blessing of the Catholic hierarchy in Sydney and elsewhere.)

The Sun-Herald article about Cox alarmed many readers, who were concerned about the issue of child protection, especially as some of the Catholic Church's abuse victims were starting to report these crimes to the police, instead of just reporting them to a church official. This public exposure of Father Cox (and the church's cover-up) embarrassed the church, which issued a written statement a week later at the Caringbah parish, acknowledging the Cox court case but declaring the matter "closed".

Another victim

The Sun-Herald article about Mandy prompted an anonymous woman to write to her after tracing Mandy's family through the telephone directory. This letter provided proof that Mandy was not the only person who was sexually abused by Father Cox. The letter, received by Mandy on 26 May 1999, said:

• "I was saddened and a little distressed to read of your recent experience with the law and the church. Not only because of the apparent injustice of the situation, but because I believed that you were most likely to be telling the truth.

  "And the reason for this belief is that I, too, had a liaison with the person in question [that is, Father Cox]. However, since I was married, in my early twenties, at the time, I've always thought that it was my responsibility and my fault. I did not realise that I had other feelings about it all until I read of your experiences. Perhaps I could have expected to be protected from such an experience. Perhaps I could have expected better behaviour from a priest, maybe that he would protect me from my own self-destructiveness, not collude with me in it. Maybe it wasn't ALL my fault.

  "I'm really not too sure of the purpose of this letter, except to tell you that I support you and feel for you. I can't imagine what it must be like to have gone through all that, and then have it turned back on you. I only hope that, in some way, you can now put it behind you, and become the woman you were meant to be, unfettered by memories of the past, and strengthened by the courage and conviction you demonstrated in telling your story.

  "I have this vision of you receiving great bags of mail, just like this one, from all the women who most likely have a similar story to tell. Perhaps they, too, will in some way be freed by your story, and now be able to recognise that it was not their fault. They did not, and do not, deserve to be treated in this manner. My hope is that the burden you have carried will be lifted from you, and that you will now be free to achieve your potential.

  "No-one can really understand what you have endured, but in sending you these thoughts of love, and encouragement, and thanks, perhaps I can return a little of what you have given to me

  "P.S. Because I lack your courage, I will remain anonymous."

Broken Rites is wondering: How many other victims did Father Kevin Cox have?

No more parishes

After the publication of Cox's name in the Sydney newspapers, the church did not appoint him to any more parishes in Sydney. Every year since 1999, Broken Rites has checked Fr Kevin Cox's listing in the annual edition of the Australian Catholic directories. From 2000 to 2008, these volumes continued to list Fr Kevin Cox as a priest of the Sydney archdiocese. His address was listed as "retired, care of the Sydney archdiocesan office".

The Catholic Church continued to look after Father Cox. About 2002, when he was aged 72, the church provided accommodation for him in a residence for retired priests at Culburra, a popular holiday destination on the New South Wales south coast.

A grand farewell for a church hero

In 2008, Reverend Father Kevin Cox (still a priest and still "reverend") died, aged 78. His funeral took place in one of his former Sydney parishes — at St Pius' Church, Enmore — on Thursday, 4 December 2008. A glowing obituary of Father Cox appeared in the Sydney Catholic Weekly, 21 December, 2008.

Cox's Requiem Mass was concelebrated (that is, jointly conducted) by three of Sydney's auxiliary bishops (Bishops David Cremin, Julian Porteous and Terry Brady) and more than fifty priests.

Bishop Cremin, who was one of Sydney's three auxiliary bishops at the time of Mandy's pregnancy, was born in Ireland (the same country as Kevin Cox) in 1930 (the same year as Cox). Cremin retired in 2005.

Auxiliary Bishop Geoffrey Robinson, who retired in 2004 (and who often has expressed sympathy for church victims), is not mentioned in the report of the funeral. Presumably he did not attend.

The Catholic Weekly obituary stated: "His [Fr Cox's] requiem was a prime example of good liturgy. It was free-flowing and personal, like Fr Cox himself. "

The obituary said: "The Mass, led by Bishop David Cremin, from the placing of symbols to the final commendation, led by Fr Tom Feunell, was personal, reverent and prayerful. Bishop David let it flow and proceed without in any way interfering with the harmonious liturgy arranged by Fr John Ford and colleagues."

According to the 2010 edition of the annual Australian Catholic Directory, the above-mentioned Father John G. Ford has retired from parish work. His former Sydney parishes include Pyrmont, Stanmore and Leichhardt.

At the requiem, a homily was delivered by Fr Kevin O'Grady (a Sydney priest for more than fifty years), who told those present: "Kevin Cox was my friend. You are here today because he was your friend also."

Summing up Father Cox's life, Fr O'Grady told the congregation: "What a wonderful mixture of a life so joyful."

Broken Rites is wondering what Mandy and her mother and sisters would make of this final day of cover-up.

• By a Broken Rites researcher, article updated 1 June 2019

Broken Rites has helped to obtain justice for victims of one of Australia's most notorious Catholic priests, Father John Sidney Denham. Father Denham's superiors and colleagues knew about his child-sex crimes but this information was concealed from the police. Finally, with advice from Broken Rites, some of his victims gradually began to contact the police. As a result, Denham has been in jail since 2008, and his jail time has been increased as more of his victims (59 victims so far) contacted the police. On 30 May 2019, Denham (aged 76) was sentenced to additional jail time. With good behavior in jail, his earliest possible release date is July, 2029, when he would be 86.

Some background

Broken Rites began hearing about Father John Denham in the late 1990s when we were contacted by one of his victims (and later by other victims). Therefore, Broken Rites began researching Denham in church publications. We ascertained that Denham (born on 8 September 1942) was recruited in the 1960s as a trainee priest for the Newcastle-Maitland Diocese, north of Sydney. As a trainee and later as a priest, he officially belonged to this diocese, and it is usual for diocesan priests to spend their whole career in one diocese. (The Catholic Church in the state of New South Wales is divided into eleven dioceses.)

As a trainee priest, Denham was a danger to children from Day One. According to statements that were eventually made in court, some of Denham's child-sex crimes were committed during his period of training.

Broken Rites searched through the annual printed editions of the Australian Catholic Directory to trace Denham's movements. For example, we ascertained that, in the final stage of his training, he was a deacon (an assistant to other priests) in the Mayfield parish in 1972. After being ordained, he moved to the Singleton parish (St Patrick's) in 1973.

According to Denham's victims, his superiors knew in the 1970s about the offences he was committing against children but this information did not reach the police. The church allowed Denham to continue as a priest and merely transferred him to new districts, thereby putting more children at risk.

The school building with bedrooms for six priests

Broken Rites ascertained that in 1973 Father Denham joined the staff of St Pius X College (also known as St Pius X Catholic High School) at Adamstown, Newcastle. This was then a boys-only school. Many of the victims in the Denham court charges in 2009 were students at this school.

In the 1979 Directory of Australian Catholic Clergy, six priests (including Father Denham) were listed as teaching — and living — on this school's premises.

Yes, not just one priest . . . but SIX of them. A bedroom for even just one priest should have raised some eyebrows.

The priests had bedrooms in the same building as the classrooms, as we will explain later in this article.

The story of Tim

At St Pius X Catholic High School, Father Denham became well known for his habit of touching boys indecently. Broken Rites has interviewed one such pupil — "Tim" (not his real name) — who was at this school in 1978-9. By chance, in October 1979, Tim's mother overheard 14-year-old Tim telling another boy that it was "not safe to be with Father Denham".

After quizzing Tim, the mother went to see the school administration, who promised to "deal with" Denham. However, Denham continued working at the school that year. Therefore, Tim's mother decided to remove her son from the school after the end of 1979. In 1980 Tim transferred to a government high school, which he found to be educationally excellent. Meanwhile, the church culture prevented Denham's offences from being reported to the police.

Denham in parishes in the 1980s

In 1980, following the 1979 complaint, the diocese transferred Denham away from St Pius X Catholic High School to work as an assistant priest in parishes. First, he worked at the Charlestown parish (in the Newcastle urban area). In 1981 he was transferred to a parish ("Our Lady of the Rosary") in Taree (a coastal town, north of Newcastle), where he stayed for four years.

In these parishes, Denham worked with altar boys as well as school boys. The church authorities kept quiet about Denham's record at St Pius Catholic High School. Thus, the church was putting more children in danger.

During this parish work, he committed more offences and again, the church authorities (as usual) concealed these crimes from the police. Eventually, at least one Denham victim from this period reported Denham's crimes to the police (instead of merely to the church authorities). Thus, some of Denham's offences from this period were were included in his court charges in 2009.

Denham at a Sydney school

In 1986, the Maitland-Newcastle diocese "solved" its Denham problem by arranging to transfer him to work as a "chaplain" at Waverley College (a Christian Brothers secondary school), in Waverley, in Sydney's east. Research by Broken Rites indicates that, throughout the next seven years, "Reverend John Denham" continued to be listed in the annual Australian Catholic directories as belonging to the Maitland-Newcastle diocese, although working at Waverley College.

Thus, the church authorities were putting more children at risk. During his time at Waverley CBC, according to police, Denham was charged with "having intercourse, as a teacher, with a male aged 10 to 18 years". However, helped by church lawyers, Denham successfully contested the charges in court.

In 1994 Denham was accepted for a role at the Chevalier Resource Centre, a theological library located in the grounds of the Sacred Heart Monastery (owned by a religious order, the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart) in the eastern Sydney suburb of Kensington. This role involved working on church archives.

Broken Rites found that, from 1995 onwards, after he joined the Chevalier Resource Centre, Denham was still listed in the annual Australian Catholic directories as "ReverendJohn Denham, on leave from the Maitland-Newcastle diocese". His forwarding address was care of the Maitland-Newcastle diocesan office.

Convicted in 2000

In 1997, Tim (the above-mentioned victim who had been a pupil St Pius X Catholic High School 18 years earlier) phoned Broken Rites. Tim (then aged 32) was now a father himself, and he was keen to protect all children from pedophiles.

After speaking with Broken Rites, Tim contacted an appropriate police unit, where he made a signed statement. Tim's complaint was investigated by a senior Newcastle detective, Mark Dixon. While investigating Tim's complaint, the police learned about the similar charges that Denham had beaten relating to Waverley Christian Brothers College.

Denham was charged regarding Tim's complaint and underwent committal proceedings in a magistrate's court in 1999. The magistrate ordered Denham to stand trial before a judge in the New South Wales District Court. Denham's solicitor was prominent Sydney lawyer John Marsden.

Eventually, in the District Court at Sydney's Downing Centre in 2000, a jury convicted Father Denham on two incidents of indecent assault against Tim (case number 99111180). Denham, then aged in his late fifties, was given a two-years jail sentence, which was suspended.

Still "reverend" after his conviction

Unfortunately, there was no media coverage of Denham's 2000 conviction. Therefore, the New South Wales Catholic community in general was not aware of the conviction.

A year later, despite this conviction, "Reverend John Denham" was still listed as a priest in the 2001 edition of the Directory of Australian Catholic Clergy. The directory said he was a priest "on leave from the Maitland diocese", with a Post Office box at Oatley in Sydney's south, but it did not say what his Sydney activities were.

Because of the lack of media exposure, it was possible for the church authorities to use Father Denham as a relieving priest in parishes at weekends - and no "alarm bells" would ring to warn parents and children about Denham's past.

In 2005, when Denham was aged about 62, Broken Rites ascertained that he was then working on week-days in the Sydney library of a religious order of priests. But what was he doing at weekends, when there was often a need for a relieving priest to do church services?

Despite the lack of media coverage, Broken Rites still received occasional phone calls or emails from former students or parishioners inquiring about Denham.

In November 2005, Tim (the victim from St Pius X Catholic High School in the 2000 court case) phoned Broken Rites again. He said he had learned that Denham was currently in Sydney's "supply" pool of priests who were available to do casual work as a relieving priest at weekends. Tim contacted the church's Professional Standards office in Sydney and its counterpart in Newcastle, and both these offices confirmed that Denham was working in the "supply pool". Tim told Broken Rites: "This is an alarming situation."

Broken Rites article

In early 2006 Broken Rites published an article on its website about Denham's 2000 conviction and about the school with bedrooms for six priests. A journalist from the Newcastle Herald, Joanne McCarthy, noticed the Broken Rites article and did some more research. On 10 June 2006 the Newcastle Herald published an article (by Joanne McCarthy) about Denham, thus becoming the first newspaper to mention his 2000 conviction. The Newcastle Herald article mentioned Broken Rites.

After the Newcastle Herald article, Tim told Broken Rites: "Maybe, after this exposure, through Broken Rites and the Newcastle Herald, the church will find it harder to use Denham as a relieving priest. They have been getting away with this for too long."

The NewcastleHerald article prompted some of Denham's victims to read about him on the Broken Rites website and/or to contact the police. Joanne McCarthy continued researching Denham (and other cases of church-cover-up) and she began receiving information from her readers, which resulted in further Newcastle Herald articles.

In 2006 another informant spoke to Broken Rites about Denham's behaviour at the Taree parish in the mid-1980s, alleging that Denham used to show "sexy" videos and literature to young altar boys in the Taree presbytery.

Another police investigation

Meanwhile, in 2005, another victim of Denham contacted the police. A Newcastle detective, who did not know about Denham's 2000 conviction, checked the archives but could not find any conviction involving Denham.

The detective began contacting some former students from the St Pius X Catholic High School rolls and he happened to phone "Tim". When Tim told him about the 2000 conviction, the detective was surprised but he eventually unearthed it in the archives. Police believe that someone had filed the record of the 2000 conviction where it would be difficult to find.

In 2008, police started another investigation of Denham and gathered written statements from victims. Later that year, he was charged with multiple offences. He pleaded guilty in court in July 2009.

More about the school with six bedrooms

Several former students of St Pius X Catholic High School contacted Broken Rites in 2006, telling us more about the layout of the school in Denham's time.

One former student ("Syd") told Broken Rites: "St Pius X College was fundamentally an old factory that had been converted into a secondary school. Some new buildings had been added.

"The main building was long and narrow, with classrooms down the western side and with a hall, science labs and offices down the eastern side. The northern end was mostly occupied by the priests' living quarters, comprising a series of bedrooms, with shared living areas at the furthest end.

"In other words, the priests' quarters and the classrooms were on the same floor. Hence, when a boy was sent to the priests' quarters, it was as simple as walking from one room to another room. When I was a student there in the 1970s, it was not unusual for a boy to be sent or taken to the priests' living quarters.

"As well as his bedroom in the old building, Denham also had an office in another building. Boys also had occasion to go — or to be sent to — to Denham's office.

"Other members of the clergy must have known that Denham was up to mischief at this school but they turned a blind eye to it and allowed him to continue doing it.

"One of Denham's friends in the Maitland-Newcastle diocese in the 1970s was a younger priest who has since gone on to become one of Australia's most prominent Catholic clerics. This cleric must have known something."

Another ex-pupil of Denham at St Pius X ("Jerry") told Broken Rites in March 2006 that he agreed with Syd's description of the school layout.

Jerry said: "In the main building, you could go from the classrooms area to the priests' living quarters by just going through a door. I never knew this door to be locked.

"A priest might simply say 'come with me' and you would be led through this door."

Jerry added: "Yes, Denham targeted me. I was frightened and disorientated. It's something that you think is only happening to you because of who you are and the trouble you are in. You feel, or are made to feel, that it's your doing and has to be done to avoid big trouble."

However, Jerry says that he has not reported Denham to the police and says he probably will not get around to doing so now because he is pre-occupied with his young family. Jerry said he felt slightly guilty about leaving it to people like Tim to bring Denham to justice.

[Tim, Syd and Jerry do not know each other because they were in different years.]

Jailed in 2010 and 2015

For details of John Denham's court cases (resulting in his jailing in 2010 and 2015), see another Broken Rites article HERE.

In court again in 2018 and 2019

On 11 October 2018, John Sidney Denham (aged 77) was found guilty of four offences against a young boy at Taree NSW in the late 1970s after a judge-alone trial (that is, no jury). The charges included one count of buggery and three counts of indecent assault.

A pre-sentence hearing for Denham's Taree crimes was held in Sydney in February 2019. Denham appeared by video-link from his jail. This pre-sentence hearing received final submissions from the prosecutor and the defence lawyer about the contents of the evidence and about what kind of sentence should be imposed.

The court heard details how Denham planned to sexually abuse the young boy from a very devout Catholic family by asking the child to stay behind after school "under the guise of an initiation process to be a new altar boy". The boy was raped on a later occasion after Denham called the child from the playground, "grabbed him by the arm and dragged him to the presbytery under the pretext the victim had been bad and had to be punished". Denham pushed the boy onto a desk, held him by the neck against the desktop and raped him, despite the boy screaming and begging him to stop because of the pain, the court.

The victim, who was not in court, prepared a victim impact statement that was read by Judge Phillip Mahony.

Sentenced again, May 2019

At a sentence hearing on 30 May 2019, Judge Mahony said Denham "has not recognised the pain and suffering caused to the victim of these offences at all".

Judge Mahony said Denham's sexual assault of the boy involved a level of planning against a vulnerable child where there was a significant age, size and power imbalance. Denham was 40 at the time of the attack and was in charge of a parish.

"The offender had isolated the victim in the playground, grabbed him and forcibly took him to the presbytery, under the pretence that the victim was in trouble," Judge Mahony said.

"It was clear from the victim's evidence that the victim was not consenting and that he was suffering intense pain, which the offender disregarded. It is clear that he suffered an injury to his anus and was bleeding as a result of the assault."

The impact on the victim's life was profound, the judge said. The victim's impact statement described "the real impact upon a happy childhood, occasioned by such a terrifying criminal event which affected every aspect of the victim's life thereafter," Judge Mahony said.

"Particularly relevant was the threats made to the victim that he would be taken away from his family, that he would go to hell, and that his family would be driven out of the church. The latter threat was particularly telling, given that the victim's mother was a devout Catholic.

"The [impact] statement outlines the changes undergone by the victim, his spiral into alcohol and drug abuse as a very young person, and the psychological impact it has had on all of his relationships throughout his adult life."

Judge Mahony sentenced John Sidney Denham to a maximum 13 years jail, with a non-parole period of seven years and six months. But because Denham is already in jail until at least January, 2028, and the crimes against his 59th victim occurred in the same period he committed other offences, Denham will spend at least another 18 months in jail for the latest convictions

With good behavior in jail, his earliest possible release date is July, 2029, with his full sentence not ending until January, 2035.

• Denham was first held in custody from 14  August 2008 and has remained in jail since that time.

• By a Broken Rites researcher, article updated 4 June 2019

Christian Brother John Laidlaw has had a lifelong career, teaching in Catholic schools around Australia, especially in Melbourne. In 2019, now in retirement, he is facing court in Melbourne charged with having committed sexual offences, several decades ago, against some of his Victorian students. Brother Laidlaw has also taught in Adelaide and Perth but this court case is confined to Victorian complaints.

The matter has been investigated by Victoria Police detectives from the Sano Taskforce (in Spencer Street, Docklands, Melbourne).

The charges were filed at the Melbourne Magistrates Court in late 2019. After a preliminary hearing, the magistrate referred the case on to a higher court, the Melbourne County Court, where the case would be handled by a judge.

The case had another procedure in April 2019 and the main process is scheduled to be held at the Melbourne County Court in mid-2019.

The case involves multiple ex-students, from Christian Brothers schools in Melbourne and Warrnambool. The charges include some from the 1960s. The alleged victims are now mature-age adults.

Meanwhile, the detectives are continuing their inquiries.

Court documents give the defendant's birth-name as John Sutherland Laidlaw.

Some background

According to Broken Rites research, Brother John Laidlaw was originally from Adelaide. He has taught at more than a dozen Christian Brothers secondary schools in Perth, Devonport (in northern Tasmania), Adelaide, Warrnambool (in south-western Victoria) and Melbourne.

His Melbourne schools included Parade College and CBC St Kilda (this is not a complete list).

As well as teaching the usual subjects, he was also involved in sports coaching and choir work.

After retiring from teaching, Brother John Laidlaw resided in Adelaide, working in a hospital facility assisting people with disabilities.

Brother John Laidlaw was one of eight Christian Brothers who were honoured at a jubilee celebration in Melbourne because they had spent 50 or 60 years working in the Brothers in Victoria.

• By a Broken Rites researcher 

This Broken Rites article is the most comprehensive account available about how the Christian Brothers organisation concealed the crimes of Brother Edward Dowlan (now known as Ted Bales). From the start, the Christian Brothers knew that Dowlan was committing criminal sexual assaults against Australian schoolchildren but, instead of dismissing him, the Christian Brothers kept transferring him to more schools, thus giving him access to more victims. His victims were usually aged about 11 or 12 but some were as young as 8 or 9. In the 1990s, when some victims finally reported him to the police, the Christian Brothers supported Dowlan and tried to defeat the victims. The victims eventually won by getting him jailed in 1996 and again in 2015. Prosecutors considered Dowlan's 2015 jail sentence to be inadequate, so they lodged an appeal and gained a longer jail term. Many of Brother Dowlan's victims have had their lives damaged by the church's cover-up — and several of his victims ended up in suicide. Some other Dowlan victims have not yet contacted the detectives.

In the mid-1990s, twenty years after his first crime, Broken Rites arranged for one of Dowlan's victims to have a private chat with detectives from the Victoria Police child-abuse investigation unit, who then interviewed some more of Dowlan's victims. This resulted in Dowlan being jailed in 1996. After being released from jail in 2001, Dowlan changed his surname to "Bales" to avoid media scrutiny and, with help from the Christian Brothers organisation, he moved into a private residence of his own as Mister Ted Bales. In 2014, after more of his earlier victims finally contacted the police, Edward "Bales" pleaded guilty to some more of his crimes and was remanded in custody to await his next sentencing, on 27 March 2015, when he was given a further jail sentence. On 18 September 2015, the length of this jail sentence was increased.

It was Broken Rites that first documented the Christian Brothers policy of continuing to support any criminal member in their ranks, even after a court conviction. A senior Christian Brothers official explained this policy in the Melbourne County Court in July 1996, when Brother Edward Vernon Dowlan faced charges for indecently assaulting boys in Victorian Catholic schools. A Broken Rites researcher was present in court, day after day, taking notes during the 1996 proceedings. The following article is based on those notes, together with further notes made in court in 2014 and 2015..

According to submissions made in court in 1996, Dowlan was openly molesting boys (in the presence of other boys) at his first two schools (in 1971-72), and therefore the Christian Brothers' Victoria-Tasmania administration moved him to another school — a boarding school (St Patrick's College, Ballarat) in 1973, enabling Dowlan to commit more crimes on more boys, including boarders. The parents of at least one St Patrick's victim confronted St Patrick's head Christian Brother about Dowlan's offence. The Christian Brothers' headquarters then kept transferring Dowlan to more schools (and more victims) — until the police finally caught up with him in 1993.

Until the 1990s, the Christian Brothers (and other sections of the Catholic Church) managed to discourage church-abuse victims from revealing the crimes of priests and Brothers. But, in 1993, Broken Rites began researching this Catholic cover-up. Among the first church-victims who contacted Broken Rites in 1993 were former students of Brother Ted Dowlan. Broken Rites advised each victim that he had the right to have a chat with specialist detectives in the child-abuse investigation unit of the Victoria Police, with a view to bringing the criminal to justice. Thus, police eventually arrested Edward Vernon Dowlan and charged him in court. Broken Rites alerted the media, which published articles about the Dowlan court proceedings from 1994 to 1996, with television footage of him arriving at court.

Brother Ted Dowlan's background

In the 1996 court case, Brother Edward Vernon Dowlan was charged with indecently assaulting young boys while he was a teacher in Victorian Catholic schools between 1971 and 1982. 

According research by Broken Rites, Edward Dowlan was born on 4 January 1950. He grew up in Melbourne, where he was educated by the Christian Brothers, with ample opportunities to absorb the Brothers' sexually-abusive culture. While he was in the Brothers' primary school at suburban Alphington (up to Year 8) , the school chaplain there was the prolific child-abuse criminal Father Desmond Gannon (later jailed). During Dowlan's secondary schooling (at Parade College, East Melbourne, near Melbourne's cathedral), the school staff included some sexually-abusive Brothers.

At Parade College, Ed Dowlan developed an "aspiration" to have a career as a Christian Brother. So, instead of doing Year 12 in a secondary school, he did it in a Christian Brothers "juniorate" and became a member of the Victoria-Tasmania province of the Christian Brothers. (At the time of the Dowlan jailing in 1996, there were three other Christian Brothers provinces in Australia — New South Wales; Queensland; and Western/South Australia.)

It was normal for new Christian Brothers to adopt another name (e.g., the name of a "saint" or the name of a a previoius senior Brother). Thus Edward Vernon Dowlan was listed in Christian Brothers documents as Brother "E.G. Dowlan". It is not known what the letter "G" stands for.

After doing further religious education plus teacher training, Brother Ted Dowlan taught at various schools including the following (this list was compiled by Broken Rites):-

• St Alipius primary school (Ballarat East) in 1971 (where he became a full-time offender);
• St Thomas More College in Forest Hills (Melbourne) in 1972 (this later become Emmaus College);
• St Patrick's College (Ballarat) in 1973-74);
• Warrnambool Christian Brothers College in 1975-76 (later re-named Emmanuel College);
• St Brendan's in Devonport (Tasmania) in the late 1970s;
• Chanel College, Geelong in 1980;
• St Augustine's boys'orphanage in Geelong for part of 1981;
• Parade College preparatory school, Alphington, Melbourne, for part of 1981;
• Cathedral College (East Melbourne) in 1982-85;
• St Mary’s Technical School, Geelong, in 1987-8;
• St Vincent's boys'orphanage, South Melbourne, in 1989; and
• Geelong Catholic Regional College in 1990-3.

The court was told that the police investigation began after several alleged victims, from different schools and acting separately without knowing each other, contacted the Victoria Police sexual offences and child-abuse team (now known as SOCIT) in 1993. The SOCIT unit soon found more alleged victims. In August 1993, Senior Sergeant Blair Smith interviewed Dowlan, but at this stage Dowlan denied the allegations.

What Brother Dowlan did to his victims

When charged by police in early 1994 regarding a few of his victims, Dowlan faced 64 charges, including two of buggery, against 23 boys. At first, the church lawyers indicated that they would contest all these charges fiercely.

According to court documents, Dowlan indecently assaulted the boys in classrooms, sports rooms, showers and the boys' family homes. Typically, Dowlan would upset a boy (either physically or verbally), perhaps make him cry and would then cuddle and molest him.

He invasively handled the boys' genitals and sometimes inserted his finger into a boy’s anus.

Many of Dowlan's offences occurred at the back of the classroom, where other pupils where asked not to look back. Other offences occurred in empty classrooms where Dowlan would ask the boys to discuss family problems.

The prosecution alleged in court that, as a Christian Brother in a Catholic school, Dowlan had the power to intimidate a child into going to the place where the abuse would occur – e.g., at the rear of a crowded classroom during a lesson. He was able to do this under the guise of discipline. The victim was in a state of subservience and was unable later to make a complaint (or unable to get his complaint accepted). Sometimes, in a classroom, there would be 20 to 30 witnesses to the offence but these witnesses (the prosecution alleged) were also under Dowlan’s control. Therefore, as a Catholic religious Brother, Dowlan was confident about not getting into trouble, the prosecution said

Four paedophiles in one school

The first school in Brother Edward Dowlan’s criminal charges was St Alipius primary school (pronounced Saint Al-LEEP-ee-us) in Ballarat in 1971, when Dowlan was aged 21. Dowlan was there at the same time as Brother Robert Best, who also was convicted in 1996.

Indeed, in 1971 the school's entire male personnel were child-sex offenders. The school had only four classrooms. Brother Best taught Grade 6, Brother Edward Dowlan taught Grade 5, a woman teacher taught Grade 4, another pedophile (Brother Gerald Leo Fitzgerald, now deceased) taught Grade 3, and the school's visiting chaplain was the pedophile priest Father Gerald Ridsdale (jailed in 1994). A later teacher, Christian Brother Stephen Francis Farrell, was also a child-sex offender. All these men (except Brother Fitzgerald, who died 23 August 1987) were later convicted of sex crimes.

The prosecution alleged that three St Alipius boys were each sexually abused by the same three offenders — Brother Ted Dowlan, Brother Robert Charles Best and Brother Gerald Francis Ridsdale.

Crimes were ignored

Details of Dowlan’s offences were given in court documents in 1996, including a "statement of agreed facts" submitted jointly by the prosecution and the defence.

Court documents in 1996 indicated that the Christian Brothers administration knew about Brother Dowlan's offences early in his career but the Order continued to give him access to children.

For example:

• After offending at his first school (St Alipius in Ballarat East in 1971), Dowlan continued offending at his next school (St Thomas More in Forest Hills, Melbourne in 1972). One Forest Hills victim, "Max", said in his police statement (submitted to court in the prosecution file) that after Dowlan had been molesting pupils (including Max), one family complained to the Christian Brothers — and Dowlan was removed from the Forest Hills school early in 1973. The boys were told that he had gone on a "religious retreat". The prosecutor stated that later in 1973, Dowlan was posted to St Patrick's boarding school, Ballarat. [But the Ballarat parents were not told about Dowlan's record as a child-abuser.]
• At St Patrick's College, Dowlan was assigned to be a dormitory master and had a bedroom near the dormitory. In 1974, the court was told, Dowlan indecently assaulted a 13 year-old-boy, "Peter", in a dormitory in the middle of the night. Peter immediately phoned his parents who arrived at the school at 6 am. The prosecutor, Mr Graeme Hicks, told the court that the parents interviewed the St Patrick's headmaster, Brother Paul Nangle (who was named in court), and complained to him about Dowlan's assault of their son. Peter's parents then moved him to a new school.
• "Roger" (assaulted at St Patrick's College in 1973) testified in his police statement that his parents wanted to press criminal charges against Dowlan, but a priest talked them out of it. And a Ballarat mother stated that her sons told Dowlan's colleagues at St Patrick's in 1974 about him being a child abuser.
• Despite knowing about Dowlan’s activities, the Christian Brothers continued to give Dowlan access to children and even sent him to work at a boys’ orphanage (St Augustine’s in Geelong in 1981), where the homeless inmates were particularly vulnerable and defenceless.
• In court, there was also a mention of Dowlan having been sent briefly to another orphanage (St Vincent’s boys’ home in South Melbourne), possibly about 1981. At St Vincent’s, he had a physical clash with one boy, and Dowlan was injured in the eye.
• "Jamie", who was a 12-year-old pupil at Melbourne’s Cathedral College in 1982, told the police in his statement (tabled in court) about the day he was being confirmed into the Catholic Church. Brother Dowlan took a Crucifix to the boy's home as a present. He indecently mauled Jamie in the bedroom and then took him to the Confirmation ceremony. This church abuse (and the church's cover-up) damaged Jamie's later life. Broken Rites was saddened to learn in 2013 that "Jamie" has committed suicide, leaving a widow and three young children.

In court, the defence admitted that, after a complaint in 1985, Dowlan was removed from teaching for a year to do a Diploma of Theology. He then returned to teaching at Geelong.

An expensive legal team

From the outset of the prosecution process (beginning in late 1993), the Christian Brothers Victoria-Tasmania management was determined to defend Brother Dowlan (and also Brother Robert Best), thereby defeating the victims.

At one of Dowlan’s early court appearances (in the Melbourne Magistrates Court in 1994), his counsel foreshadowed a lengthy contest and commented to the magistrate: "Expense is not a problem, your worship."

After police first summoned Dowlan to appear in court in early 1994, the Christian Brothers’ solicitors hired private investigators to do make inquiries about victims, the court was told. A female investigator telephoned and visited three of the Ballarat victims, questioning them about their proposed evidence. Police said this interference in the criminal justice system was "highly inappropriate".

On 18 March 1994, one of Dowlan’s schools (St Patrick’s College, Ballarat) circulated a newsletter about Dowlan to parents, inviting any affected families to ring a so-called "helpline" at the Christian Brothers headquarters in Melbourne.

This phone-in may have resulted in additional witnesses contacting the Christian Brothers (that is, the offending institution) instead of contacting the investigating authority, the Victoria Police. Some callers may have presumed that, if they gave information to the Christian Brothers, they did not need to give it to the police. It is possible that some of the information received proved helpful for the Christian Brothers’ defence lawyers, which is perhaps not what the callers might have intended. This 1994 phone-in was a forerunner of what developed (in 1996) into the church's "Towards Healing" program for all Australian Catholic dioceses and religious orders. [Too often, when victims give information to "Towards Healing", the information ends up in the hands of the church's lawyers, thereby helping the church to evade the victim.]

Defence tactics in the 1990s

The Christian Brothers legal team tried many tactics to delay or frustrate or stop the proceedings. In March 1994, Dowlan requested (and was granted) a nine-months adjournment in the magistrate’s preliminary committal proceedings, so that he could have a trip to the United States to visit the St Luke "Institute" in Maryland (a Catholic accommodation-place for problem clergy). However, a Dowlan victim alerted the U.S. Embassy in Canberra and, as a result, the U.S. rejected Dowlan's visa application because he was facing criminal charges. Dowlan then stayed in Australia, still taking advantage of the nine-months adjournment. Dowlan's request for such a long adjournment made it impossible for the committal hearing to be held before the end of 1994.

What was the objective of the trip to the St Luke Institute? The institute accommodates clergy who have problems with sexual abuse or psychiatric problems. Fifteen months later, when Dowlan’s jail term was about to be calculated, the prosecutor asked Christian Brothers deputy leader Peter Dowling ("character" witness for Dowlan) if the St Luke Institute program was partly a preparation for progression through a criminal court case. Peter Dowling told the court that a part of the St Luke program was to build up a person's identity so that they could cope with what is happening to them.

Another advantage of a trip to the St Luke Institute is that, at the time of sentencing in court, a convicted offender can seek a lenient sentence by claiming that he has received "treatment" at the St Luke "Institute" and is therefore "unlikely to offend again".

Preliminary proceedings in 1995

Dowlan's preliminary ("committal") hearing by a magistrate was held in the Melbourne Magistrates Court in May 1995. This was a closed courtroom, with only lawyers, police and each witness present.

After an eight-days hearing, the magistrate declared that there was indeed sufficient evidence to seek a conviction in a higher court. The magistrate ordered Dowlan to appear before a judge at the Melbourne County Court in late 1995.

The Christian Brothers' legal team, however, managed to have the County Court case adjourned for months.

Case reaches the higher court in 1996

On 4 March 1996, County Court Judge Elizabeth Curtain finally began hearing pre-trial submissions from Dowlan’s defence team about what procedures should be followed in the case. These were the first of many days that were spent in legal argument. A Broken Rites researcher sat in court during those proceedings.

Then, on 13 March 1996, Dowlan secured a three-month adjournment on the "ground" that a Channel Nine "Sixty Minutes" program on 3 March 1996 had featured an item about priests in Ireland who broke their vows of chastity and who, in some instances, fathered children. In fact, however, the "Sixty Minutes" item was not about Christian Brothers and was not about Australia.

In June 1996, the County Court resumed hearing legal argument about aspects of the Dowlan charges. Simultaneously, in another courtroom  in the same building, a different judge started hearing the case against Brother Robert Best. During adjournments in one of those courtrooms, a Broken Rites representativewould visit the other courtroom to check on proceedings there.

To help Dowlan and Best, the Christian Brothers obtained a court order to prohibit television networks from showing three advertised television programs in Victoria:

• A "Four Corners" program on ABC TV on 27 May 1996 about clergy child-abuse in Australia (this program was made by journalist Sally Neighbour, with research help from Broken Rites;
• A film, "The Boys of St Vincent", on Channel Ten (about clergy child abuse in Canada); and
• A "Today Tonight" item on Channel Seven (about child abuse by the Catholic order of Salesian priests in Victoria).

The TV networks were allowed to show these programs in other states but in Victoria they had to fill these time-slots with a substitute program.

The church lawyers also applied to the court to have a separate jury for each of the complainants. (This tactic means that each jury would think that there was only one complainant and that the offence was an isolated incident, possibly resulting in a "not guilty" verdict regarding each victim from each jury).

Originally, in March 1996, Judge Curtain granted this application. However, the Office of Public Prosecutions was opposed to this. In June 1996, Judge Curtain finally granted a prosecution application to amalgamate three complainants for the first jury, because these three cases involved similar incidents. This meant that Dowlan was less likely to escape a conviction on the first trial.

The prosecution and the defence team then had discussions about a compromise.

At last, the guilty plea in 1996

Finally, after many days of legal argument in the courts, the prosecution and defence reached a compromise. In a plea bargain, the prosecution withdrew many charges, including the more serious charges of buggery. Finally, Dowlan pleaded guilty on 16 counts of indecent assault, including two involving digital penetration, against 11 boys aged from 9 to 13, including two boys at St Alipius, three at St Thomas More, four at St Patrick's and two at Cathedral college.

On 17 June 1996, Dowlan entered his plea of guilty and the prosecution reduced the number of charges (and withdrew the buggery charges). The guilty plea meant that no jury was needed.

Dowlan was automatically convicted, and the court now merely needed to sentence him. Judge Curtain began hearing submissions (including "character" evidence from defence witnesses) about what penalty should be applied for Dowlan's crimes.

Because of Dowlan’s guilty plea in 1996, his victims were not required to give evidence in the County Court. However, several attended as observers. On some days, when there was a lull in the Dowlan proceedings, Dowlan’s victims (and a Broken Rites researcher) would adjourn to a nearby courtroom to observe the Brother Best case — and vice versa.

Broken Rites researchers were present in County Court every day throughout the Dowlan and Best proceedings, taking notes as part of our research.

The Christian Brothers keep supporting Dowlan

After the guilty plea in 1996, the judge began hearing submissions from the prosecutor and the defence about what kind of sentence should be imposed on Dowlan. The defence asked for a lenient sentence.

During these submissions, representatives of the Christian Brothers submitted "character" evidence in support of Dowlan. They told the County Court that a convicted child-abuser was still acceptable as a Christian Brother.

One character witness was (Brother Peter William Dowling, not to be confused with the prisoner Edward Dowlan). Brother Dowling, who was the Victoria-Tasmania deputy leader of the Christian Brothers in 1996, was a pupil at Melbourne’s Parade College in the 1960s, one year ahead of fellow-pupil Ted Dowlan. Peter Dowling told the court that, if there were sex-abuse complaints about Brother Ted Dowlan in the 1970s, the Christian Brothers leadership at that time would certainly have known it.

Brother Peter Dowling told the court that the Christian Brothers "have no policy of excluding a convicted person" from the Order. Therefore, he said, Ted Dowlan would continue to be welcome as a member of the Christian Brothers, despite his conviction, "and we will continue to support him."

Brothers moving into new roles

The Christian Brothers told the court that, even after being convicted of these crimes, Dowlan would not be expelled from the Order, but he would be offered work in "new ministries" of the Christian Brothers. The court was told that Christian Brothers were now less involved in operating schools. Most Christian Brothers (the court was told) now belong to "outreach" ministries, working with hospital patients, prisoners, Aborigines, young people in trouble, the disabled and missions in Third World countries.

Christian Brother Damien Anthony Walsh, who was aged 42 in 1996, told the court (while giving pre-sentence "character" evidence for Dowlan) that, in future, the role of the Christian Brothers would not be in teaching or in school administration but in other roles such as counselling. Damien Walsh said that he himself was a project co-ordinator for the Australian AIDS Fund. In court, Walsh did not, at first, identify himself as a Christian Brother but, when questioned by the court, he agreed that he is one.

Another defence witness, Brother Leonard Vincent Francis, who was retired and aged 69 in 1996, gave an example of his own changing role. Brother Francis told the court that, as a Christian Brother, he taught for 38 years in Australia and New Guinea but then spent years working in a "pastoral care" team at St Vincent’s hospital, Melbourne.

Brother Peter Dowling told the court that in 1996 the Victoria-Tasmania province of the Christian Brothers comprised 190 Brothers (some of whom were working in Fiji and Africa). He said the Christian Brothers were planning "the amalgamation of some of our ministries with other religious orders".

Brother Michael Godfrey told the media that the Christian Brothers would also retain another member, Brother Robert Charles Best, who was convicted in the same court (and around the same time) as Brother Dowlan for child-sex offences. (At one time, Dowlan and Best even worked together in the same school.)

Dowlan and Best are merely two of a number of criminal prosecutions involving Christian Brothers in Australia. In addition to convictions, the Christian Brothers administration has made out-of-court civil settlements with a number of victims, so as to limit the Christian Brothers' civil liability regarding those victims.

No remorse, no apology

During pre-sentence submissions (and also at the sentencing), Judge Elizabeth Curtain said that Dowlan had failed to show any remorse or regret for his crimes and he was not offering any apology. She said there was little evidence that Dowlan was concerned about the adverse impact of his crimes upon his victims. She said this attitude caused doubt about Dowlan’s prospect of rehabilitation.

Judge Curtain said that, although Dowlan was being sentenced on only 16 selected incidents, these incidents must be seen in the context of a constant practice of gross misconduct.

Impact on the victims' lives

Before the sentencing in 1996, victims had submitted written impact statements to the court, explaining how Dowlan’s abuse (and the church’s cover-up) had disrupted their adolescent development, causing problems that persisted into their adult years.

Some victims stated that they never went near a Catholic Church again and they would make sure their own children kept away from Catholic clergy.

The judge quoted one victim who wrote that “the Catholic Church has aided the commission of the offences” by covering them up.

Jailed in 1996

Dowlan, then aged 46, was sentenced to nine years and eight months jail (with a non-parole period of six years).

The church lawyers appealed against the severity of this sentence, and the Victorian Court of Appeal later reduced Dowlan's maximum sentence to 6.5 years jail (with parole possible after four years).

Media coverage in 1996

The Dowlan and Best cases finished almost simultaneously in late July 1996. Until both cases were finished, the County Court had forbidden the media to report (or even mention) the court proceedings, because the Brother Best case involved jury trials.

After both Dowlan and Best had been convicted, Broken Rites learned that the media-suppression order lapsed. Broken Rites alerted a Melbourne Herald Sun journalist about this "breaking news" and therefore the Dowlan and Best convictions were featured on the front page of that newspaper on the next morning, 24 July 1996. A day later, on July 25, there was further coverage in the Herald Sun (plus other newspapers throughout Australia). Broken Rites arranged for a senior journalist to interview some of the victims, and these victims' stories (without their real names) were featured on a double-page spread in the Herald Sun.

Thus, the Christian Brothers' cover-up was exposed. And the victims felt empowered. And Broken Rites continued working on other cases.

Eventually, Edward Vernon Dowlan finished his jail term  — and now the Christian Brothers are developing their “new ministries” for hospital patients, prisoners, Aborigines, young people in trouble, the disabled and missions in Third World countries. These groups include some very vulnerable people.

What sort of credibility will the Christian Brothers “new ministries” have?

No expense spared

Lawyers estimated that, by July 1996, the Christian Brothers Order had spent about $400,000 in defending Dowlan and Best. The costs included: 56 days in court; two Queen's Counsel; a team of barristers and solicitors; legal office staff; private investigators; and psychiatrists, psychologists and other paid experts who gave character evidence on behalf of the offenders.

Later, more money was spent on appeals.

Brother Dowlan becomes "Mister" Bales

By the year 2001, Edward Dowlan had been released from jail. He was still a member of the Christian Brothers organisaton, on leave while he considered his future. The Christian Brothers head office continued to look after Dowlan financially but, because of the Australia-wide publicity about his crimes, the head office realised that it would be a public-relations disaster if Dowlan was seen to be working again in any of the Brothers' schools or even in their new non-school "missions".

Also, as a result of the publicity, some more of Dowlan's victims were now contacting Broken Rites and/or the Victoria Police (instead of merely contacting the church). More police charges could create more bad publicity for the Christian Brothers. Therefore, damage control would be needed.

• Broken Rites learned in 2001 that Dowlan had officially changed his surname from Dowlan to "Bales", so as to avoid media publicity. Bales was a surname from his family tree, on his mother's side.
• Broken Rites also learned that the Christian Brothers were helping Dowlan to move into a private house (in a Melbourne northern suburb) where he would live as Mr Ted Bales, thus protecting the Christian Brothers organisation.

It was in the interests of the Christian Brothers to be generous to Dowlan, because he would know some "dirt" about other Brothers and about the custom of cover-up.

Charged again in 2014

In early 2014, Dowlan (then aged 64) was arrested by detectives from the Sano Taskforce, which was established by the Victoria Police Sex Crime Squad to investigate allegations arising from a recent Victorian parliamentary inquiry into child sex abuse.

On 29 April 2014 he appeared in the Melbourne Magistrates Court, under his new name of "Edward Bales". Detective Senior Constable Colleen Connolly was present in court on behalf of the Sano Taskforce. At this hearing, Bales faced 48 charges of indecent assault and gross indecency against 14 boys in the 1970s and 1980s while he was working as a Christian Brother.

During another mention in court later in 2014, the court was told that four more alleged victims had contacted the police to make complaints against "Bales", resulting in eight additional charges. The alleged offences in this 2014 case occurred in these places

• Ballarat and Warrnambool (in regional Victoria) and in Forest Hill (a Melbourne eastern suburb) between 1970 and 1975; and
• Geelong, East Melbourne and Melbourne's Lower Templestowe between 1980 and 1984.

This April 2014 hearing was an administrative procedure. The court was told that Bales was convicted and jailed in the 1990s for sex-offences committed during his career as a Christian Brother. His defence lawyer told the court that Bales had changed his identity to avoid publicity because his name came up whenever the media reported on crimes involving the Christian Brothers. Bales' previous name was not disclosed during this April 2014 court hearing.

The court released Edward Bales on bail for the duration of the prosecution process. During another mention in court later in 2014, the court was told that four more people had contacted the police to make complaints against "Bales", resulting in eight new charges.

Guilty plea in 2014 and sentencing in 2015

In court again on 9 October 2014, Bales pleaded guilty to a large number of charges after some other charges were withdrawn. Bales was immediately taken to a remand prison to await his sentencing, to be held in early 2015.

After this guilty plea, no jury was required. The media was allowed now to reveal that Edward Bales was formerly named Dowlan.

On 6 February 2015, Dowlan appeared before a judge in the Melbourne County Court for pre-sentence proceedings. The court learned that he was pleading guilty regarding 20 boys. The charges included 33 counts of indecent assault and one count of gross indecency.

Crown prosecutor Brett Sonnet told the court that Dowlan had used his position as a Christian Brother to prey on his victims. Mr Sonnet described Dowlan as a "trusted religious figure" who had been extraordinarily brazen in his conduct because he was confident that, as a Christian Brother, he would never be challenged.

Mr Sonnet said that the Christian Brothers were aware of the offences that Dowlan was committing on boys but did not act to stop him. He said that Dowlan was moved from school to school, which only "aggravated the problem".

Jailed in March 2015

On 27 March 2015 (22 years after Broken Rites began helping the victims of Edward Dowlan), Melbourne County Court judge Richard Smith conducted the sentencing for Edward "Bales". He gave a lengthy account of Bales' behaviour and the new charges.

Judge Smith said that, in his role as a Christian Brother, Bales had been in a position of authority and trust and had believed he had "some right of entitlement" to abuse the boys in appalling circumstances because he had power over them and they were unable to resist him.

The judge described Bales' offending as brazen and said he did not believe he was remorseful.

He said that Bales' victims had suffered an ongoing psychological reaction to the abuse that was still affecting them 30 to 40 years later.

The judge gave Ted Bales another six-years jail sentence for the new victims, with parole possible after three years.

Ted Bales was then removed from the court, to be transported to prison.

Some of Bales/Dowlan's victims were present in court (accompanied by representatives of Broken Rites) to see him jailed but no church representative attended to support the victims.

The victims were supported by a representative of Victoria's Office of Public Prosecutions, who afterwards spoke sympathetically to a gathering of victims in the corridor outside the courtroom.

The prosecutors and the victims all agreed that the jail sentence (with parole after only three years behind bars) was inadequate.

Prosecutors win an increase in the jail time

After the March 2015 sentencing, the state's Director of Public Prosecutions (the DPP) then launched an appeal against the jail term, arguing that the actual time behind bars was inadequate. In court documents, the DPP emphasised the profound impact the abuse had on Ted Bales' victims. The DPP also said that Bales "has not expressed any remorse or contrition for his offending".

On 18 September 2015, the Victorian Court of Appeal ruled in favour of the DPP. The Appeal Court stated: "The respondent's absence of remorse, coupled with the number of victims and the period over which the offences took place, warranted a non-parole period that was significantly more than half of the head sentence."

The Appeal Court re-sentenced Bales to eight years and five months' jail, with a five-year no-parole period.

Broken Rites research

Broken Rites is continuing its research about Australia's Christian Brothers organisation, and how it supported criminals such as Brother Edward Dowlan, alias "Ted Bales".

• By a Broken Rites researcher

For 25 years, Father Peter Maurice Waters ministered in a series of parishes of the Melbourne Catholic archdiocese. In 1999, when he was aged in his fifties, the archdiocese removed him from parish work. Since 1999, according to church law, Peter Waters has retained his priestly qualification — but without a parish (and without any other official role in the church). In 2017, when Waters was aged 72, police charged him with child-sex offices relating to his time in parishes. In early 2018, Waters underwent a four-day committal (i.e., preliminary) hearing in the Melbourne Magistrates Court. After hearing the evidence, the magistrate has ordered Waters to undergo a trial with a judge in a higher court, the Victorian County Court.

Peter Maurice Waters is listed in court as being located now in his private residence on Phillip Island (140 km south-east of Melbourne).

When the Peter Waters case had its first mention in the Melbourne Magistrates Court in 2017, police charged him with more than 30 historical child sexual abuse offences, including indecent assault on males aged 12 to 19 and carnal knowledge of a girl aged 10 to 16 years old. Police alleged that the offences occurred between 1974 and 1987.

At the committal hearing in the same court in January 2018, prosecutors withdrew some of the charges. Waters pleaded not guilty to 20 charges, including multiple counts of indecent assault, one of carnal knowledge of a girl aged between 10 and 16 and one of committing an act of gross indecency in the presence of a child. Police alleged that these 20 offences took place in the Melbourne suburbs of Montrose, Croydon, East Malvern, East Oakleigh and Camberwell and in some country areas.

The charges were laid by detectives from the Sano Taskforce of the Victoria Police sexual crimes squad, located in Spencer Street, Docklands, Melbourne.

The Peter Waters case was scheduled for an administrative procedure in the Melbourne County Court in early 2019. If Waters continues with his not guilty plea, a jury trial (lasting several weeks) would be held in mid-2019 (at present, the trial is listed to begin on 29 July 2019). Until then, he is on bail.

The County Court's case number for Peter Maurice Waters is CR-18-00056.

Foootnote

The Melbourne archdiocese (in the state of Victoria) covers the Melbourne metropolitan area and some nearby towns such as Kyneton, plus the city of Geelong. The remainder of the state of Victoria is divided into three other dioceses.

According to research by Broken Rites, Father Peter Maurice Waters was first listed (as "newly ordained") in the annual Australian Catholic Directories in 1973. He then ministered in various parishes of the Melbourne archdiocese including Croydon, Strathmore, Dandenong, Oakleigh, East Malvern, Camberwell, Aspendale, Blackburn, Bell Park (a suburb of Geelong) and (finally, until 1999) Kyneton. Interspersed among these parishes he had several periods of being listed as "on leave", plus a year or so as a hospital chaplain. After 1999, the Melbourne archdiocese did not appoint Peter Maurice Waters to any more parishes.

Christian Brother Terence Simpson worked in Catholic schools in Queensland and New South Wales. In the 1960s, he was indecently assaulting his pupils at St Joseph's College in Gregory Terrace in Brisbane. When victims complained, Simpson's superiors merely moved him to Christian Brothers schools in New South Wales, thereby putting more students in danger. Later, Simpson became a university lecturer in Queensland, training a new generation of teachers. Many years later, six of his Brisbane victims spoke (separately) to the police. On Tuesday 18 June 2019, Simpson is scheduled to be sentenced in the Brisbane District Court regarding the sixth victim.

First court case, 1998

Terence Simpson appeared in Brisbane Magistrates Court 7 August 1998 (then aged 58), regarding two of his victims from the Gregory Terrace school. The court was told that Simpson used to indecently grope boys as they stood behind his desk in front of the class, even during "religion" lessons.

Simpson evidently had numerous victims, two of whom contacted police in the late 1990s, after 36 years. One said he contacted police because he now had children of his own and wanted all children to be protected better than he had been.

Simpson pleaded guilty to indecently dealing with two these boys, aged eight and nine, in 1962.

Simpson's lawyer, Keith Tronc, blamed the Christian Brothers for sparking Simpson's crimes. Tronc said the Christian Brothers were an "evil, depraved organisation that fostered and sheltered paedophiles."

As a young trainee Brother in Sydney, said Tronc, Simpson noticed a senior Brother indecently dealing with a small boy. Simpson tried to report this crime but was criticised by the senior Brother and was sexually assaulted himself.

Later, Simpson himself started molesting his own pupils.

Simpson and the Christian Brothers order later parted company. Terence Simpson eventually became a university lecturer in Queensland, with a PhD degree in education.

Judge Manus Boyce gave Dr Terry Simpson a two-year jail sentence which was suspended.

Second court case, 2004

In the Brisbane District Court in October 2004, Terence Anthony Simpson pleaded guilty to seven charges of indecent treatment involving three former students aged nine and 10 years, at the Gregory Terrace school in the 190s. He admitted molesting the boys during class at his desk and at the back of the classroom.

The court was told that Simpson went on to have a long and successful career as an educator, and was involved in teaching, at tertiary level, an estimated 10,000 teachers.

In sentencing, the judge acknowledged that Simpson should have been sentenced regarding these three victims in 1998 when he first came before the court. The judge gave Simpson a wholly suspended jail sentence regarding these three victims.

Third court case, 2019

In the Brisbane District Court on 20 June 2019, Terence Simpson is to be sentenced for indecently dealing with another boy, aged ten, at the Gregory Terrace school in 1962. Simpson is pleading guilty regarding this boy.

New South Wales

A former student from New South Wales has told Broken Rites that he remembers Brother Terence Simpson teaching at St Edward's College in Gosford, north of Sydney.

• By a Broken Rites researcher, article posted 12 June 2019

A former teacher, Kevin Wilmore Myers, now aged 73, appeared in the Melbourne Magistrates Court on 11 June 2019, charged with having committed sexual offences against a number of boys at a Catholic secondary college in south-western Victoria in the early 1960s.. Myers is pleading guilty. The magistrate has suppressed the name of the school in order to protect the privacy of the victims, who are now aged in their fifties.

The school, now catering for boys and girls, was originally two separate schools: a school for girls, conducted by nuns; and a school for boys, conducted by the Christian Brothers. The two schools began to amalgamate in 1980, the year when Myers arrived there as a lay teacher. He was there until 1982. During the 1980s, there were still some Christian Brothers at the school, as well as some nuns, but the number of lay teachers gradually increased.

When police arrested Myers in Brisbane in October 2018, he had been living in Rockhampton, Queensland. He was extradited back to Victoria, where he was charged in the Melbourne Magistrates Court with sexual offences against eight boys at the south-west Victorian school.

He was also charged with some sexual offences which were committed against other victims in Melbourne (these Melbourne offences were not related to a school).

At another court appearance on 11 June 2019, Myers faced a total of 44 charges in south-western Victoria and in Melbourne, including indecent assault and oral rape. Myers pleaded guilty to eight of the charges. The prosecutors withdrew the remaining charges.

Kevin Wilmore Myers is due to face a plea hearing in late 2019 with a judge at a higher court, the Victorian County Court. The judge will hear submissions from the prosecutors and the defence about what kind of sentence the court should impose on Myers. Any victim will have the opportunity to submit an impact statement to the court, telling the judge how Myers' abuse has affected a victim's life. These submission help the judge to determine an appropriate sentence.

The Victoria Police officer who is handling the Kevin Myers case is Senior Detective Nigel Freebairn, of the Sex Crimes Squad in central Melbourne.

By a Broken Rites researcher 

Broken Rites is researching how the Catholic Church harboured a paedophile priest, Father Paul Rex Brown, allowing him to commit sexual crimes against boys and girls in northern New South Wales.

The church knew that Brown was a danger to children but it transferred him to new parishes, thus inflicting him on additional children. Catholic families, influenced by the church's holy public image, did not realise that the church was putting their children at risk.

Father Paul Rex Brown (usually known by his middle name, Rex) was one of the most senior priests in the Lismore diocese, which is situated on the NSW north coast, extending from Port Macquarie to the Queensland border. At one time he held the title of Chancellor of the diocese - working directly under the bishop.

The church has been forced to admit that Rex Brown was an abuser and it has been forced to make settlements with two of his victims for the damage that was caused to their lives by the church's protection of Brown. The settlements were made through the church's "Towards Healing" process (which is a "front" for the church's insurance company) and both of these victims have found the Towards Healing process to be an abusive experience.

In 2007 the Lismore diocese accepted a complaint from one of Rex Brown's victims (Eric) and the diocese agreed to sign a deed of settlement with him. Eric has told Broken Rites that, while he was going through the church's Towards Healing process, he felt that he was being re-abused.

In 2013 the diocese made a settlement with a female victim of Rex Brown. This victim (Jennifer) now feels that she has been victimised AGAIN by the way the church treated her during the Towards Healing process. In Sydney in December 2013, Jennifer gave evidence during a public hearing of Australia's national Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

Eric and Jennifer, who do not know each other, are not Brown's only victims. They are the two who finally brought the Lismore diocese authorities to account.

Broken Rites has been researching Father Rex Brown since November 1993, when we discovered that another alleged offender (Father John Joseph Farrell, also known as "Father F", from the Armidale diocese) had been visiting Brown's house in the Lismore diocese.

Recruited as a priest

Broken Rites has ascertained that Paul Rex Brown was born in the mid-1930s and attended school with the Marist Brothers (now Trinity Catholic College) in Lismore. When Brown was in his early teens, Bishop Patrick Farrelly of Lismore recruited him as a potential future priest and sent him to a "junior seminary", St Columba's College, Springwood, in the Blue Mountains, where he completed his School Leaving Certificate, together with other future priests. After studying for the priesthood in Rome, Brown was ordained for the Lismore diocese in 1959 and soon became prominent in northern New South Wales. He served as the diocesan secretary and, from 1973, he had the title of Chancellor of the diocese.

Brown, who was then based at St Carthage's cathedral, had oversight over the whole Lismore diocese, which includes the towns of Kempsey, Coffs Harbour, Grafton, Lismore, Byron Bay and Tweed Heads. The town of Lismore is merely where the bishop has his headquarters.

Child abuse by Fr Rex Brown, 1960 onwards

Father Rex Brown began ministering in the Lismore diocese in 1959 and he was a danger to children from Day One. According to the current chancellor of the Lismore diocese in 2013 (Deacon Christopher Wallace, giving evidence at the Child Abuse Royal Commission in December 2013), a woman has told the Lismore diocese that (as a schoolgirl about 1960) she was touched sexually by Brown in the cathedral. This girl reported this incident to a nun at school but received a belting for casting aspersions on the priest. This victim, who turned ten years of age in September 1960, has also spoken to Broken Rites (in 2004).

About 1981, another family complained to the Lismore diocese (but, unfortunately, not to the police) that Rex Brown had sexually assaulted their son. The diocese's "solution" was to transfer Brown from the cathedral but (as usual in such cases) it retained him in the ministry, sendng him to a parish at Kyogle and later (in  April 1982) to St Joseph's parish at Tweed Heads, thus inflicting him on additional potential victims. Despite his child-abuse, the diocese appointed Brown to the senior position of Episcopal Vicar supervising other priests in parishes in the diocese's north.

Retired to Queensland

About 1986, when he was in his early fifties, Brown was liable to face possible criminal charges involving children. The Lismore diocese authorities arranged for him to take indefinite leave from parish work, while still remaining officially a priest of the Lismore diocese.

He moved across the Queensland border to a private address at Palm Beach on the Gold Coast. Broken Rites has researched Brown's addresses in old annual editions of the Australian Catholic directories. In 1988 he was listed in an apartment at 3 Nineteenth Avenue, Palm Beach. In 1994 it was an apartment at 1374 Gold Coast Highway, Palm Beach. In 1995 it was an apartment at 56 Tallebudgera Drive, Palm Beach. These places are all near Burleigh Heads, which is within the Brisbane Catholic diocese.

Still calling himself "Father" Brown, he participated in church congregations (as a "retired" priest) on the Gold Coast, particularly in Palm Beach, which was part of the Burleigh Heads parish. Meanwhile, the Lismore diocese continued to list Brown in the Australian Catholic Directory as one of its "supplementary priests" (that is, still available for freelance ministry, such as relieving other priests and engaging in "youth work").

It is not clear why Rex Brown found it necessary in his fifties to take early "retirement" from full-time appointment in Lismore diocese parishes. A former youth worker, who observed Brown's activities in the early 1980s, told Broken Rites in 2007: "It was not normal for the church authorities to remove a priest merely because of child abuse. They might shift a priest to put him beyond the reach of the police. Insiders from the Lismore diocese believe that the diocese was glad to see Brown go on leave because his expensive lifestyle was a drain on church funds. Some of his big spending was to silence his victims."

Convicted for child-porn

Early in 1996, Broken Rites discovered that Queensland police (from the Juvenile Aid Bureau at Surfers Paradise) were investigating Father Rex Brown for complaints regarding boys on the Gold Coast. Raiding Brown's Palm Beach residence, the police found child pornography featuring boys. The police then prosecuted Brown on the child pornography charge, although more serious charges might have been more appropriate.

Broken Rites ascertained that in Southport Magistrates Court (Queensland) on 27 March 1996, Paul Rex Brown pleaded guilty regarding the child pornography, and magistrate David Hogan fined him $300. Broken Rites alerted the media about this court hearing and, as a result, the conviction was reported in the Gold Coast Bulletin on 2 April 1996 and the Lismore Northern Star on 3 April 1996.

The Queensland detectives told Broken Rites in 1996 that Brown was lucky to get off with merely a conviction for pornography. One detective told Broken Rites: "It is like the 1920s when the FBI could not catch the United States gangster Al Capone for serious crimes but he eventually got convicted in 1931 for income-tax evasion."

Even after his pornography conviction, Brown still frequented a Catholic congregation in Palm Beach. In 2002, a Palm Beach man contacted Broken Rites saying: "I heard that Brown had a conviction for pornography, so I went around to the Palm Beach church, where I saw Rex Brown's name on a notice board about being involved in something. I checked with the parish priest, who confirmed to me that, yes, Rex Brown does come to this parish and that he is a retired priest."

Buried with church honours

Brown died on 30 June 2005. Broken Rites discovered that, at the time of his death, he was still listed in the Australian Catholic Directory as a "supplementary priest (retired)" of the Lismore diocese. He was given a Requiem Mass in St Carthage's Cathedral, Lismore, and was buried, with honour, among his fellow priests in the East Lismore cemetery.

After the funeral, a senior priest from St Carthage's Cathedral wrote a glowing, sanitised tribute to Father Rex Brown in the newsletter of Trinity Catholic College, Lismore, where Brown had been a pupil. The tribute ended: "May he be embraced in the eternal love of the Most Holy Trinity." The tribute gave the impression that Father Brown was a high-achieving priest, presumably a model for other boys to follow.

The story of Eric

At St Joseph's parish in Tweed Heads (near the Queensland border) in the early 1980s, Rex Brown made his presbytery (the parish house) into a drop-in centre for boys, including some boys from a local refuge for homeless youth — Futcher House, Tweed Heads. (Futcher House is pronounced as in "future".) Futcher House was associated with Rex Brown's parish and Brown was a frequent visitor to this refuge.

At Tweed Heads, Brown would choose a homeless boy to live with him in the presbytery as his sexual partner.

One such boy was Eric, who spoke to Broken Rites in 2007, asking us to publish his story:

"I was born in May 1967 and grew up in western Sydney. My father was an alcoholic and drug addict. When I was 13, I ran away from home. In 1982, when I was 14 and still homeless, I went to the Futcher House youth refuge, in St Joseph's parish in Tweed Heads.

"Later, the Tweed Heads priest, Father Rex Brown, persuaded me to leave Futcher House and live at his parish house, the presbytery. To do this, Brown needed the approval of the Lismore diocese leadership. That is, the Lismore diocesan leadersip already knew about the 1981 complaint against Rex Brown; and they knew that he later had me living in his house; and they turned a blind eye to this.

"A youth worker at Futcher House, named Luke, tried to talk me out of moving to live with Brown but, unfortunately, I did not take his advice.

"From time to time, church officials from the Lismore Diocese (even the bishop himself) would visit the Tweed Heads parish but they didn't take any action about me living with a paedophile priest. They just left me at risk.

"At the presbytery, on a daily basis, after dinner, Father Rex Brown would encourage me to drink with him and would get me drunk. He would sit me on his lap, cuddle me and touch me on the genitals. He would get me to masturbate him. Eventually he forced me to perform oral sex on him. He ejaculated which made me feel sick.

"Father Brown kept an open house at the presbytery for boys aged about 14. He was a big spender and he seemed to have access to a plentiful supply of church funds. He would always offer us smokes and alcohol. He would take us to fancy restaurants. He would take me to Brisbane occasionally and we would stay in a motel.

"Other church people knew that Brown was molesting me. At one time a Marist Brother was staying at this presbytery. And another priest was living there, although he was out a lot.

"A woman came to the presbytery every day to cook and clean for Father Brown and me, and she would have known the danger that I was in, but (like the clergy) she maintained the church's code of silence.

"Another visitor to Brown's house was Father F******, from the Armidale diocese. Certain things happened to me at the hands of Father F*****.

"Father Brown also used to molest a homeless boy named Mark, two years younger than me, from Sydney, who was living at Futcher House. After a while, Mark suddenly left the parish with a lot of money and returned to Sydney but he threw himself under a train and committed suicide. This was reported in the newspapers. A brother of Mark's had previously died in the same way — under a train. I felt responsible and embarrassed for not having the guts to report the cruelty that Father Brown inflicted on Mark and me.

"Brown also spoke affectionately about a boy whom he had befriended at the Kyogle parish.

"I left the Tweed Heads presbytery in 1985."

Impact on Eric's life

Eric told Broken Rites how his personal development was disrupted by the Catholic Church's "Reverend" Rex Brown:

"Father Rex Brown encouraged me to drink alcohol. He himself was a big drinker. He would drink first thing in the morning and he would drive a car (with me as a passenger) when he was drunk. He would also let me drive his car and would make me run errands for him.

"His drinking set a bad example for me. I developed a problem with alcohol myself.

"My education was not looked after as Father Brown insisted I stay with him and I was not encouraged to go to school. These were wasted years, at a crucial stage in my life.

"I have been unsuccessful at maintaining a relationship.

"My complaint is not merely about what Father Brown did with his hands but also about the diocese leadership for knowingly inflicting a paedophile priest on me.

"The church had a responsibility to ensure that someone like Father Brown was not foisted on me and also to make sure that the crimes were not covered up. The church owes me an apology for what the church (not just Rex Brown) did to me." 

Eric and "Towards Healing"

After Eric went through Towards Healing, he told Broken Rites all about the process:

"In early 2007, when I was living in Mackay in central Queensland, I contacted the church's Professional Standards Office (Towards Healing) in Sydney, who passed me on to a smaller PSO in Brisbane. I  told Towards Healing about my two complaints: the abuse by Rex Brown; and the failure of the then bishop of Lismore to protect me. Towards Healing told me that their process could not accept any complaint about a bishop and they restricted me to the Rex Brown matter.

"Towards Healing said they would arrange for a church representative to interview me in my home town, Mackay, but eventually (after a very long, frustrating delay) they said it would have to be in Rockhampton (450km away from my home), and that the interview would have to be at 8.00am. So I drove all that way in the middle of the night, arriving by 8.00am, but had to wait an hour and half at a church community centre, where I was finally interviewed by a woman. I was not told what her qualification were.

"I told the woman my story and she kept making me repeat the story over an over, while each time she would try and soften (and lessen) the sexual abuse.   When I explained that father brown would sit me on his lap and try and make me fondle him sexually, she trivialized it by asking: 'Was he just giving you a good night kiss?'

"I said that Father Brown wanted me to suck his penis.  But the woman still tried to interpret is in a less serious fashion.

"When I tried to tell her about what a visiting priest from Armidale (Father F******)  did to me while he was staying in Rex Brown's presbytery, she told me: 'Oh we're not here to discuss anything except the Rex Brown matter'.

"I also wanted to mention that the bishop of Lismore was aware of me living with Father Brown and I got the same response. 

"After this meeting (and after many more weeks of silence), I contacted Towards Healing again, asking about the next step. They made me return to Rockhampton for another interview. This time I insisted that they pay for my accommodation and they did. The interview, with two people from Professional Standards, was very official and they were very cold. No sympathy was given and I felt very ashamed..

"Several weeks later, they arranged for me and my partner to fly to Brisbane to meet with a bishop (a bishop from Brisbane, not Lismore). When we arrived we were taken to a very darkened room were there were four people on one side of the table and we were sat opposing.  We were introduced to the bishop who was dressed in full church gear with jewelry.  Also present were three women, and we were given only their first names. I felt embarrassed telling intimate details to three women and a bishop.

"When I told the Brisbane bishop about the bishop of Lismore, he stopped me and stated that this was not about bishops but only about Father Brown. I tried to talk to him about the other priests that came to visit and again he cut me off.

"During all these months of dealing with Towards Healing, the church representatives all seemed lacking in sympathy.  First, I was made to feel that I was telling a made-up story and later I was made to feel that my abuse was just one of life's normal issues.  Their attitude was that I should get over it and move on.

"When you explain to them the torture  you went through and the daily battle you still face today, there is no apology no sympathy  - just the feeling that you have no right or reason to feel the way you do. 

"I now realise that Towards Healing  is designed to protect the church, not to protect me.

"Eventually the Lismore diocese paid me a relatively small amount of compensation, although not enough to make up for the disruption that the diocese has caused to my life by its harbouring of a paedophile priest, Father Paul Rex Brown."

• By a Broken Rites researcher, article updated 14 June 2019

This article explains why Broken Rites Australia advises church-abuse victims to have a chat with child-protection detectives in the state police force. The Melbourne Catholic archdiocese ignored the child-sex crimes of FatherDesmond Gannon throughout his long career. This cover-up ended in 1993 when the newly-formed Broken Rites began encouraging church-victims to consult the child-protection detectives. In 1995 this resulted in a jail sentence for Gannon. Altogether, Gannon has been sentenced five times (in 1995, 1997, 2000, 2003 and 2009) for sexual crimes against children. But the Catholic Church did not totally strip Gannon of his priestly status until 2012, when the church hierarchy became alarmed about the launching of Victoria's parliamentary investigation into church-related child sex-abuse.

The Gannon story has two lessons for all church-abuse victims:-

1. The Gannon story demonstrates how specialist police officers (in Victoria, the Sexual Offences and Child Abuse Investigation Team or SOCIT), can help victims to obtain justice. Gannon had molested boys from the time he was ordained in 1956 but the church culture managed to cover up his crimes. Finally, in 1993-94, some of his victims contacted the SOCIT police (instead of the church) and this shattered the cover-up.
2. The Gannon story also demonstrates how the media can help victims. The news of Gannon's first court appearance, in 1995, showed other Gannon victims (and also victims of other clergy) that they could safely end their silence, while still maintaining their privacy. This led to Gannon's second, third, fourth and fifth court appearances. The media coverage helped to promote public awareness about the importance of child protection.

Broken Rites research

Desmond Laurence Gannon was born on 27 August 1929. His father worked in the Melbourne tramways. Des Gannon completed Year 11 at school and then worked in the Commonwealth Bank for three years. He entered the Melbourne seminary at age 21, slightly older than average in those days.

Gannon was ordained on 22 June 1956. By searching through the annual Australian Catholic directories, Broken Rites has ascertained that Fr Des Gannon ministered in the following Melbourne parishes: Glenhuntly 1957-62, Alphington 1962-65, Braybrook 1965-66, Ashburton 1966-67, St Kilda East 1968, Kilmore 1968-71, Braybrook again 1971-79 and Macleod-Rosanna 1980-93.

How the Gannon case began

Broken Rites researchers, who were present throughout Gannon's court proceedings, have compiled the following summary.

Before 1993, victims of church sexual abuse would often either remain silent or, perhaps, merely tell the church, rather than the police. But by 1993-94, victims increasingly contacted the SOCIT police, instead of the church.

In 1993 and early 1994, four men (from different parishes and acting separately) notified the SOCIT unit about having been molested by Father Desmond Gannon when they were boys. After the victims had been interviewed by the SOCIT unit, an investigation was conducted in the Caulfield criminal investigation unit (by Detective Senior Constable Rick Pennington). The detectives interviewed Gannon, who said he wanted to talk to a lawyer before addressing the allegations.

One of these complainants ("Peter", who was aged 48 in 1993), was seeing a private counsellor about Gannon-related issues. Peter, who was acquainted with senior clerics of the Melbourne archdiocese, asked the archdiocese in 1993 to pay the counselling fees.

The archdiocese, aware that the Gannon issue could escalate, agreed to begin paying the counsellor. Furthermore, fearing public exposure, the archdiocese arranged for Gannon to go "on leave" from his Macleod-Rosanna parish. The parishioners were not told the reason why Father Des was leaving — they were told (falsely) that he was leaving for "health" reasons.

In early 1994, the police summoned Gannon to court to answer charges of indecent assault.

Gannon's first court case

Judging from their earlier interview with Gannon, the police expected that the church lawyers would fight the Gannon charges, with a "not guilty" plea, which would necessitate a long court hearing, perhaps over several days. The case was listed for a "mention" on 4 April 1995 (a mention day is usually a day when the prosecution and the defence agree on a subsequent date for a full hearing). But when the case was called for mention at 10.00am on April 4, Gannon's lawyers asked for an immediately hearing (that morning), saying that Gannon would plead guilty. A guilty plea means that the matter can be disposed of in one morning, without the need to examine witnesses and (the church hoped) without publicity.

Until April 4, the church lawyers had good reason to expect that the case might slip right through the court system on that very day, unnoticed by the media. The case was being heard not in the prominent Melbourne Magistrates Court, where journalists congregated, but in a low-profile suburban court at Prahran, 5 kilometres from the city centre. If no reporters turned up, the public would not learn about the case.

However, to the church's surprise, Broken Rites had alerted the media. And reporters (from daily newspapers, suburban weekly papers and TV Channel Ten) were indeed present in court, taking notes.

Gannon pleaded guilty to nine incidents of indecent assault against four boys aged 11 and 12. Two of the victims were assaulted in the Glenhuntly parish in 1958, one in Ashburton in 1967 and one in Braybrook in 1973.

Two were altar boys. Gannon allegedly asked one boy to help him after school "answering the phone" and he also asked the boy's parents to let him stay overnight at the presbytery.

Gannon allegedly told one boy that he was "writing a book on sexuality" and told another that he wanted to "do tests" on him.

The offences consisted of: Father Gannon handling the boys' genitals; or making a boy masturbate the priest; or Father Gannon putting his genitals against a boy's bottom.

The prosecutor said all four victims were still affected by their experiences and still needed psychological counselling.

The prosecutor said the four victims went to the police separately.

The victims were not required to attend court.

Gannon's lawyer, addressing the court regarding a sentence, remarked that journalists were present in court. He said that the media coverage would be a big penalty for Gannon and therefore (he said) the court should impose a lenient sentence.

Magistrate Tony Ellis sentenced Gannon to a year in jail on each of the nine charges but allowed Gannon to serve the nine sentences concurrently — that is, one year behind bars. Gannon was not to be eligible for parole.

By 12.00 noon, the case was finished, and Gannon was escorted from the court building in custody, heading for jail. His departure was filmed by a Channel Ten camera crew.

One victim said outside the court: "We are merely the few who went to the police. Gannon admitted our assaults in court but he did not volunteer anything about other victims. I believe that there are many other Gannon victims who have not yet gone to the police."

Media coverage

Before the Gannon court case, Broken Rites alerted Melbourne newsrooms about the case coming up. Therefore, within an hour or so of Gannon's conviction, the story was being reported that afternoon (4 April 1995) on hourly radio news bulletins. Channel Ten's evening news bulletin showed footage of Gannon being escorted to a police wagon, on his way to jail. There were reports next day in Melbourne's two daily papers (the "Age" and "Herald Sun") and later in suburban weekly papers in all the districts where Gannon had worked.

Melbourne's Catholic community was stunned when it heard, for the first time, about Gannon's criminal charges and about his guilty plea and his jailing. Previously, Catholics had been told that Gannon was "on leave".

The MacLeod-Rosanna parish, in Melbourne's north-east, erupted in turmoil as parishioners criticised the church authorities for having tried to conceal Gannon's activities. Parishioners complained that the church authorities had made no attempt to find out how many other Gannon victims there were and whether these victims required professional help. And the church had made no attempt to locate — and help — victims in Gannon's previous parishes.

An evening meeting of parishioners was held at the Macleod-Rosanna parish, at which the vicar-general (chief administrator) of the Melbourne archdiocese (Monsignor Gerald Cudmore) spoke about the Gannon issue. Broken Rites representatives were in the audience. When a Broken Rites representative asked if Gannon was likely to face allegations from further victims, Gerry Cudmore replied: "Not to my knowledge."

Although he was behind bars, Gannon was still officially a priest. Twelve months after his conviction, the Melbourne archdiocese still included him in its list of "Supplementary Diocesan Priests" in the 1996 edition of the Directory of Australian Catholic Clergy (published by the National Council of Priests). And the archdiocese put the letters PE after Gannon's name. PE is short for Pastor Emeritus (meaning a pastor who has retired with honour). All this was while he was in jail.

Gannon's second court case

Gannon's 1995 conviction (and the media coverage) prompted more victims to come forward. Some merely contacted the church and left their complaint "in the hands of the church" but others contacted Broken Rites which arranged for them to have a confidential chat with detectives from the police SOCIT Unit.

Released from jail on 4 April 1996 (after serving the full 52 weeks behind bars), Desmond Gannon was immediately charged by Caulfield Criminal Investigation Unit with further offences. In the Melbourne Magistrates Court on 25 February 1997, he pleaded guilty to indecently assaulting three more boys in the 1960s: a 13-year-old boy in Alphington; a 12-year-old boy in Kilmore (a student at the Marist Brothers' Assumption College); and a seven-year-old boy in Ashburton.

Magistrate Brian Barrow sentenced Gannon to 12 months in jail. This sentence, however, was suspended because it would have been served concurrently with his first sentence if all the offences had come to light at the same time.

Thanks to Broken Rites, a report of this hearing (with a photo of Gannon) appeared in the Melbourne "Age" on 26 February 1997.

Gannon's third court case

After press reports of his second conviction, still more of Gannon's victims contacted Broken Rites and/or the police. This time, the charges were more serious. Gannon appeared in the Melbourne County Court on 30 June 2000 for sentence.

The charges involved indecent assaults on four boys in parishes at Alphington, Ashburton, East St Kilda and Braybrook in the 1960s and '70s.

Desmond Gannon pleaded guilty to 11 counts of indecent assault and four counts of gross indecency against four boys, aged 11 to 14, between January 1963 and December 1976.

The offences included masturbation of the victims, having the victims masturbate him, acts of oral penetration and simulated intercourse. According to the prosecution brief, these incidents were more serious than the ones for which he had previously been convicted.

Judge John Barnett said the four boys had been adversely affected by Gannon's behaviour to an extent that many years later they took their complaints to police.

The judge told Gannon: "In each case they have lost their faith in religion and in each case, of course, you have abused the trust that your church and their parents placed in you."

However, despite the fact that these offences were more serious than in the previous cases, Judge Barnett declined to jail Gannon. He imposed a three-year suspended sentence. The judge said that it would have been preferable if these four victims had come forward at the same time as the previous prosecutions so that a sentence could have been applied to all the offences simultaneously.

Thanks to Broken Rites, this hearing was reported in the Melbourne Age on 1 July 2000.

Gannon's fourth court case

On 21 August 2003, Desmond Gannon appeared in the Melbourne County Court again, charged with indecently assaulting a boy, then 14, at Carnegie in 1958-59. Gannon, aged nearly 75, pleaded guilty.

The court heard that the boy told his Catholic parents of the incident but they accused him of lying. He contacted police in 2000 after Gannon's third conviction.

The prosecutor said the victim's relationship with his parents was never the same. They died before knowing his allegations were true.

Fifth court case, May 2009

The Victoria Police (through their Sexual Offences and Child Abuse unit) continued to receive complaints about Gannon. On 21 May 2009, Gannon (aged 79) again appeared in the Melbourne County Court, where he pleaded guilty to five incidents of indecent assault against an eleven-year-old boy (let us call him "Sam") at the Kilmore parish (north of Melbourne), between 1968 and 1970.

The court was told that the boy was a pupil at Kilmore's St Patrick's Primary School in 1968 when he was asked by his class teacher to go with Gannon in a car to "pick up some typewriters".

During this excursion, Gannon talked to the boy about being without a father. Gannon used this as an excuse to give the boy an "anatomy" lesson. Gannon drove the boy to a secluded bush track, where he removed the boy's pants. He told the boy "this is your penis" and then started to masturbate the boy. [In criminal law, this action by an adult against a child is called indecent assault.]

Later on the same day, Father Gannon put a blanket on the ground, removed all his own clothes and the victim's clothes. He made the boy touch Gannon's penis.

Father Gannon put his erect penis between the boy's legs and simulated intercourse. Father Gannon ejaculated. The boy was crying and felt sick.

Father Gannon told the boy not to tell anyone because that they would not believe him. As a "reward", Gannon allowed the boy to steer the car on the way back to Kilmore.

The victim remained silent about the priest's assaults because his parents were devout Catholics, the court was told.

On another occasion, Gannon mauled the boy's penis while the boy was putting on his altar-boy robes prior to assisting Gannon celebrate Mass in 1968. Immediately after this assault, Gannon conducted the Mass.

And he mauled the boy's penis in the pump room of the swimming pool at the Marist Brothers' Assumption College in Kilmore in 1969. After this incident, Gannon gave the boy a cigarette as a reward.

Father Gannon used to frequent the Assumption College pool as a supervisor, the court was told.

In 2008, when police began investigating the victim's complaint, they arranged for the victim to telephone Gannon from the detectives' office. During this conversation (secretly recorded by the police), the victim reminded Gannon about the sexual abuse but Gannon refused to apologise to the victim. He told the victim: "I won't say sexual abuse because at the time I didn't know what it was."

When police later interviewed Gannon, they asked him why he took the boy to the secluded bush location and touched his penis. Gannon replied that he was giving the boy some sex education — explaining the "differences in anatomy".

"I thought it was less formal, rather than inviting him into the presbytery and that's all," Gannon told the police.

Police arrested Gannon at his home unit in Albion Road, Box Hill, on 21 May 2008.

Pre-sentence submissions, May 2009

At Gannon's pre-sentence hearing on 21 May 2009, three witnesses gave character evidence in court on behalf of Gannon. Each knew Gannon at his final parish, Macleod-Rosanna, where (they said) he was well-regarded among the parish's 1,000 families. In addition, these witnesses told the court that, when Des Gannon left the parish, the parish's families were not told about the impending criminal charges. Parishioners found out only after Gannon's 1995 jailing was reported in the media. The three character witnesses were:

• Retired Baptist minister Donald Leslie Johnson, who once worked as an aged-care chaplain in the Macleod-Rosanna district, told the court that he did not know in the early 1990s why Des Gannon left the Macleod-Rosanna parish but discovered later about the jail sentence and the reasons for it. Johnson, who spoke warmly in support of Gannon, said that Gannon had never said he knew that what he did was wrong.
• Stephen Francis Mudd, public accountant, of Bundoora, told the court that from 1980 onwards he was a parishioner at Macleod-Rosanna, where he helped to supervise up to 55 altar boys. When Des Gannon left the parish, the next priest (Father Peter Robinson) explained to the congregation that Father Des was "suffering bad health". Mudd said that, a year or so later, he discovered about Gannon's criminal court case. Mudd said that he kept in contact with Gannon, who went to prisons at Pentridge (Melbourne), then Sale (eastern Victoria) and Ararat (western Victoria).
• Janice Mary Gleeson, of Tecoma, a Sister in the Good Samaritan religious order for 55 years, said she started working with Fr Des Gannon at Macleod-Rosanna parish in 1986. She said that, in 1986, she knew that there were rumours about Gannon touching children but (she said) she did nothing about this, leaving it to other people (such as his fellow priests) to deal with this issue. After Gannon was charged [in 1994], Archbishop Frank Little asked Sister Gleeson to provide "pastoral support" to Gannon and his family and she continued doing this while he was in jail and also after he left jail. [There was no mention in court of the church authorities seeking in 1994 to locate victims of Gannon in order to offer pastoral support to them; the only pastoral support mentioned in court was for Gannon, not for victims.] Sister Gleeson said Gannon was now living in a block of nine units, where he was providing "pastoral care" to the other residents.

In his final submission, Gannon's lawyer asked the court to impose a non-custodial sentence. During this submission, Gannon's lawyer referred to the victim as "this fellow".

The lawyer said that (despite all his convictions) the Melbourne Catholic archdiocese was still supporting Gannon, by paying rent for the home unit where Gannon resided in Box Hill, Melbourne.

The defence claimed that Gannon was feeling remorse for his offences.

However, Judge Gucciardo questioned the extent of the remorse because Gannon had failed to apologise in the May 2008 taped phone conversation.

During the final submission by the defence, Judge Gucciardo remarked that Gannon told the victim in the May 2008 taped phone conversation: "I was trying to help you at the time." The victim told Gannon that the sexual abuse had wrecked his life, but Gannon replied: "You look pretty good to me." In the phone chat, Gannon also bemoaned the loss of his church job.

Prosecutor Raymond Gibson, in his final submission, said the offences were a gross breach of trust by a man holding the respectable status of a clergyman.

Mr Gibson pointed to the age disparity — a 40-year-old man targeting an eleven-year-old victim.

Furthermore, Mr Gibson said, the boy was from a single-parent family, living with his mother and lacking a father figure. It was in this context that Gannon claimed to be teaching the boy about sex.

The offences were planned and deliberate and had long-term psychological effect on the victim, Mr Gibson said.

In the taped phone conversation, the victim asked Gannon to apologise for the sexual abuse but Gannon denied that it was abuse, Mr Gibson said. This showed Gannon's lack of remorse, Mr. Gibson said.

Victim attempted suicide

An impact statement by the victim was submitted to the court. The victim ("Sam", aged 51 at the time of the impact statement) stated that after the abuses he had felt "broken, old, clumsy, dirty, ugly, guilty, confused, rejected, worthless and scared". The priest’s breach of trust, plus the church’s veil of silence, had a devasting effect on his life, the victim said. He said he did not socialise as a normal child after the offences.

"It destroyed all my hopes and dreams," the statement said.

Years later, he attempted suicide.

The victim said he has been helped by reporting Gannon to the police. He said: "At last I can finally speak out. Not like the dark old days, people are listening now."

Jailed, June 2009

At the sentencing on 10 June 2009, Judge Frank Gucciardo spoke at length about all the evidence and submissions in the case.

The judge recounted the details of the Kilmore offences. Referring to the “anatomy” lesson that Gannon gave to the boy, the judge said: “This was a well-worn, thought-out routine, with sex education a poor excuse,"

The judge read to the court the victim's impact statement, detailing the effect on the victim's later life.

The judge referred to the taped telephone conversation between the victim and Gannon. He also referred to the police interview with Gannon. The judge said that Gannon’s statements show no sign of a true confession and no sign of contrition. He said Gannon’s explanations displayed self-delusion and a lack of understanding of the impact on his victim. He said that Gannon’s attitude to his crimes was nonchalant and dismissive.

The judge sentenced Gannon to 25 months jail, with 14 months to be served behind bars before Gannon could apply for parole. This means that, added to the 12 months jail sentence in 1995, Gannon would finally have served a total of 26 months behind bars.

More complaints

The June 2009 sentencing was reported on all television channels in the evening news bulletins and in the next day’s Melbourne newspapers.

As a result, more Gannon victims have come forward, including another victim from Kilmore and one from Gannon’s final parish (at Macleod-Rosanna in the 1980s).

There are still more Gannon victims who have yet to contact the police. MacLeod-Rosanna parishioners say there are more Gannon victims in that parish.

Apology from the church

A number of Gannon victims, acting separately, have complained about Gannon to the Melbourne archdiocese's "Melbourne Response" office.

For example, Peter (born in 1953) was sexually abused by Gannon at St Michael's parish, Ashburton, in 1966-1967. The abuse (and the church's cover-up) has damaged Peter's adult life. After investigating Peter's complaint in 2013, the Melbourne archdiocese accepted that he had been abused by Gannon. The archdiocese gave Peter a financial settlement, plus a letter of apology (signed by the archbishop) for the abuse.

Involved with Scouts

Gannon's interest in boys was not confined to presbyteries. Gannon was involved in the Scouts.

When Gannon was interviewed by police regarding the Kilmore offences, he stated that he coached a school football team.

And it is known that he used to take boys for holidays at Apollo Bay.

Gannon was among a number of problematic clergy who have been associated with the Marist Brothers'Assumption College, Kilmore. Gannon was the "chaplain" at Assumption College in the late 1960s for two or three years.

Parishes

Here are the full names of Gannon's parishes:

• Glenhuntly (St Anthony's parish) 1957-62,
• Alphington (St Anthony's) 1962-65,
• Braybrook (Christ the King) 1965-66,
• Ashburton (St Michael's) 1966-67,
• St Kilda East (St Mary's) 1968,
• Kilmore (St Patrick's) Oct 1968 to Jan 1971,
• Braybrook (Christ the King) again 1971-79 and
• Macleod-Rosanna (St Martin of Tours) 1980-93.

In these parishes, Gannon also acted as a "chaplain" at local Catholic schools. For example, he was a chaplain at the Christian Brothers Parade College junior school in Alphington, according to a Parade College magazine in 1962.

Father Desmond Laurence Gannon is not to be confused with another Melbourne sex criminal, Father Michael Glennon, who was also jailed.

Patrick's story

The victims who contacted the police were not Gannon's only victims. It would be impossible to estimate the total number of his victims.

Another Gannon victim, "Patrick" (who did not take part in the court cases), contacted Broken Rites in 2007 and asked us to publish his story:

"In the 1960s, early in Gannon's career as a priest, I was a pupil at my local Catholic primary school, and I was also an altar boy. I felt particularly vulnerable, terrified and traumatised, particularly whilst serving early-morning masses by myself during week days and also at other times during the day because our parish school was so close to the parish church.

"On several occasions, Gannon called me over to the presbytery and the school hall to molest me.

"He would ask me to remove my under-clothing, sit me on his knee and grope me, etc, etc.

"I remember talking to one classmate, also a victim at the time, as to why Gannon was doing this. The answer he said was something like "he is testing for salts". The classmate said he did it to some of the girls.

"I was aged 10, 11 or 12 at the time. I was humiliated and too embarrassed to discuss it with anyone, apart from mentioning this to a classmate

"Gannon was aware of my situation. I was a soft target and he took full advantage of it. My mother, a very devout Catholic, left my father when I was 2 years old and we moved to a new address.

"We were relatively poor at the time and I can remember mother contributing her "hard-earned" regularly to the church funds. In terms of sacrifice, this was big for her. While she was faithfully making contributions, Gannon was betraying all trust for the gratification of his own lust by molesting me. How much more despicable can it get?

"The effect this had on me was shocking, bewildering and devastating. I was taught to unconditionally trust the church and clergy. The actions of Gannon broke this trust. I had nowhere to go. I was too embarrassed to tell my mother and I did not trust the church. This led to inner conflict, confusion, fear, trauma and anxiety. I lost my faith, my respect for the church, my self confidence and esteem.

"The on-going effect on my life, prospects and those of my children is immeasurable. The damage has been done and is now part of my psyche. Maybe it has contributed to my inability to have lasting relationships amongst other problems — problems that are hard to quantify, problems I have tried to forget as a self protective mechanism.

"I understand the church attempts to deny these pedophilic offences until they are exposed by victims such as me. This is tantamount to condoning such behavior. It is not my intention to see Gannon suffer, but it is incumbent on the church and its credibility that offending clergy be identified and removed from their positions of trust.

"The church is directly or indirectly responsible for the actions of Gannon. It can't give me back my innocence, but it can as an act of reconciliation compensate me as acknowledgement of the injustice done and provide closure.

"It would also demonstrate that the church is sincere about taking all steps to ensure that these offences are not pushed under the carpet."— End of Patrick's story

Getting help from the police

The Gannon case demonstrates how victims can obtain justice by having a chat with specialist police officers.

Each Australian state has a unit where victims of sexual abuse can consult specialist police. In Victoria, there is a central unit of detectives (called Taskforce Sano), based in Melbourne. In addition, Victoria has a network of local units, called the Sexual Offences and Child Abuse Investigation Team (SOCIT), based in several Melbourne suburbs and in several Victorian regonal areas. In other states there is a different procedure.

• Background article, by a Broken Rites researcher

This Broken Rites article is the most comprehensive account available about how the Catholic Church shuffled a paedophile priest, Father Gerald Ridsdale, from parish to parish for three decades while he committed sexual crimes against children. Broken Rites has been researching Ridsdale since May 1993, when he walked to court for his first sentencing. Broken Rites began supporting Ridsdale's victims, resulting in four more court cases for Ridsdale between 1994 and 2017.

By 27 May 1993, unknown to Ridsdale, one of Ridsdale's victims had alerted the media that Ridsdale was due to appear in court that day for sentencing. Therefore, when Ridsdale approached the court building, accompanied by his support person (Bishop George Pell), a Channel Nine camera man obtained video footage of this scene.

That evening, Channel Nine's news bulletin showed this footage. This publicity alerted other Ridsdale victims, many of whom later rang the newly-established Broken Rites. Broken Rites told these callers the phone number of the Victoria Police child-abuse unit, where they could report Ridsdale's crimes to the detectives.

As detectives interviewed more of his victims, Ridsdale was brought back to court in 1994 and in 2006 and in 2013 and in 2017 to be sentenced again. Each time, Broken Rites alerted all media outlets before the court date. After each court case, more Ridsdale victims contacted Broken Rites and, as a result, many (but not all) of these victims eventually spoke to the detectives.

The church knew about Ridsdale

Gerald Ridsdale (born 1934) had his childhood in Ballarat, a "very Catholic" city, where the bishop for western Victoria is located.

In 1960, Ridsdale was in the final stage of his studies as a trainee priest, sponsored by the diocese of Ballarat (which covers the whole of western Victoria). Therefore he was committed to beginning his priestly career in western Victoria after ordination. He began ministering in west Victorian parishes in 1961.

Western Victoria had about 55 parishes, most of which had only one priest. This relatively small team of diocesan priests knew about each other's postings, transfers, promotions and career-disruptions.

In the 1960s, until 1971, Ridsdale's superior was Bishop James O' Collins. In May 1971, O'Collins was succeeded by Bishop Ronald Austin Mulkearns, who had been O'Collins's co-adjutor (assistant) bishop since 1968.

In 1973, Father Ridsdale was located in a parish within the city of Ballarat, living in the parish house of St Alipius in Ballarat East.

According to church documents, Ridsdale offended against children during his seminary training in the late 1950s and again immediately after he was ordained in 1961. Bishop James O'Collins's office learned in 1961 that Ridsdale was abusing a boy in Ballarat. Nevertheless, the church (under Bishop Mulkearns) continued using Ridsdale as a priest, putting more children at risk. The diocese shifted the Ridsdale problem from parish to parish but it never warned parishioners that their children were in danger.

In some parishes, Ridsdale lasted only months or weeks. Early in his posting at the Inglewood parish (in north-central Victoria) in 1975, he fled from this town overnight after some victims reported his crimes to the police, and he had to ask the bishop for a new posting. Ridsdale's sudden disappearance from Inglewood was obvious to his fellow priests in western Victoria.

In the 1980s and early 1990s, Ridsdale was evacuated from the Ballarat diocese — to spend "time-out" in Melbourne, Sydney and the United States, to get him away from his further troubles in western Victoria. This "time-off", especially his overseas trip, was common knowledge among his Victorian colleagues. Priests were always interested to learn that another priest was getting an interstate or overseas trip.

Ridsdale also committed crimes in New South Wales and the United States. He has not yet been brought to justice in those jurisdictions.

His interstate and overseas stints were interspersed with more postings in the Ballarat diocese, all of which ended in more crimes.

Ridsdale was still protected by the church's code of silence. One family says that when they complained to a senior cleric (Monsignor Leo Fiscalini) about Ridsdale committing buggery on their son, the monsignor urged the family to remain silent "for the church's sake".

Around western Victoria, other priests knew about Ridsdale's removals and his times in the "sin bin".

54 victims achieved justice by 2014

By Ridsdale's fourth sentencing, in April 2014, his convictions involved a total of 54 children (mostly boys, plus several girls), aged between six and 16, who were sexually assaulted between 1961 and 1987. These are not Ridsdale's only victims — they are merely those who eventually took advantage of the opportunity to talk with detectives from the Victoria Police and whose cases were included in Ridsdale's pleas of guilty.

Although the first of these convictions was for a crime committed in 1961, this does not mean that Ridsdale waited until 1961 before becoming a danger to children. The significance of "1961" is that this is about the time he was ordained as a Catholic priest, and this status gave him easy access to (and authority over) children. It remains to be seen what he was doing with children before he was ordained.

Only a few of Ridsdale's victims have contacted the police. Other Ridsdale victims (mostly boys, but also a few girls) have contacted Broken Rites or psychiatrists or solicitors or (unwisely) the Catholic Church without contacting the police.

Countless more victims still remain silent. The total number of Ridsdale victims may amount to hundreds.

Many Ridsdale victims still remain silent because they do not want to upset their "loyal Catholic" parents.

Others feel embarrassed about contacting the detectives. Some of the victims in Ridsdale's later court appearances said that this embarrassment was why they had waited so long. However, the police detectives are very helpful to all victims, and the court procedures ensure that the victims' privacy is protected. In these kinds of criminal cases, victims' names cannot be published.

Four court cases, 1993 to 2014

Victoria Police laid the first charges against Ridsdale in 1993, about the time that Broken Rites was planning to establish its national telephone hotline. During the next 13 years, with help from Broken Rites, the police easily found additional Ridsdale victims.

Gerald Ridsdale's four court cases from 1993 ro 2014 were as follows:-

* In May 1993, Ridsdale was summonsed to the Melbourne Magistrates Court, charged with 30 incidents of indecent assault, involving nine boys aged between 12 and 16, occurring between 1974 and 1980. Ridsdale pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 12 months jail (with parole after three months).

* In 1994, largely as a result of the Broken Rites telephone hotline, Ridsdale was charged with indecent assaults, occurring between 1961 and 1981, involving 20 boys , aged 9 to 15, plus the eleven-year-old sister of one of the boys, making a total of 21 victims in this case. He was also charged with five incidents of buggery, involving four of these boys, and the attempted buggery of another one of the boys. Ridsdale pleaded guilty to all the charges. He was jailed for 18 years, with parole possible after 15 years. After this publicity, still more Ridsdale victims phoned Broken Rites and/or the police.

* In 2006, while he was about to begin the 13th year of his jail sentence, Ridsdale was charged with 35 incidents involving 10 boys (the youngest was aged only six) between 1970 and 1987. These included four incidents of buggery, 24 incidents of indecent assault and seven incidents of gross indecency. Ridsdale again pleaded guilty and the court added four years to his existing minimum jail term. This sentence thus delayed Ridsdale's earliest non-parole date to 2013, when he would be 79.

* On 8 April 2014, Ridsdale (aged nearly 80 and still serving his previous prison sentences) was sentenced to eight more years in jail (with a minimum of five years before becoming eligible to apply for parole) on 30 additional charges against 14 victims. Again, he pleaded guilty. These offences included three assaults on a female (Ridsdale committed one of the assaults on this female while he was performing the Catholic sacrament of "Confession" for her).

And Ridsdale pleaded guilty to a fifth batch of additional charges in court in 2017. On 31 August 2017, he was sentenced to more time in jail.

Where the crimes occurred

Gerald Ridsdale's victims were sexually abused inside the church, in the presbytery (the parish house), in the priest's car, in victims' homes, at the home of Ridsdale's parents in the city of Ballarat, during outings, and on holidays with the priest. He molested one boy and his sister a few hours after their father's funeral.

Some of the offences occurred during the sacrament of Confession — while Ridsdale would be asking questions about a child's "sins". After Confession (and after the molestation), Ridsdale would perform the rite of Absolution — an official declaration that the child was forgiven for the child's"sins".

Many offences occurred before and after the celebration of Mass, First Holy Communions, Confirmation ceremonies, weddings and funerals. Many of the victims were altar boys.

One altar boy was even sexually abused at the altar, when the church was empty and locked after Mass.

What Ridsdale did

Gerald Ridsdale committed indecent assault or gross indecency against all of his victims — and, whenever possible, he committed buggery (sodomy) against some of them.

"Buggery", like rape, is a serious felony.

"Indecent assault" (which carries a lesser penalty than buggery) is an invasive sexual touching of another person, falling short of buggery or rape.

"Gross indecency" (which might carry a lesser penalty than indecent assault) could be (for example) forcing someone to witness indecent behaviour.

In Victoria's criminals statutes, indecent assault and gross indecency are classed as a misdemeanour, not a felony.

In sex offences, if the victim is under 16 years old, the perpetrator cannot claim consent as a defence.

The impact on victims

When the court was deciding what sort of jail sentence to impose, many victims submitted written impact statements, telling how Ridsdale had affected their lives. The impact statements, plus comments by the judge, show that the church's role in the Ridsdale affair has disrupted families, marriages and communities.

Many victims found it difficult to tell their Catholic parents that a Catholic priest was a child-molester. Some parents defended Ridsdale and the church, thus alienating their own children. Some victims remained silent, knowing that their "devout" family would not believe them. All this disrupted the relationship between victims and their parents.

For many Ridsdale victims, this was their first "sexual" experience. And this first experience was with a Catholic priest! This had adverse effects on the sexual development of victims, some of whom ended up with sexual problems.

Many victims were struck by the hypocrisy involved. The church preached about "morality" but it harboured immoral clergy. The church's anti-abortion campaign championed the rights of "the unborn child" but the church was not so vigilant about the safety of its altar boys.

Many Ridsdale victims have carried scars into adulthood.

Many have drifted away from the church, often losing contact with the community with which they had grown up.

Some dropped out of school prematurely and left home, feeling bitter about their parents' gullibility and about the church's negligence. These victims would find it hard to achieve a satisfying career.

Some lost their trust in all authority, eventually getting into trouble with the law.

There have been frequent problems with alcohol and drugs. Some victims have had marriage problems. Some victims said their parents' marriages have suffered because of the tensions.

Several witnesses knew of former altar boys of Ridsdale who committed suicide.

Several victims became actively homosexual as adults, and one of these has died from AIDS. One Ridsdale victim went on to molest children himself and spent two years in jail.

The prosecutor told the 2006 court hearing that the effects on Ridsdale's victims and their families had been "catastrophic".

Ridsdale's career in detail

Gerald Francis Ridsdale was born on 20 May 1934 at St Arnaud, in western Victoria, in a Catholic family of eight children, but he grew up in the city of Ballarat, where he attended St Patrick's College (run by the Christian Brothers). His extended family existed in a tribal Catholic environment. During Ridsdale's formative years, there was an entrenched culture of sexual abuse among clergy in western Victoria, including at St Patrick's College, as demonstrated in various court cases in the 1990s.

Gerry Ridsdale left school at 14 and worked for three years as a clerk in an accountant's office in Ballarat. In his teens he became aware of his sexual feelings towards boys.

Ridsdale's sister Shirley has said that Gerald was bossy, tending to over-control his younger siblings. He was power-hungry, she says.

With encouragement from a Ballarat priest, Ridsdale decided to go back to school, aiming to become a priest. He entered Melbourne's Corpus Christi seminary (then at Werribee), as a candidate for the Ballarat diocese.

After four years at this seminary, Ridsdale was chosen to go to Italy for church studies in Genoa, followed by two years in Dublin, Ireland.

Ridsdale was ordained in St Patrick's Cathedral, Ballarat, in July 1961, aged 27. The Ballarat diocese extends westwards from the city of Ballarat to the South Australian border and it includes Mildura and Swan Hill in the north and Portland and Warrnambool in the south.

From 1961 to 1993, Father Gerry Ridsdale's main on-going placements (that is, apart from numerous short relieving stints) were:

• Ballarat Cathedral parish, early 1960s;
• Mildura, mid-1960s;
• Swan Hill, late 1960s;
• Warrnambool, 1970-1;
• Ballarat East, early 1970s;
• Apollo Bay, 1974-5;
• Inglewood , 1975;
• Edenhope, late 1970s;
• In the "sin bin" in Melbourne, 1980;
• Mortlake, 1981;
• parishes in the dioceses of Sydney and Broken Bay, in New  South Wales, 1982-6;
• Horsham, late 1980s;
• In the "sin bin" doing locum work in parishes in the USA, 1990; and
• In the "sin bin" as a chaplain and "counsellor" (!) in western Sydney, 1991-3.

The above list of Ridsdale's main locations does not include other places where he offended. Often he was removed prematurely from his main Victorian parish appointments (evidently because of misbehaviour) and he would then be sent to serve a few weeks as a relieving priest elsewhere — at Port Fairy (St Patrick's), Camperdown (St Patrick's), Colac (St Mary's), Casterton (Sacred Heart), Coleraine (St Joseph's), Koroit (Infant Jesus) and various other parishes.

For example, "Mervyn", who was one of the victims in Ridsdale's 1993 conviction, has told Broken Rites: "I lived in Coleraine, where Ridsdale made numerous visits as a relieving priest. He abused me each time. He conducted a Mass in our house for a member of my family who was dying of cancer."

And in the mid-1970s (between his appointments at Ballarat East and Edenhope), he made several trips to relieve at Swan Hill, where he had ministered a few years earlier. As a result, his victims were scattered throughout Victoria.

Ridsdale's style of operation

Early on, it became obvious that Gerry Ridsdale was obsessed with boys. He maintained an "open house", making his presbytery a drop-in centre for boys. He acquired a pool table and he was an early possessor of colour television, a microwave oven, an electric typewriter, a video-cassette player and computer games — all these became a magnet for boys.

He would often invite a boy to stay overnight. Many "staunch Catholic" parents permitted (and even encouraged) this, believing that a priest is a good role model. But the boy would find that he was forced to share a double bed with Ridsdale.

Sometimes Ridsdale took his victims far away from their families — on trips to other parts of Victoria, such as the presbytery at picturesque Apollo Bay. Even after leaving a parish, he would sometimes re-visit a family, perhaps a year later, to take their son on an outing, during which he would abuse the boy.

He also took boys to White Cliffs in far-western New South Wales, where he had a mining right in an opal region.

A significant proportion of Ridsdale's victims came from large families or families where the father was ill or dead or working away from home or doing shift work. A busy mother would gratefully accept Ridsdale's offer to "help" by taking one of her sons on a trip or to stay at his presbytery.

At his various parishes, Ridsdale acted as a visiting "chaplain" at local schools, thereby gaining access to more boys.

The 1960s

Ridsdale has admitted that, even while working in his very his first parish, he was already abusing children. The earliest of his charged offences was for an incident in late 1961, a few months after his ordination. This victim ("Gilbert") was from Camperdown, in Victoria's south-west. The court was told that Gilbert's father was hospitalised and Ridsdale was "minding" the boy. These assaults of Gilbert occurred at Camperdown and at a seaside resort, Anglesea.

Ridsdale flourished within a climate of entrenched clergy sexual abuse in the Ballarat diocese. In the mid-1960, he spent a period at Mildura (Sacred Heart parish), in Victoria's far north-west, working under the supervision of Monsignor John Day. (Broken Rites has revealed that Monsignor Day was a major child-sex offender, and this revelation has forced the church to offer an apology to Monsignor Day's victims.)

Ridsdale ranged far and wide. The court was told that Ridsdale knew an altar boy from Horsham, in Victoria's far west. This boy's family moved to Wodonga, on the NSW border. Ridsdale visited the Wodonga home and took the boy camping at Mitta Mitta in Victoria's remote north-east, where he sexually assaulted the boy.

Another offence, in 1967-8, involved an altar boy, "Julian", who lived in Swan Hill. Some years later, Julian told his mother about the assaults but she did not believe that a Catholic priest would do a thing like this and she smacked him. This cover-up damaged Julian's relationship with his mother and later with his wife. When he made his police statement in September 1993, Julian was aged 37.

The early 1970s

According to court evidence, the Ballarat diocesan authorities knew at least as early as 1970-1 that Gerry Ridsdale was a risk to boys. Ridsdale was then in Warrnambool (at St Joseph's parish).

One Warrnambool victim ("Ken"), according to a sworn statement tendered in court, told the late Father Thomas Martin Brophy (a priest of the Ballarat diocese) about Ridsdale's abuse — and Brophy duly reported it to the Ballarat diocesan authorities. Father Brophy then told a superior, Monsignor Leo Fiscalini. Ken said that a senior official at the Ballarat diocesan office confirmed to him in 1995 that Fiscalini knew about Ridsdale's abuse.

In 1974, Ken told the Ballarat diocesan office about Ridsdale, and the diocese referred Ken to Father Dan Torpy, who was acting as a counsellor.

Another of Ridsdale's Warrnambool victims was "Gus", an altar boy who was a student at Warrnambool Christian Brothers College (now Emanuel College). Ridsdale has pleaded guilty to indecently assaulting Gus in Warrnambool in 1970, when the boy was 13, and he has also pleaded guilty to committing multiple offences of buggery against Gus  in 1972-3 at Apollo Bay, where Ridsdale had taken the boy for a "holiday".

Psychologist Ian Joblin (a defence witness for Ridsdale) told the 1994 court hearing that Ridsdale had some interviews with a counsellor for sexual matters in 1970-1 while at Warrnambool. The interviews were arranged by the church authorities but Joblin was not sure exactly who.

This all indicates that the church authorities knew, early on, about Ridsdale propensity.

Mr Joblin told the court that Ridsdale was also sent to a Franciscan monk, Father Peter Evans, in the mid-1970s for counselling for his sexual problems.

(Father Evans, who was also a psychiatrist, left the priesthood in 1976, got married and began practising psychiatry publicly in Melbourne. He told a journalist in November 1994 that he could not remember whether or not he had seen Ridsdale, but it was possible that Ridsdale was at a retreat for priests that Father Evans attended.)

In late 1971, Ridsdale was transferred from Warrnambool to be an assistant priest in Ballarat East at the parish of St Alipius (pronounced "al-LEEP-ee-us") where Ronald Mulkeans himself had been the parish priest before becoming the Bishop of Ballarat in 1971.

While working in Ballarat East, Ridsdale also acted as chaplain at the four-classroom St Alipius parish school, where he found like-minded company. Brother Robert Best who taught grade 6, Brother Edward Dowlan who taught grade 5, and Brother Gerald Leo Fitzgerald (now dead) who taught Grade 3, were all child-abusers. So was a later teacher there, Christian Brother Stephen Francis Farrell. All, except Fitzgerald, were later convicted of sex crimes. During Dowlan's County Court trial in 1996, the prosecution alleged that three St Alipius boys were each sexually abused by Dowlan, Best and Ridsdale.

One former St Alipius altar boy said in his police statement, that after he was indecently assaulted by Ridsdale, the priest gave him a piece of Holy Communion bread (as used in Mass) as a reward. Another former altar boy said that Ridsdale indecently assaulted the boy while the boy confessed his sins to the priest during the "sacrament of Confession".

In 1974-5, Ridsdale was re-assigned to the coastal parish of Apollo Bay (Our Lady Star of the Sea parish). One victim here was "Gary" of Colac, who met Ridsdale while the priest was president of the Colac gem club. Ridsdale took him to stay at the Apollo Bay presbytery, where the abuse occurred.

The Church evades police, 1975

In 1975, Gerald Ridsdale was appointed to be in charge of St Mary's parish at Inglewood, an old gold rush town, north-west of Bendigo. Inglewood was then within the Ballarat diocese, although it has since been re-allocated to the Sandhurst (Bendigo) diocese. It was in Inglewood that his crimes first came to the notice of police. Inglewood policeman Bill Sampson received several complaints about Ridsdale and passed them on to Detective Sergeant Col Mooney in Bendigo. Mooney's inquiries were frustrated, however, when some parents would not allow their son to be interviewed, and Mooney was able to obtain only one written statement. Meanwhile, Ridsdale disappeared from the town. Sergeant Mooney visited Bishop Mulkearns to tell him what he had learnt from one victim about Ridsdale's behaviour. The bishop assured Mooney that the Ridsdale situation was under control and the church would handle it. [Forensic psychologist Ian Joblin told the court in the 1994 hearing that he believed that the church already knew about Ridsdale's problem before he went to Inglewood.]

Ridsdale has admitted that he was committing buggery at Inglewood and also before going to Inglewood. One buggery victim in 1975 was "Larry", aged 12, who was an altar boy at another central Victorian town. Ridsdale used to visit Larry's town and he took Larry to stay at the Inglewood presbytery. Larry finally contacted Broken Rites and the police in 1994 and was included in the 1994 prosecution. Another buggery victim in Inglewood in 1975 was "Andy" who also came forward in 1994. Ridsdale pleaded guilty to both of these.

After Ridsdale left Inglewood, the hierarchy gave the town a replacement priest, who (according to victims) soon heard from parishioners about the Ridsdale scandal, which had become the talk of the town since Ridsdale's disappearance.

It is unusual for a priest who is in charge of a parish, as was Ridsdale in 1975 at Inglewood, to suddenly vanish after a few months. Priests take a close interest in each other's appointments — and all of Ridsdale's fellow priests in the Ballarat diocese knew about his sudden disappearance from Inglewood.

After escaping from Inglewood, Ridsdale evidently spent some time based at the Ballarat Cathedral presbytery, doing relieving work in various parishes while awaiting a new appointment. A victim (Stephen) told police in 1994 that, when he went to the Ballarat Cathedral presbytery in 1975 to seek counselling about a sexual matter, Father Ridsdale came to the door. Stephen says that, later that day, Ridsdale sodomised him. (Ridsdale pleaded guilty to this in 1994.).

Stephen said in his police statements that, before being sexually assaulted by Ridsdale, he had also been indecently assaulted by Christian Brother Edward Dowlan and another Christian Brother at the St Alipius primary school, Ballarat East.

Late 1970s

In late 1975, despite the diocese's knowledge about the Inglewood crimes, Ridsdale was appointed to a more remote parish, St Malachy's at Edenhope, near the South Australian border. As usual, Ridsdale's new parishioners were not warned about Ridsdale being a risk to boys. There — unsupervised and out of sight — he committed more crimes (including buggery) until 1979.

In Edenhope, according to his victims, Ridsdale was active and apparently undaunted by his close shave with the police at Inglewood. Edenhope victims remember him coming into parish classrooms and choosing boys whom he would abuse in the nearby presbytery. Victims say the whole school knew that Ridsdale was up to no good.

One victim in the late 1970s was "Shane", an altar boy, who lived at in Ridsdale's earlier parish of Apollo Bay. Ridsdale had sexually abused him frequently while at Apollo Bay. Soon after Ridsdale was appointed to Edenhope, the priest heard that Shane's father died in an accident. Ridsdale returned to the Apollo Bay district to conduct the father's funeral and then offered to take Shane (aged 12) and his sister "Jill" (aged 11) to the Edenhope presbytery. The children's mother gratefully accepted the offer. Back at Edenhope, on the night of the funeral, Ridsdale indecently mauled the girl and later the boy — while they were still grieving their father's death. Jill told police in 1994 that, about 1990, she informed a female counsellor at the Catholic Family Welfare Bureau in Geelong about these assaults but the counsellor did not suggest reporting the priest to the police. Jill said she was surprised and angry about this omission.

Shane said in his police statement: "I couldn't speak to my mother about it [the sexual abuse] because she is really religious... What Ridsdale did to me affected my life in several ways. I have had to keep this secret all my life and I believe that has affected my self-confidence. I was never able to speak to my mother about it because of her religious beliefs and it would have caused her too much pain."

At Edenhope, Ridsdale even sodomised one boy ("Jason") at the altar when the church was empty and locked, after Mass.

More than a decade later — in November 1992 — it was this Jason who phoned the Victoria Police to spark off an investigation that resulted in the first jailing of Ridsdale in 1993. (The sad story of Jason is told at the end of this article.)

The 1980s

A year in Melbourne

By 1980, Gerald Ridsdale's behaviour was so rampant that the diocese sent him to have a rest at the church's "National Pastoral Institute" in Elsternwick, Melbourne. This removal was known to all his colleagues in western Victoria.

Ridsdale continued offending while in Melbourne. In 1980 he met "Peter", aged 12, who lived in Melbourne. Peter was distressed by his parents' impending separation. Ridsdale had a bungalow at the Institute, where he abused Peter. Ridsdale took Peter on a trip to opal fields at White Cliffs NSW and abused him there.

Another parish, more victims

In 1981, despite Ridsdale's record, the Ballarat diocese put him back into parish work at Mortlake (St Colman's parish), in south-western Victoria. Within days of his arrival, a Mortlake mother phoned a senior cleric at the bishop's office in Ballarat to report that Ridsdale had just indecently assaulted her son. According to the victim's family, the cleric remarked that the boy must have a vivid imagination. However, someone in the diocese evidently tipped off Ridsdale, who promptly visited the mother and claimed innocence [but he eventually pleaded guilty in court].

During that year, Mortlake families complained repeatedly to the diocesan office about Ridsdale, but the diocese resisted. The Mortlake story was finally exposed to the public in 1994. One victim told police in 1994 that Ridsdale sexually assaulted nearly all of this boy's mates in his class at St Colman's primary school, Mortlake.

When he went to Mortlake, Ridsdale was still in contact with "Peter", the boy he had abused while living at the National Pastoral Institute. In 1981, Peter went to live with Ridsdale at the Mortlake presbytery. Others victims say Peter was sleeping with Ridsdale. Ridsdale pleaded guilty to indecently assaulting Peter.

One of Ridsdale's Mortlake boys was bleeding from the anus, so his parents complained to a senior priest (Monsignor Leo Fiscalini) in another parish. The parents say Fiscalini urged the boy and his family to remain silent "for the church's sake".

After Ridsdale left Mortlake, parishioners told the next priest (and also the one after that) about Ridsdale's abuse.

Sydney, 1982-86

In 1982 Ridsdale was sent even further away, to Sydney, where the church gave him a desk job at the Catholic Inquiry Centre. In Sydney, where he stayed until 1985, he still found victims. He frequented various Sydney parishes and youth groups.

In the mid-1980s he was being used as a relief priest in the Diocese of Broken Bay, north of Sydney. E.g., about 1985, he was listed as living in the presbytery at Woy Woy (St John the Baptist parish). After Easter 1986, he administered the parish of Forestville (Our Lady of Good Counsel parish) for two months.

Ridsdale is wanted by the NSW police for sex offences in that State. Also, in 1994, the church was served with a civil writ, claiming damages for offences that occurred in Sydney.

During this Sydney period, he also served as a sea-going chaplain on Pacific cruises.

Ridsdale's removal from Victoria did not go unnoticed among his colleagues. At Ridsdale's 1994 pre-sentence hearing, one of his colleagues, Father Frank Madden (giving character evidence on behalf of Ridsdale), was asked about Ridsdale's transfer to Sydney in 1982. Madden told the court: "I knew [in 1982] that he went to [work in] the Sydney Inquiry Centre and to get treatment."

Final parish, late 1980s

Gerald Ridsdale's last parish appointment came in 1986 when the Ballarat diocese posted him to the town of Horsham (the parish of Saints Michael and John), in Victoria's west, where he committed more offences. Also, in August 1987, a 25-year-old Horsham man disclosed to his mother that he had been molested by Ridsdale while staying at the Edenhope presbytery when he was 16. The mother immediately complained to the diocesan office, objecting to Ridsdale's presence in Horsham and demanding that Ridsdale be removed from access to altar boys. The diocese, however, refused to do this and Ridsdale continued at Horsham.

In 1988 (according to evidence in court in 1994) Ridsdale told his colleague Father Frank Madden: "I will have to get out of here. My past is catching up with me."

Trip to the USA, 1990

Eventually, after the Horsham mother persisted, the Ballarat diocese gave Ridsdale a trip to the United States in 1990 to stay at a residence for paedophile priests in Jemez Springs in the state of New Mexico (conducted by a religious order called the Servants of the Paraclete).

Fellow-priests in Victoria knew the reason for the U.S. trip. At Ridsdale's 1994 pre-sentence hearing, one of his colleagues, Father Frank Madden (giving character evidence on behalf of Ridsdale), was asked if he had been aware that Ridsdale was sent to the USA for sexual problems. Madden replied, "Yes."

DEFENCE COUNSEL: "You knew he had a sexual attraction for boys and had been involved in sex activities with boys?"

FATHER MADDEN: "Yes."

DEFENCE COUNSEL: "Before he went to the USA [in 1990], you were aware he was getting counselling from a priest who is a counsellor?"

MADDEN: "Yes, I knew that."

While having his nine-month sojourn at Jemez Springs in New Mexico, Ridsdale also did "locums" for parishes in the local diocese — and the U.S. church has received complaints about him molesting children while in that country.

Another colleague of Ridsdale, Father Brendan Davey (giving evidence on behalf of Ridsdale in 1994), was asked in court about Ridsdale's 1990 trip to New Mexico, USA. Davey was asked: "When he [Ridsdale] came back from New Mexico, did he tell you that he had been a pederast?"

Davey told the court: "Yes."

Ridsdale a "counsellor", 1991-93

Returning to Australia, Gerald Ridsdale was re-appointed to the ministry in 1991 in a far-away location in New South Wales — as a chaplain at St John of God psychiatric hospital (operated by the Catholic religious order of St John of God Brothers) in Richmond, west of Sydney. According to church procedures, such an appointment would require the approval of Ridsdale's superior, the bishop of Ballarat.

Ridsdale's role as chaplain included counselling patients. One wonders how it was possible for the church to allow a sex-offender, like Ridsdale, to be inflicted on psychiatric patients in a "counselling" role.

And not just that. The patients at St John of God included patients who were suffering from the effects of sexual abuse. That is, the church was allowing a sex abuser (Ridsdale) to "counsel" the kind of victims that he himself had abused. This was revealed in 2002 by former staff and patients at the hospital in the Sydney "Daily Telegraph" and the Melbourne "Herald Sun" on June 4 and 5, 2002.

A former patient in 1992, Steven R, told a reporter: "I remember him [Ridsdale]. He used to come around and sit with us ... and console us. We had a day room with about 30 patients. Most had been sexually abused as children. He used to touch me on the leg. I used to hate that."

A victim tells the police

In late 1992, while Ridsdale was still working at the St John of God hospital, Victoria Police publicised a phone-in ("Operation Paradox") regarding child sex-abuse. One caller was "Jason", a Ridsdale victim from Edenhope. Jason signed his first police statement on 5 November 1992. Police then began making inquiries about Ridsdale. Jason was able to nominate other possible victims — and not just in Edenhope.

Early in 1993, Victoria Police summoned Ridsdale from New South Wales to Victoria for his first court appearance.

A former nurse at the St John of God hospital, Jeffrey Green, told the "Daily Telegraph" he recalled Ridsdale being at the hospital one Friday and then "he just disappeared in a puff of smoke". Mr Green said: "One of the St John of God Brothers told me that Ridsdale had to return to Melbourne because of family problems. It was later discovered that Ridsdale had been jailed."

Mr Green said he worked alongside Ridsdale and was "livid" when he discovered Ridsdale's background.

Mr Green said: "He [Ridsdale] was a perpetrator and they chose to bring him back to work with victims of child sexual-abuse. They chose to put him in this position without anybody's knowledge. That charade was maintained until the day he went to court.

"The hospital did everything they could to cover this up, they were evasive about it. I asked one of the St John of God Brothers, 'How could you allow a pedophile to work here in this hospital?' and his response was, 'We knew nothing'.

Mr Green said: "But somebody must have known. His bishop must have known..."

Ridsdale's nephew, David

Ridsdale sexually abused several of his nephews. One of these, David Ridsdale, was a victim in the 1993 prosecution. [David Ridsdale later spoke in the media about his experiences, using his real name, so that is why Broken Rites is using David's real name in this article.]

David Ridsdale came from a family of nine children. He said it was "very Catholic" home. David said that originally his uncle Gerald was his hero. At one stage, David even aspired to be a priest. But when he was aged 11 in the late 1970s, his uncle started molesting him.

David said: "He offered to teach me to drive his car. I had no idea what was going on.

"He had a great deal of trust within the family. He told me straight that no-one would believe me if I said anything [about the abuse]."

The abuse continued until David was 15, in 1982, disrupting David's sexual development and leaving scars on David's adolescence and adulthood. He became a rebel at home and travelled the country aimlessly.

David remained silent about the abuse for many years. He did not want his grandmother (Gerrry Ridsdale's mother) to know about it.

Police charges

In February 1993, when he was 25, David Ridsdale phoned the police, who made an appointment for him to talk to detectives, so that he could make (and sign) a written statement about the crimes that his uncle had committed on David. In fact, unknown to David, detectives had already opened a file on Gerald Ridsdale because another victim ("Jason" from the Edenhope parish in far-western Victoria) had made a police statement about having been abused by Ridsdale. The detectives soon found some more of Ridsdale's victims.

So, in February 1993, police formally charged Father Gerald Francis Ridsdale with indecently assaulting five boys, including David and "Jason". Later, four more victims were added to the case, making a total of nine.

The first court case, 1993

Gerald Ridsdale was scheduled to appear in the Melbourne Magistrates Court on 27 May 1993. One of his victims alerted the media. This is how a Channel Nine camera man happened to be waiting for the arrival of Ridsdale. A reporter from The Age daily newspaper, also, was in court; and a story appeared in the next edition of this paper. Broken Rites still possesses a cutting of this Age news story.

Gerald Francis Ridsdale pleaded guilty regarding nine boys (when he was in parishes at Apollo Bay, Ballarat East, Inglewood and Edenhope) and was jailed for a minimum of three months.

After being released from jail in August 1993, Ridsdale spent some time staying at his family's home in Ballarat and also at a presbytery in western Victoria, where the parish priest was a friend of his.

Broken Rites hotline

By September 1993, Broken Riteswas becoming known around Australia for its research and church child-abuse and the church cover-ups. Several more victims of Ridsdale telephoned Broken Rites. They said that there are countless more Ridsdale victims out there somewhere.

Gradually, Broken Rites, began hearing from additional Ridsdale victims who had not been included in the May 1993 prosecution. We advised these newcomers to contact the Victoria Police sexual offences and child abuse unit (the SOCA unit). This unit began taking written statements from the victims.

Damage control

In late 1993, the church authorities realised that the police were preparing to take Ridsdale to court again to face more charges. The church needed to protect its image. Ballarat's Bishop Ronald Mulkearns announced that he had asked the Pope to "dispense" Ridsdale from his "priestly ordination". Mulkearns said the Pope had agreed to this, and the Pope therefore returned Ridsdale "to the lay state". (This ensured that, next time Ridsdale appeared in court, the media would describe him as a FORMER priest.)

However, a colleague of Ridsdale — Father John McKinnon, parish priest at Warracknabeal in the Ballarat diocese — wrote in his parish newsletter that this did not mean that the church had "dismissed" or disowned Ridsdale. McKinnon claimed that Ridsdale himself had requested the change of status. [Did Father McKinnon mean that, if Ridsdale had not requested the change, the church would not — or should not —have dismissed or disowned him?]

Second court case, 1994

Late in 1993, Detective Constable John Norris, of Warrnambool, was gathering written statements from Ridsdale victims with a view to prosecuting him again. On 31 December 1993, during this investigation, the Ballarat diocese wrote to the families of some Ridsdale complainants, seeking to interview these families. The letter was signed by Father Glynn Murphy, who was Bishop Mulkearns's secretary and also convenor of the Ballarat Diocese "special issues committee" on clergy sexual abuse. [One result of this initiative would be that the church could ascertain what evidence a particular victim would be giving to police.]

On 19 January 1994, Gerald Francis Ridsdale appeared in the Melbourne Magistrates Court for a bail hearing, at which he was formally charged with some of the additional offences. Representatives from Broken Rites were present in the courtroom's public gallery during this hearing. That evening's television news had footage of Ridsdale being escorted to the court by a police officer.

This time, no bishop accompanied Ridsdale to the court. Why not?

The new charges caused a sensation throughout Victoria, especially in the Ballarat diocese. Bishop Mulkearns issued an open letter to all west Victorian parishes, defending his administration. He said: "I can say that this past 18months or so [since the police began investigating Ridsdale for the first court case] has been a nightmare for me and that matters which have come to light in that time have cast an enormous shadow over the diocese."

Mulkearns said the allegation had been made that the church knew of the abuse that was taking place in the diocese but did nothing about it. He said: "I hope it is unnecessary ... for me to say that this is simply untrue." (Warrnambool Standard, 1 February 1994.)

That is, in early 1994, Mulkearns seemed (to some people) to be denying that the diocese knew about Ridsdale's criminality before the police investigation of 1992-3. In May 1994, Gerald Ridsdale's sister Shirley (mother of one of Ridsale's victims) wrote to Mulkearns, accusing the bishop of being untruthful in his denial. Bishop Mulkearns replied to Shirley on 2 June 1994, explaining that he had been unaware of the "extent" of the crimes. Mulkearns admitted that he knew in 1975 about Ridsdale's actions at Inglewood but said he "immediately removed" Ridsdale from that parish.

[From 1975 onwards, however, Mulkearns re-assigned the abusive priest to further parishes.]

On 13 May 1994, a preliminary ("committal") hearing was held at the Warrnambool Magistrates Court. A Broken Rites researcher travelled from Melbourne to study the proceedings, and every Melbourne television channel had a film crew there. Two fellow-priests (who had been fellow students with Ridsdale at the seminary in the 1950s) accompanied Ridsdale to court, but there was still nobody present from the church to support the victims. Ridsdale was again featured on that evening's television news.

This hearing was told that Ridsdale was facing 180 charges, including 21 of buggery, two of attempted buggery, 102 of indecent assault and 55 of gross indecency.

On 3 August 1994, the Ridsdale case moved to the County Court (in Warrnambool), with a judge. The number of charged incidents was reduced — to merely one or two "representative" incidents per victim. Ridsdale pleaded guilty to the lot.

Two fellow-priests

One purpose of the August 1994 hearing was for defence witnesses to give evidence about Ridsdale's character and background, so as to help the judge to decide what penalty to impose on Ridsdale. Two priests, who accompanied Ridsdale to the Warrnambool court proceedings, gave evidence on behalf of Ridsdale about his background.

1. Father Frank Madden, parish priest at Horsham in 1994. Madden, who said he was aged 67 in 1994, had been a mature-age entrant to the Melbourne seminary, where he met Ridsdale as a fellow student. Madden was Ridsdale's successor in the Horsham parish after Ridsdale was removed from there in 1988. (Therefore, Madden knew some of the Horsham families who had been affected by Ridsdale.)

2. Father Brendan Davey of Ararat (who said he was 58 in 1994) had been at school with Ridsdale in Ballarat and the pair had been room-mates in the seminary.

Sentencing

In Melbourne on 14 October 1994, Ridsdale was sentenced to his second jail term. Judge John Dee told Ridsdale: "The victims were not given, in my view, any priority by your superiors in the Catholic Church [who were] aware of your conduct. The image and reputation of the church was given first priority. You were given some perfunctory in-house counselling before being shifted off to continue your criminal conduct in other areas."

Several victims attended the sentencing as observers. Afterwards, a priest (a friend of Ridsdale) stood outside the court, taking photos of these victims as they left. This was a breach of privacy and an act of harassment. The victims said they felt they were being victimised again.

After the 1994 jailing, more Ridsdale victims contacted the Victorian police or Broken Rites.

Police investigate the bishop

In the 1994 conviction, about two-thirds of the offences (including buggery) occurred before Ridsale went to Inglewood. About one third of the offences (including three buggery offences) occurred after 1975 — that is, after the police told Bishop Mulkeams about Ridsdale at Inglewood. Therefore, some victims complained to police in 1995 that Bishop Mulkearns had knowingly transferred a child-abuser to further parishes to commit more offences.

Melbourne detectives conducted an investigation, "Operation Arcadia", in July 1995 to determine whether Bishop Ronald Mulkearns could be charged with 'misprision (concealing) of a felony'.

In late 1995, Broken Rites obtained a copy of the Operation Arcadia report under Freedom of Information legislation. The report reveals that police received complaints in 1975 that Ridsdale had indecently assaulted boys in Inglewood. Detective Col Mooney, of Bendigo, investigated the matter and tried to locate Ridsdale but was told by the church that he was not available. Mooney was then advised by his direct superior, Superintendent O'Sullivan, to approach Mulkearns and notify him about the complaint. This was done the following day, and Mulkeams was handed a written statement from one boy, detailing the offences. The Bendigo police headquarters then left it up to Mulkearns to "deal with" Ridsdale.

The Operation Arcadia report, in September 1995, concluded that, as the offence in the Inglewood boy's statement (given to Mulkearns) was a misdemeanour offence (indecent assault), not a felony (buggery), the police were unable to charge Bishop Mulkeams with concealing a felony. In Victoria's criminal statutes, there is no offence of concealing a misdemeanour. The Operation Arcadia report indicates that Bishop Ronald Mulkeams knew in 1975 that Ridsdale was committing crimes of indecent assault but the bishop claims he did not know about the penetration offences (i.e., felonies).

Another interesting feature of the Operation Arcadia report is that the police found no evidence of Ridsdale ever undergoing proper professional therapy in the 1970s. Apart from having discussions with his superiors, Ridsdale merely visited a priests' retreat, which was a kind of drop-in centre. So Ridsdale went on to offend at Edenhope, Mortlake and Horsham.

The bishop resigns

In 1996, Broken Rites circulated copies of the Operation Arcadia report to all Australian bishops. The contents alarmed Mulkeams's fellow bishops, who now realised that Mulkeams was a liability.

Mulkeams finally had to write a letter to the Australian Catholic bishops (published in the Ballarat "Courier" on 21 December 1996). In this, he denied that he knew "in 1971" about Ridsdale's crimes but his letter dodged the years after 1971. What about 1972 ... or 1973 ... or 1974? He said he did not know about the felonies, but the letter did not mention that police told him in 1975 about the indecent assaults.

In May 1997, Bishop Ron Mulkearns took early retirement. Announcing his resignation, Mulkeams said ("Herald Sun", Melbourne, 31 May 1997) that his emotional energy had been sapped "by the draining effect" of the sexual abuse scandals.

And Mulkeams was not referring just to Ridsdale. Broken Rites knows of other abusive priests in the Ballarat diocese during the Ridsdale years.

Third court case, 2006

After the 1994 jailing, more Ridsdale victims contacted Broken Rites or the police. The Ballarat Criminal Investigation Unit (under Detective Sergeant Kevin Carson) compiled written statements. At first, Victoria's Office of Public Prosecutions was reluctant to spend time and money on a further Ridsdale prosecution. But the victims persisted and eventually, on 6 August 2006, Ridsdale (aged 72 that year) was charged again — in the Ballarat County Court.

The offences were committed on boys when he was a parish priest in Warrnambool, Ballarat East, Apollo Bay, Inglewood, Edenhope, Mortlake and Horsham.

The prosecutor said Ridsdale offered one 11-year-old victim special training so he could become an altar boy. He told the boy he was going to make him "special enough" to become an altar boy and that, because the priest was close to God, he knew what to do. Ridsdale then went on to abuse the boy.

Sentencing Ridsdale to an effective four additional years in jail, Judge Bill White criticised the Catholic Church for its failure to act after receiving complaints about Ridsdale's conduct, and its failure to show adequate compassion to some victims. He said the constant moving of Ridsdale from parish to parish only provided more opportunities for his predatory conduct.

As security guards led Ridsdale out of the court, a woman called out: "Mr Ridsdale, I'm one of the social workers who had to clean up the mess you made. It was horrific."

Fourth court case, 2013-2014

Ridsdale was due to become eligible for parole in June 2013 after serving his long prison sentence. But by early 2013, additional Ridsdale victims had contacted the detectives in the  Victoria Police sex-crimes squad.

So, instead of going before the Parole Board, Ridsdale was charged in the Melbourne Magistrates Court on 18 November 2013 with multiple new offences against 14 victims (eleven males and three females).

Ridsdale pleaded guilty to 29 charges including one count of buggery, 27 counts of indecent assault, and one count of carnal knowledge of a girl. The offences were committed between 1961 and 1980 at various Victorian towns. The victims included three children from one family.

The court decided not to proceed with more than 50 other charges.

According to documents tabled in court, Ridsdale indecently assaulted one ten-year-old girl numerous times including: once at the presbytery house; once while medically assisting her injured knee; and once during Confession when he made her perform sexual acts after telling her that she was wicked and naughty and had to be punished.

His victims included children who regularly attended church or participated in after-school programs he ran. The children were abused in various locations - in cars while driving them around, in a bed he shared with them and at his parish and in surrounding bushland.

As result of this Magistrates Court hearing, the Ridsdale case was passed on to a higher court, the Melbourne County Court, for sentencing.

Sentencing, April 2014

The sentencing was conducted in the Melbourne County Court on 8 April 2014 by Chief Judge Michael Rozenes. In his sentencing remarks, Judge Rozenes said that Ridsdale's "unfettered sexual deviance" had been a blatant breach of the trust existing between priests and parishioners. He said that Ridsdale had preyed on his vulnerable victims under the guise of being the 'friendly priest'. Ridsdale's position in the church involved a high degree of trust and some degree of power and his offending had had a devastating impact on his young victims, he said.

Judge Rozenes said the contents of the victim impact statements detailing the effect of Ridsdale's offending could only be described as powerful.

"Collectively they shared some common themes: a feeling of being exploited; feeling trapped, powerless, worthless and humiliated; anger at, and distrust of, the Catholic church; loss of faith and innocence; loss of the enjoyment of childhood; a sense of bewilderment and disbelief; and the fracturing of family relationships.

"Tragically, many thought that they were to blame for your actions. To me, one of the most tragic comments I heard was that 'if I had ‘taken my turn’ maybe my little brothers would have had happier lives'."

The judge said that the mothers of some of the victims "conveyed an understandable, but unjustified, guilt at having failed to protect their children".

The judge said: "Mr Ridsdale, I sincerely hope that you now understand how your offending has not only affected your victims, but created a ripple effect that has touched upon all aspects of their lives."

Another priest "saw assault"

During these proceedings in 2014, the court heard an edited summary of what each of the 14 victims had told the police investigators. For example, one female victim (born in 1962) said in her police statement that when she was aged 10 to 11, she used to visit the presbytery (where Ridsdale was living) at the Saint Alipius parish in Ballarat East. The victim, who turned 11 during 1973, said in her police statement that on one occasion, she was cutting up vegetables in the presbytery kitchen when Ridsdale grabbed her, dragged her into a room and sexually assaulted her.

Another priest, who walked past before going outside, saw what was happening but did not intervene, the victim said.

(The name of this silent priest, who allegedly knew about Ridsdale's behaviour, is known to the prosecutor and defence lawyers and the judge, but the name was not stated in the edited summary as heard in court.)

Addressing Ridsdale during sentencing in 2014, Judge Rozenes said:

“Although it does not directly involve you, Mr Ridsdale, there is a further disturbing aspect to this incident, namely that this complainant believes another priest was present for a short time while you were sexually assaulting her and must have been aware of the assault but did not intervene.

“I raise this merely to make an observation: namely that this behaviour appears to be demonstrative of the church’s approach to sexual abuse at the time which ultimately — and unfortunately, for your victims — allowed your criminal behaviour to go unchecked for so long.’’

A suicide

While he was summarising the 14 cases (and mentioning their family backgrounds), Judge Rozenes noted that three of the victims were from one family. This family was a large one (with male and female children) who had been "befriended" by Ridsdale. 

The judge said that a fourth child (a male) in this family eventually took his own life. The judge said that the court does not know whether this deceased brother, too, was a victim of Ridsdale.

Because he is dead, this brother was not available to be interviewed by detectives. Therefore Ridsdale was not charged regarding this deceased brother.

Broken Rites has been told that the victims from this family were abused by Ridsdale when they were staying (as his guests) at Ridsdale's presbytery in Edenhope, western Victoria. The siblings were living in another part of Victoria. Broken Rites understands that the brother who took his own life did so by hanging himself some years later, when he was aged about 20.

More jail time in 2014

On 8 April 2014, Judge Rozenes sentenced Ridsdale to an additional eight years in jail (with a minimum of five before becoming eligible to apply for parole).

The 2014 sentencing meant that Ridsdale could be in jail until 2022 (when he is turning 88), but would be eligible for apply for parole in April 2019 (when he is turning 85).

Another guilty plea in 2017

On 13 April 2017, Ridsdale (aged 82) again appeared in Melbourne Magistrates Court, via videolink from jail, on a fifth batch of charges. He pleaded guilty to 20 more offences (including rape, attempted rape, buggery and indecent assault) against eleven more children (ten boys and a girl).

On 25 August the case moved to a higher court (the Melbourne County Court), where Ridsdale confirmed his guilty plea. A week later, Ridsdale appeared in this court again, to be sentenced by a judge.

More background from Broken Rites

Since late 1993, Broken Rites has been interviewing numerous victims of Gerald Ridsdale. Some, but a number of these victims have spoken not yet to the police.

Here is one example of the Broken Rites research in the 1990s:

While ministering in the city of Ballarat in the early 1960s, Ridsdale acted as a visiting "chaplain" at a local orphanage — Nazareth House, in Mill Street, Ballarat (operated by the Sisters of Nazareth). In the 1960s, Nazareth House contained homeless girls, but today it is purely an aged-care home.

At Nazareth House, the nuns allowed Ridsdale to take any child to a private room for "Confession", "counselling", or "sex education". Several women have told Broken Rites that, while they were at Nazareth House, they were mauled indecently by Ridsdale.

One victim ("Dorothy") said she was in Nazareth House, aged from 9 to 12, after her parents separated. At age 10, Nazareth House sent her to another town to have respite care with a temporary foster family, and the nuns allowed Ridsdale to drive the girl there in his car. Out in the countryside, he stopped the car and mauled her genitals.

Dorothy told Broken Rites: "I didn't know about sex — the nuns told us nothing. When the Beatles came to Australia, we weren't allowed to watch them on TV. We weren't allowed to be with a male. Yet they put me in the hands of Ridsdale.

"When I returned to Nazareth House, I didn't tell the nuns what Ridsdale did to me. They would have hit me."

Broken Rites is doing further research regarding Nazareth House, Ballarat.

In the early 1960s, Ridsdale was also a visiting chaplain at an institution for homeless boys in the parish of St James at Sebastapol, a Ballarat suburb

Summing up

The Catholic Church provided a framework for Ridsdale's crimes. The church selected Ridsdale for the priesthood (while prohibiting married priests and women priests), placed him on a high pedestal, advertised him as being "celibate" and then turned him loose among the children.

By enforcing "high" and strict moral standards on its congregations (regarding sexuality), the church convinced parents that their children were safe with Ridsdale. Until about 1993, such priestly crimes were "unheard of"— for the simple reason that the church skilfully covered them up.

Broken Rites helped to put an end to the Ridsdale cover-up. Thus, we helped to obtain justice for his victims — and, later, justice for the victims of other perpetrators.

Victims' stories

Here are some stories from Ridsdale victims, as told to Broken Rites in late 1993:-

1. Daniel at Swan Hill, 1966-9

"Daniel" (born 1956) lived with his family in a rural community outside Swan Hill, northern Victoria. He told Broken Rites on 5 October 1993:

"My family lived in a farming area, a few kilometres from Swan Hill. My mother used to take us to Mass at St Mary's parish in Swan Hill .

"I remember that Father Gerry Ridsdale used to hold what he called 'twilight retreats' at the church in Swan Hill, which would be attended by about 20 boys including me, with no adults present apart from Ridsdale. His talks were all about sex and how you should not entertain impure thoughts. He seemed to thrive on all this dirty talk. The over-all message was 'Don't Do It'. It's a pity he didn't follow his own advice.

"When I was in about Grade 6, Father Ridsdale starting coming out to our district on Sundays to say Mass in a rural hall for the local farming community. I was made an altar boy. He also used to visit my family's farm on Sundays, and he often took me in his car for what he described as bird-watching trips. He had a pair of binoculars and, when he was getting me to look through the binoculars, he would interfere with me. He would also molest me in his car on these trips. He would strip me to my underpants and also strip himself to his underpants and then lie on top of me on the front seat of his car with the doors open. This happened on quite a few occasions, not just once.

"He made it clear that I was not to tell anybody — and I obeyed.

"After primary school, I dropped out of being an altar boy. Later, I also dropped out of going to Mass. Mum was still going but Dad used to go somewhere else on Sundays and I started going wherever Dad went.

"It was many years before I ever told anybody about Ridsdale. When I saw on the TV news this year [1993] that Ridsdale had been jailed for child molestation, I discussed it with members of my family. And then my family heard on regional radio about the Broken Rites telephone hotline. So here I am.

"I am very aware that Ridsdale seriously disrupted my teenage sexual development. It had drastic effects on me."

2. Andy at Inglewood 1975

In December 1993, "Andy" (born 1960) told Broken Rites about his experiences as an altar boy for Father Gerald Ridsdale in Inglewood in 1975:

"At Inglewood, Gerry Ridsdale made his presbytery into a drop-in centre for youth. Nearly every boy in Inglewood aged between 10 and 15, including non-Catholics, would have visited him at some time.

"He had a pool table. Parents assumed that it was a safe environment. When Ridsdale started inviting me to visit him, my mother encouraged me to go.

"Boys were welcome to stay overnight. Ridsdale also had boys from other parishes staying with him, including some from Bendigo and Ballarat.

"I remember when I first found out what Ridsdale was really like. We had just driven another boy home, and then suddenly I was left alone with Ridsdale in his car. I will never forget it.

"I later had many similar experiences at Ridsdale's presbytery. Meanwhile, my family kept on encouraging me to visit him.

"Ridsdale would have had many victims in Inglewood.

"Because of the kind of upbringing and schooling that we had, it was difficult, even impossible, for us to tell our parents. The clergy is on such a high pedestal that nobody wants to hear anything negative about a priest. Many victims do not even talk about church-abuse to other victims.

"If a child molester wants to get access to children, the best place for him is in the priesthood. It is a perfect cover. The molester is even aided and abetted by the victims and their parents.

"Eventually, one Inglewood boy did tell his parents, and this father kicked up a fuss and wanted Ridsdale to get out of town. Evidently this father did not take it any further. He just wanted the problem shifted out of Inglewood.

"But the result was that the Ridsdale problem got shifted to Edenhope.

"After Ridsdale left Inglewood, the whole town soon found out why. The diocesan authorities, who had to find him a new parish, also knew why. They had been shifting Ridsdale around for years.

"I never told anybody that I was a Ridsdale victim, but the experience had a disastrous affect on me. I stopped trying at school and I messed up my final year of studies.

"In July, 1993, when I was living in Melbourne, I saw a 'Compass' program on ABC TV about church sexual abuse. I rang the church authorities in Melbourne and interviewed a senior person in the archdiocese, but he didn't seem interested and nobody got back to me.

"I have therefore instructed a firm of solicitors to begin a civil legal claim against the Catholic Church for damages for negligence in having inflicted Ridsdale upon me.

"My experience with Ridsdale has messed up my life and I am undergoing therapy."

3. Larry at Inglewood 1975

"Larry" (born 1963) told Broken Rites on 22 November 1993:

"I am from a Catholic family of 15 children in central Victoria. In 1975 our parish priest was away, and Jerry Ridsdale came from Inglewood to say Mass at my local church. I was then eleven and a half years old. I was an altar boy. Ridsdale offered to take me and two younger brothers (aged 10 and 9) to his presbytery at Inglewood for a weekend, during which we would serve as his altar boys.

"He drove us to Inglewood late one Friday night and we went straight to bed. The sleeping arrangements were that my two younger brothers would sleep in one room and I would sleep in Ridsdale's room. On the first night, Ridsdale was in a big bed (which seemed to be a double bed), while I slept on a smaller bed along the foot of his bed. Nothing happened that night because it was very late.

"On the Saturday night, Ridsdale went and bought us fish and chips. During the evening about 14 or 15 local boys dropped in and stayed for varying lengths of time. There was a pool table in the house. The local boys went home, some on bikes. At bed time on the Saturday, he told me to get into the big bed. After going and locking up the house and putting of lights, he came and got into the big bed with me. He started interfering with me and then tried to penetrate me. I squealed like mad, and this made him give up.

"On the Sunday morning we said Mass at the Inglewood church. Then he drove us home to have lunch with our mum. I had been expecting to receive a watch from Mum for my 12th birthday and Ridsdale warned me that, if I told anybody about what he had done to me, he would tell Mum that I was a bold naughty boy — and therefore she would not give me a watch. I did not tell my mother about it. But she could not be told anyway because she was a staunch Catholic (and still is) and priests can do no wrong. I still haven't told her.

"A month or so later, Ridsdale invited me and my two brothers for another weekend visit. I said I didn't want to go but Mum insisted, so I gave in to avoid a fuss. The same assault happened in Ridsdale's bedroom.

"A third invitation came and again I tried to refuse to go but I gave in to please Mum. I suffered another assault at the presbytery.

"When a fourth invitation came, I managed to evade it, much to Mum's disappointment.

"I never told anybody about what Ridsdale did — not my brothers, not any of my school friends. My mother's Catholic world would collapse if she found out.

"In recent times, I have told my fiancee with whom I have been living.

"About March 1993, after hearing sexual assault by clergy being talked about on TV, I went to a solicitor and told my story to a stranger for the first time. This week [November 1993], my solicitor saw an article about Broken Rites in a local newspaper, so I immediately phoned Broken Rites."

4. A concerned citizen at Mortlake, 1981-2

A woman who was closely associated with St Colman's parish primary school in Mortlake, south-western Victoria, told Broken Rites on 15 November 1993:

"A couple of days after Ridsdale arrived in Mortlake, one mother phoned Bishop Mulkearns's office to complain that Jerry Ridsdale had molested one of her sons. As the bishop was overseas, she spoke to [a senior official at the diocesan office] but he treated her like a criminal and said the boy must be imagining it. Ridsdale must have been tipped off about this complaint because a day or so later he visited the Mortlake family and denied that he had molested the boy.

"Eighteen months later, the same mother went to see Bishop Mulkearns, accompanied by her husband and another set of parents. They threatened to go to the police. We later learned that Sister Kate McGrath, then principal of the school, had also complained. The result was that Ridsdale left Mortlake within a few days.

"The next priest at Mortlake did not know why he had been sent to replace Ridsdale. The families told him and he was shattered. We also told the next two priests.

"In 1989, seven years after Ridsdale left Mortlake, one mother said in a discussion that her son had been abused by Ridsdale in 1981. She had stopped going to church. In 1990, Bishop Mulkearns came to Mortlake for a confirmation service and I told him about this mother— without success.

"I later wrote letters to Bishop Mullkearns about Ridsdale.

"In 1993, after the court case, I wrote again to the bishop about Ridsdale and sexual abuse in the church generally, and I also sent a copy to all the priests in the diocese.

"The Mortlake parents are intimidated. They don't want to hurt the church. Also, because they had Ridsdale visiting their homes as a member of the family, their own gullibility would be shown up."

The sad story of "Jason", the victim who first alerted the police

Beginning in September 1993, Broken Rites received many phone calls from "Jason" (then aged 30) who was a Ridsdale victim at Edenhope. He had heard about Broken Rites in the media.

It was Jason who phoned the Victoria Police anti-pedophile campaign ("Operation Paradox") in late 1992, resulting in the first police prosecution of Ridsdale in 1993.

When Jason made his first police statement in November 1992, he was too embarrassed to reveal that Ridsdale's offences against him included buggery. But in late 1993, after Ridsdale finished his first jail sentence, Jason told the police about the buggery offences, so these were included in the second prosecution in 1994.

"Jason" told Broken Rites on 20 September 1993:

"In 1976, when I was turning 13, I was attending the Mercy Nuns convent (St Malachy's) at Edenhope. Father Gerry Ridsdale lived right near the school and he was the school manager. I was an altar boy and he was always asking me to come to his house, saying that he had some jobs for me to do there. My mother used to insist that I should go.

"He used to assault me at his house, in his car and at the church (including at the altar when the church was empty and locked). This went on for two years. He did everything to me that you can imagine. He penetrated me countless times.

"After each molestation, he would grant me Absolution, meaning that I did not have to tell anybody else about the sin that I had just committed with him.

"At first, I assumed that I was the only one but eventually another boy told me a similar story. I tried to tell my mother but she did not welcome hearing anything negative about a priest.

"When Ridsdale finally left the parish, he didn't get the usual send-off. We learned later that he went on 'renewal study leave', and this indicates that the diocesan office knew about what he had been doing.

"St Malachy's school left a lot to be desired. The Mercy nuns were hopeless. One girl who had been going out with a boy for a long time became pregnant. The nuns gave her hell and made her an outcast. Yet the nuns were quite happy to let Ridsdale remove boys from the classroom, one by one, and take each one to the presbytery, where he talked to them about sex before targeting them.

"In 1988 I told another priest what Ridsdale had done but this priest told me: 'The best thing is to put it behind you and get on with your life.' [In 2006, this priest was still in charge of a parish in the diocese.]

"It is difficult now to get on with my life. Ridsdale has ruined my life."

The death of Jason

In 1993, Jason engaged lawyers to seek an out-of-court payment from the Ballarat Catholic Diocese to help him to pay the costs of repairing his life. The church's lawyers fought Jason's claim fiercely. The diocese eventually gave Jason a relatively small payment and it agreed to pay his legal expenses as well as the church's own legal expenses, but no amount of money could undo the damage that had been done to his life. The diocese probably spent as much on the fees for the two sets of lawyers as it gave to Jason.

Former Senior Detective John Norris, who prepared the 1994 prosecution, believes that, of all Ridsdale's victims, Jason was probably the most damaged. He was left a tormented mental and physical wreck. Melbourne journalist Ian Munro, who interviewed Jason, wrote: "Where some victims found jobs, fought their addictions and formed families, he [Jason] lived alone, drug addicted, isolated and haunted by his demons."

Jason died in May 2002, aged 39, after his fourth heart attack in a couple of months, but those close to him believe the real cause lay in the Ridsdale years.

Jason's sister "Rachel" told reporter Ian Munro: "His whole life he could not cope with it. He was on prescription medicine as long as I can remember. He was on a huge amount of medication. Anti-depressants, Serapax, Valium, and methadone."

Rachel lives with her husband and children on the farm where she and Jason grew up near Edenhope.

Jason was a typical, fun-loving farm boy — until the diocese sent Ridsale to Edenhope in February 1976.

Ridsdale drove an iridescent blue Datsun 240K. He installed a pool table at the presbytery and kept animals to amuse the children. He was big and loud. He had presence.

Rachel says of Ridsdale: "We'd had all these old-fashioned priests. When he came, he was this modern, high-energy fellow and he spent a lot of time at the school. He was like a breath of fresh air. There were no more fuddy-duddies. He was a super cool priest.

"I found him repulsive, though, because he would often kiss me in the church yard. He would find out it was your birthday and he would plant this big kiss on you."

Despite her own misgivings about Ridsdale — she hated it, for example, when he arrived one night and set about taking the family's confessions in Rachel's bedroom — her family was happy that the priest took a keen interest in Jason.

"I don't know how many times the car came here, and he picked up ["Jason"] and off they would go," Rachel says. The family thought how lucky Jason was.

Often Ridsdale dropped in to ask if he could have the boy to do some odd jobs around the presbytery. "There were never any jobs to do", Jason would eventually tell the police. Ridsdale would lock the door and molest and, eventually, rape him. Jason told police he was raped weekly. His mother always insisted he go with the priest.

Jason told The Age newspaper in 1994: "He'd ask me somewhere and I'd say: `No, I'm going to a friend's place.' Then he'd go over my head and go to my mother, and of course she'd always say yes. She'd say: 'You must help the priest, they need helping.' So he'd screw me out there.

"He once had sex with me and soon afterwards insisted on hearing my confession. Someone analysed that for me recently. They said he was trying to turn the blame back on to me for turning him on."

Rachel said her mother — a devout Irish Catholic — was the perfect dupe for Ridsdale. She said the family suspected nothing. She noticed a change in Jason over time but the truth was simply unthinkable.

In his early 20s, Jason tried to tell the family what had happened, apparently confiding in a local identity who called them to a meeting. By then his behaviour was somewhat erratic anyway, and when he told them a priest had raped him, Jason 's father and brother walked out in disbelief.

"We just had no idea that it was all true," Rachel says. "Even now it's very hard to comprehend that happened to my brother."

Perhaps, however, their mother suspected the truth before her death in 1991. She became less emphatic in her defence of the church, Rachel says.

Despite his long ordeal, Jason was not entirely the impotent victim. It was his call to the Victoria Police "Operation Paradox" that initiated inquiries into Ridsdale in late 1992 and early 1993.

Former acting Detective Sergeant Ray Steyger, who headed Operation Paradox, told The Age: "You could safely say that it was his call and the information that was received from him that initiated the investigation. As a result of that, we were able to put the other two pieces of information (relating to Ridsdale) together, and it went from there."

So, by phoning the police and Broken Rites, Jason helped to obtain justice for church sex-abuse victims in general.

Footnote

Broken Rites is continuing its research about how the Catholic Church authorities covered up the crimes of Father Gerald Francis Ridsdale.

• By a Broken Rites researcher, article updated 1 June 2019

In May 2019, a Sydney court  convicted a retired Catholic religious Brother (Brother Peter Higgins, now aged 80) for committing sexual offences (including buggery) on an 11-year-old schoolboy in the mid-1970s. The offences occurred on several days (after school had finished for the day) at Patrician Brothers Catholic School (formerly called St Mary's school, now called All Saints) in Liverpool, a suburb in Sydney's south-west. Higgins is now in custody, and the court will sentence him later in 2019.

According to documents submitted in court, the former schoolboy (now in his 50s) stated that he was indecently assaulted by Brother Higgins (then in his thirties) on several separate occasions; and, on another occasion, Brother Higgins committed buggery on the boy.

The documents alleged that, during the buggery episode, the school principal (Brother Basil Downey) walked into the room and discovered what was happening. Police allege that Brother Downey then drove the victim home and told the parents that the boy fell over and landed on his backside. Thus, Higgins' crimes were concealed from the police.

According to the court documents, the victim revealed the incident to his wife, mother and other family members in 2006. His mother then contacted her local bishop and the Catholic Church made internal inquiries, during which the two Brothers denied all allegations.

Eventually, the police investigation was prompted by the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

In January 2016, Brother Peter Higgins was interviewed by Liverpool detectives. Police also interviewed Brother Basil Downey. Police charged Brother Higgins with three counts of indecent assault and one count of buggery. Brother Downey was charged with being an accessory after the fact.

Detectives officially submitted the charges to a magistrate during a brief hearing at Liverpool Local Court on 2 March 2016.

Originally, the church's defence lawyers obtained an order from the court, preventing the media from publishing the defendants' names (or referring to the Patrician Brothers). On 19 May 2016, the Director of Public Prosecutions obtained a court order removing this name-suppression.

During the Local Court process, both Higgins and Downey were released on bail.

The Local Court magistrate committed Higgins for trial, to be held by a judge in the Campbelltown District Court..

In May 2019, the Campbelltown District Court found Higgins guilty of one count of buggery and two counts of indecent acts.

["Buggery" was a term used in the criminal statutes in the 1970s, the decade in which Higgins' offences occurred. Higgins was required to be charged under the 1970s laws.]

The judge is due to hold the sentence hearing for Higgins later in 2019.

The other Brother (Basil Downey) died before he could be tried in court on his charge of having been "an accessory after the fact".

Some background
about Liverpool schools
by Broken Rites

Broken Rites has researched the evolution of Catholic schools in Liverpool.

About 1880, an order of nuns (the Sisters of Charity) developed a parish primary school (then named St Mary's), catering for boys and girls, in George Street, Liverpool.

The same religious order, the Sisters of Charity, also operated an orphanage (called St Ann's) in the same street from 1888 to 1977. The orphanage was mainly for girls, with occasionally a few young boys. These children attended St Mary's primary school. The Orphanage was relocated to smaller premises at Medley Street Liverpool in 1970 and continued to receive children until the end of 1977.

In 1954, the Patrician Brothers came to Liverpool to cater for boys. The Sisters of Charity provided a classroom in George Street for the Patrician Brothers and a playground for the boys.

Thus, the boys' school and the girls' school were closely associated. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, the nuns even provided a hot mid-day meal for the first group of Brothers. A Brother might be seen walking anywhere around the campus, including in the girls' school.

During the 1960s, the Patrician Brothers boys' school was gradually expanded on nearby land (provided by the Sisters of Charity), and the Brothers began to live in a "Monastery" in George Street, near the girls' school.

In the 1960s, when Liverpool's population was booming with new immigrants from other countries, the Patrician Brothers began expanding their secondary-level classes in Liverpool (at the rear of George Street, along Bigge Street), although they still kept some primary-level classes (Years 5 and 6).

By 1964, the Monastery in George Street accommodated eight Patrician Brothers.

In 1966 the Patrician Brothers in Liverpool had 479 students (mostly secondary, plus primary Years 5 and 6), with six Brothers in the secondary section, two in the primary and three lay teachers. The school continued its primary Years 5 and 6 until 1990.

By the 1990s, the Brothers and nuns in Liverpool had been replaced gradually by lay teachers. In 2015, the boys' secondary school amalgamated with the adjacent girls' school and became known as All Saints College.

By a Broken Rites researcher

In Australia the Catholic Church is publicly defending the "secrecy of the Confessional". This Broken Rites article is about a Melbourne priest, Father James Scannell, who raped a 12-year-old boy. After the rape (in the early 1970s), the priest subjected the boy to the Catholic ritual of "Confession" and ordered the boy never to tell anybody about what had happened. Intimidated by the church's authority, the boy obediently kept this "secret of the Confessional". The church's code of secrecv damaged the victim's life and it took him forty years to bring the priest to justice.

In 2010, the victim's aunt died. The victim (by then in his fifties) was shocked to learn that the funeral was to be conducted by the same priest who had raped him at the age of 12. The victim finally reported this crime to the Victoria Police in 2010, and child-abuse detectives began an investigation.

• In the Melbourne County Court on 1 July 2014, a jury convicted Father James Henry Scannell, then 88, on a charge of buggery, committed against the 12-year-old boy in the early 1970s. In court, Scannell expressed no remorse.
• On 7 August 2014, Judge David Parsons gave Scannell a two-year jail sentence. The priest was ordered to serve 12 months behind bars before he could become eligible for release to serve the final 12 months on parole.

The crime and the "confession"

The jury was told that in the early 1970s, Father Scannell (then aged in his mid-forties) was doing some ministering in a Melbourne parish (St Anne's, East Kew), where the 12-year-old boy lived with his mother. The boy's father was absent from the family.

The boy's Catholic aunt was acquainted with Reverend Father Scannell and she presumed that a Catholic priest would be a good "male role model" for the boy. The boy was paid to do some odd jobs at the priest's house in East Kew.

The aunt asked Father Scannell to discuss puberty with the boy some time. When the boy visited the priest's house again to do some more odd jobs, Father Scannell (wearing only a dressing gown) led the boy into the priest's bedroom, stripped him naked and raped him.

In the ritual of Confession after the rape, the boy was required to "confess" the boy's sin for having participated in the sexual event (that is, for having been raped). The ritual was not for the priest to confess his own crime in being the perpetrator.

Thus, a 12-year-old child received some priestly "sex" education  but this introduction to "sex" consisted of a boy being invaded by a priestly penis.

Overcome by shame and despair, the boy had to cope alone with the trauma. He knew that he could not tell his Catholic aunt or mother, because it would hurt them to learn that they had negligently placed the child in danger. Anyway, who would believe that a Catholic priest had committed a serious criminal offence against a child?

The court was told about the long-term consequences of the victim's emotional predicament. extending into his fifties.

Broken Rites research

Simultaneously with his work in parishes, Father Scannell also spent much of his career acting as a "chaplain" for children with an intellectual disability who lived in a residential institution which was known as the "Children's Cottages, Kew" (now abolished). According to the annual editions of the Australian Catholic Directory, he was listed as doing this work at the Kew Cottages by 1968. And he was listed as doing work there in the early 1970s, when the rape of the 12-year-old boy in the Kew East parish occurred. (The Kew East 12-year-old boy was living in a private suburban house and was not associated with the Kew Cottages.) Scannell kept up his interest in the Kew Cottages, on and off, throughout his career while he was based in other Melbourne parishes, He stopped being in charge of parishes about 1995.

When he appeared in court in 2014, Father Scannell (date of birth 17 April 1926) was still listed in the 2014 printed edition of the Australian Catholic Directory as a "Supplementary Priest" of the Melbourne archdiocese. Supplementary priests are no longer in charge of a parish, but they are available to do relief work for other parish priests or for conducting weddings or funerals. Thus, in 2010 he was invited to conduct the funeral for the aunt of the Kew East rape victim.

In the 2014 printed edition of the Catholic Directory, Father Scannell still had the letters "PE" (pastor emeritus) after his name, which means that the Melbourne archdiocese had awarded him the honour of being a distinguished retired priest. Judging from the 2014 Catholic Directory, Scannell still possessed his priestly status at the time of his jailing. In accordance with its normal practice, the church deleted Scannell's listing from the Australian Catholic Directory in 2015, now that his exposure had become public.

Preliminary court proceedings, 2013

The court process began when James Henry Scannell appeared for a preliminary ("committal") procedure in the Melbourne Magistrates Court on 26 June 2013, accompanied by supporters.

Scannell was charged with one incident of buggery and two incidents of indecent assault. He pleaded Not Guilty to all charges.

In a police document, tendered in court in 2013, the victim stated that Father Scannell paid him some pocket money to do odd jobs around the priest's house on a Saturday morning. The jobs included weeding the garden, washing his car and sweeping paths.

"On about the third or fourth occasion when I finished my jobs, he would sit me down on the couch in the lounge room and start talking to me about things that made me feel uncomfortable," the victim stated.

He stated that, after these talks, the priest "would tell me to kneel beside his chair and face him, then take Confession." 

The victim stated that the abuse happened several times before the final time he went to the priest's home to do odd jobs. "I don't remember even doing any work. He took me straight into his lounge room and sat me on the couch. He was only wearing a dressing gown," he stated.

The victim detailed to police how the priest "cuddled me and tried to kiss me on the lips. I kept trying to turn away ... he wouldn't let me go.

"I remember being frozen with fear and was scared of what was happening."

The victim stated that the priest then took him to a bedroom where the priest undressed the boy and committed the criminal act.

The priest then made the boy take Confession again before ordering that "this event should never be talked about with anybody," the victim stated.

The boy then walked home crying, the court was told. He never went back to the priest's house again.

The victim stated that he kept the incidents as a secret for many years.

As well a submitting his written statement, the victim also gave verbal evidence to the court. The court arranged for the victim (aged 54 in 2013) to appear, via closed circuit television, from a different room in the court building. He answered questions from the prosecutor and the defence lawyer.

As usual in such committal proceedings, the Magistrates Court was closed to the public during this evidence, so as to protect the privacy of witnesses.

The court was told that the victim first revealed the allegations when he and his wife were watching a documentary about Catholic priests. The wife told the court that the documentary made her husband angry and he then told her about the priest who had molested him.

The court was told that, when the victim's aunt died in October 2010, the victim's sister contacted Father Scannell, asking him to conduct the funeral.. When the victim heard about the proposed funeral arrangements, he said he would refuse to attend if this priest was there - and the victim then revealed what the priest had done to him as a child.

The sister told the court that, after hearing about the abuse, she contacted the priest and told him not to conduct the funeral or attend.

According to court documents, the victim became angry at himself after his aunt's funeral, for never reporting Scannell's crime to police. After the funeral, he finally decided to contact the police. After being interviewed by a detective, he eventually made his signed police statement.

In court, in line with his Not Guilty plea, Scannell denied molesting the boy.

Magistrate Ann Collins decided that there is indeed sufficient evidence for the case to go to trial, to be conducted by a judge in a higher court, the Melbourne County Court.

At this preliminary stage, media reports of the committal result referred merely to an un-named priest.

Magistrate Collins released the priest on bail while the County Court scheduled the jury trial for a later date (normally some months away).

• [Two days after the Magistrates Court hearing, the Melbourne Herald Sun published a comment from Melbourne retired priest Father Bob Maguire who said (in reply to a question from a reporter) that he had known the accused priest since the 1960s. Father Maguire indicated that, in this court case between the complainant and the priest, he was supporting the priest.]

Jury trial, 2014

At the jury trial in the County Court in June 2014, Scannell was faced with one charge - the buggery. He again pleaded not guilty and the jury was presented with the evidence.

After the  completion of the evidence, prosecutor Kristie Churchill told the jury that the complainant (aged 55 at the time of the trial) is a reliable and believable witness who had given his evidence in graphic detail and "like it was".

Father Scannell's defence lawyer told the jury that it was difficult to prove one person's allegation against another when so much time had elapsed.

After the jury's Guilty verdict, Judge David Parsons allowed Scannell to remain on bail pending the sentencing process. As a result of the jury's Guilty verdict, the judge's remaining  role would be to analyse the trial and to consider what sort of punishment should be imposed on Scannell.

Pre-sentence hearing

In the Melbourne County Court on 1 August 2014, Judge David Parsons held a pre-sentence procedure, to hear submissions by the prosecutor and the church's defence lawyer about the possible kind of sentence.

The prosecutor had submtted a written impact statement from the victim, outlining how the church-abuse disrupted his his later life. The victm stated that he had lived with feelings of loss and guilt every day in the past 40 years. The breach of trust had damaged his ability to form one-on-one friendships and it had put a strain on his marriage, he said.

"I have lost my religion, I lost this the day I was molested, The memories start every time I walk past a church."

He said the only time he enters a church now is to attend a wedding, christening or funeral. "These leave me devastated," he said. "I will live with this for the rest of my life."

Scannell's defence lawyer told the judge that Scannell has been well regarded by his peers and the community. He emphasised that only one complainant had spoken to the police, and Scannell was being sentenced for only one incident.

The defence requested a non-custodial sentence.

Prosecutor Kristie Churchill said that general deterrence was of paramount importance in cases such as these.

Judge David Parsons noted that Scannell had expressed no remorse for what happened to the boy. "There is not the slightest hint in any of the materials of remorse," the judge said.

This lack of remorse would weigh heavily in the balance of sentencing considerations, the judge said.

The judge also said: "I found the evidence of [the victim] compelling. I found the evidence of Mr Scannell less compelling."

The judge then remanded Scannell in custody untll the sentencing six days later. A security officer escorted Scannell from the court for transferring to the remand prison.

Sentenced

In his sentencing remarks on 7 August 2014, Judge Parsons gave a summary of the trial. He outlined the incident of the sexual assault, including the ritual of Confession immediately after the assault.

The judge gave a summary of Scannell's 70-year-career as a full-time professional practitioner in the church, beginning as a Marist Brother and then as a priest. He noted Scannell's work as chaplain for children at Melbourne's Kew Cottages, where (the judge said) he worked in conjunction with psychologist Valerie Chandler in developing an educational program for autistic children. The judge noted the testimonials that had been submitted to the court by persons who supported Scannell's work as a priest.

Announcing the jail sentence, Judge Parsons said that Scannell had abused his authority. He said that Scannell was guilty of a serious breach of trust and the court had no choice but to sentence Scannell to an immediate term of imprisonment.

The judge took into account Scannell's present age and state of health.

He imposed a jail sentence of two years, with parole possible after 12 months.

Scannell was then removed from the courtroom, heading for prison.

Police contacts

The Victoria Police investigation for the Scannell case was conducted by the Sexual Offences and Child-abuse Investigation Team (SOCIT) in Box Hill, Melbourne. This SOCIT office is still available for receiving any further information about James Henry Scannell.

In addition, the Sexual Crimes Squad, Melbourne, has a unit of detectives (called the Sano Taskforce, at 637 Flinders Street West in Melbourne) which specialises in similar child-abuse cases.

More research by Broken Rites

As a schoolboy, James Henry Scannell was educated by the Marist Brothers, who groomed him to join their religious order. By 1945, aged 19, he was a fully-fledged Brother, adopting the "religious" name "Brother Frederick". He taught at schools in the Marists' southern province; this province, with headquarters in Melbourne, supplied "reverend Brothers" to schools in Victoria, Tasmania, South Australia and Western Australia. Broken Rites has ascertained that "Brother Frederick" once taught, for example, at the Marist Brothers school in Northam W.A., along with other Marist child-sex offenders, including Brother "Bertinus" and Brother Frank Hesford.

In 1966, aged 30, Scannell was ordained as a priest of the Melbourne archdiocese, where he became known as "Father Jim Scannell". Broken Rites has searched the annual editions of the Australian Catholic Directory, and found that Scannell was first listed as a priest in the 1967 edition, which said he was then based at the parish of St Mary of the Angels, Geelong.

From 1968 until the late 1990s, Fr Jim Scannell was listed as chaplain at the Geriatric Hospital and the adjoining Children's Cottages in Kew, Melbourne. Simultaneously he did some work in parishes around Melbourne, including Kew East, Kingsville, Brighton East, Warburton, Clayton South and Flemington.

The Kew Children's Cottages and Geriatric Hospital had originally been known (in the 19th century) as the Kew Lunatic Asylum or later as the Kew Mental Hospital or Willesmere. The site was beside the Yarra River, only 6 kilometres from central Melbourne. These institutions have now been closed and the site has been developed for private housing.

Even after he ceased being in charge of parishes in 1995, Scannell continued to be known for his association with the Kew Cottages. For example, on 8 April 1997 the Melbourne Age newspaper reported a ceremony at the Kew Cottages, at which Father Jim Scannell was a speaker.

The Kew Cottages were established in 1887 to accommodate unwanted children who have an intellectual disability. Some Wards of the State and other various "difficult" children were also admitted. Many of those children remained in residence at the Cottages as adults. The Kew Cottages institution was finally closed in 2008.

Broken Rites is continuing its research on Father James Henry Scannell, including his work with children at the Kew Cottages. Did Father Jim Scannell ever provide "sex" education for any of these vulnerable children? And did he make any of these Kew Cottages children undergo the ritual of Confession?

• By a Broken Rites researcher, article updated 20 June 2019

Christian Brother John Laidlaw has had a lifelong career, teaching in Catholic schools around Australia, especially in the state of Victoria. In 2019, aged 80, he is facing court in Melbourne charged with having committed sexual offences against some of his Victorian students from 1963 onwards. Brother Laidlaw has also taught in Adelaide and Perth but this court case is confined to Victorian complaints.

The matter has been investigated by Victoria Police detectives from the Sano Taskforce (in Spencer Street, Docklands, Melbourne).

The charges were filed at the Melbourne Magistrates Court in late 2018. After a preliminary hearing, the magistrate referred the case on to a higher court, the Melbourne County Court, where the case would be handled by a judge.

The case had another procedure in April 2019 and the main process is scheduled to be held at the Melbourne County Court in mid-2019.

The County Court's case-number for Laidlaw is: CR-18-02082.

The case involves multiple ex-students, from Christian Brothers schools in Melbourne and the Victorian city of Warrnambool. The alleged victims are now mature-age adults.

Brother Laidlaw, now of Adelaide, has been charged with seven sexual offences allegedly committed between 1963 and 1984, according to court documents. The charges include: five counts of indecent assault; and two offences of sexual penetration of a person aged between 16 and 18 years under his care and supervision.

Two of the indecent assault charges are alleged to have been committed in Warrnambool, one during 1963 and the other in 1966. Other offences were alleged to have been committed in the Melbourne region including at Toorak in 1976-77, at St Kilda in 1981 and at Bundoora in 1984.

Meanwhile, the detectives are continuing their inquiries.

Court documents give the defendant's birth-name as John Sutherland Laidlaw.

Some background

Broken Rites has researched some background about Brother John Laidlaw in various documents and publications. He was born in 1939. He entered a Christian Brothers novitiate in January 1956 to begin training to become a Brother.

In February 1958 he began teaching at a Christian Brothers college in St George's Terrace, Perth. In 1960 he was transferred to Victoria, where he taught at a Christian Brothers school in Brunswick (an inner-suburb of Melbourne). After six months at Brunswick he was transferred to teach in Devonport in Tasmania.

During the mid-1960s he was teaching at Christian Brothers College in Warrnambool (in Victoria's south-west).

In the early 1970s, he was a middle-school teacher and dormitory master at St Patrick's College, Ballarat, Victoria.

He later taught at several Melbourne schools, including St Kevin's College in Toorak, St Joseph's in South Melbourne, Parade College in Bundoora and CBC St Kilda.

In 1986-1988, he was at two Christian Brothers schools in South Australia (at Gilles Plains and Thebarton) before returning to Melbourne (at St Kevin's College Toorak).

As well as teaching the usual subjects in his various schools, Brother Laidlaw was also involved in sports coaching and choir work.

After retiring from teaching, Brother John Laidlaw resided in Adelaide, working in a hospital facility assisting people with disabilities.

Brother John Laidlaw was one of eight Christian Brothers who were honoured at a jubilee celebration in Melbourne because they had spent 50 or 60 years working in the Brothers in Victoria.

• By a Broken Rites researcher, article updated 27 June 2019

During George Pell's rise from being a priest to a cardinal, one of his supporters has been Melbourne priest John Walshe. The Melbourne Catholic archdiocese has confirmed that it paid a $75,000 settlement (the maximum amount available) to a former student (John Roach) who has alleged that, when he was 18, he was sexually targeted by Father Walshe. The archdiocese gave a written apology to John Roach for the "wrongs and hurt" he suffered at the hands of Father Walshe. By January 2017, a number of Father Walshe's parishioners (at Mentone-Parkdale in Melbourne's south-east) succeeded in getting Fr Walshe to resign from their parish. This Broken Rites article is based partly on evidence given by Father Walshe to Australia's national child-abuse Royal Commission, including a claim by Father Walshe that he supports the policy of priestly "celibacy".

In his role as the Parish Priest at Mentone-Parkdale, Fr Walshe was officially the proprietor of the parish's two primary schools. A number of Mentone-Parkdale parents objected to the church's hypocrisy in having an alleged sex-offender in charge of their child's school.

Fr Walshe's resignation from the Mentone-Parkdale parish is evidently the result of a deal between him and the Melbourne archdiocese. For example, in persuading Fr Walshe to resign from his parish, the Melbourne archdiocese would arrange for Fr Walshe to move away from Mentone-Parkdale, with Fr Walshe retaining his rights to the Melbourne priests' superannuation benefits.

In 2017, Fr John Walshe was living in a residence, which the church provided for him, in Melbourne's Brighton East parish.

Background research by Broken Rites

For many years, Father John Walshe was the priest in charge of the Mentone-Parkdale parish in Melbourne's south-east. Bishop George Pell lived in this parish (in a house beside the Mentone church) in the early 1990s before becoming the archbishop of Melbourne in 1996.

Father John Walshe is one of a number of conservative (as distinct from moderate-minded) priests in Melbourne who supported George Pell during Pell's rise to power.

At a public hearing of the child-abuse Royal Commission in December 2015, Father John Walshe gave evidence on behalf of Cardinal George Pell's lawyers.

• This Broken Rites article begins with some background about George Pell and John Walshe, including an analysis of Walshe's evidence at the Royal Commission.
• The matter of the 18-year-old student John Roach is reported in the second half of this article, under the sub-heading "An allegation against Fr John Walshe concerning an 18-year-old student".

George Pell

Cardinal George Pell received several mentions in Father Walshe's evidence at the Royal Commission. Originally a priest in the Ballarat diocese (which covered the western half of Victoria), George Pell moved to Melbourne in 1985 to become the head of the Melbourne seminary (Corpus Christi College, then based at Melbourne's Clayton), which trained priests for Victoria and Tasmania. In 1987 he was appointed as one of Melbourne's four regional auxiliary bishops under the authority of Archbishop Frank Little (Bishop Pell's region was Melbourne's south-eastern suburbs). This is when he became associated with allies such as Father John Walshe.

At this stage, Pell was no more famous nationally than any of Australia's forty or so other Catholic bishops. But he was working on it.

Father John Walshe

In December 2015, the Royal Commission held a public hearing (in Melbourne) in its Case Study 35 (about sexual-abuse in the Melbourne Catholic archdiocese, which covers the metropolitan area) and also in Case Study 28 (about the Ballarat diocese which covers western Victoria). Father John Thomas Walshe offered to give evidence relating to George Pell.

Broken Rites has studied the official transcript of Fr Walshe's evidence.

Fr Walsh (born in Melbourne in 1958) gave the Royal Commission a copy of his curriculum vitae, indicating that he grew up in Melbourne's parish of St James in Gardenvale/Brighton. During his school years, he played an active role in this parish, helping the parish priest.

After completing his schooling at Christian Brothers College St Kilda in 1975, John Walshe began studying for the priesthood at Melbourne's Corpus Christi seminary (he turned 18 during his first year at the seminary).

[Broken Rites has been told that, during his seminary training, John Walshe continued to be active in the Gardenvale/Brighton parish, where he assisted the paedophile priest Ronald Pickering, who was in charge of this parish from 1978 to 1993. For the full story of Father Ronald Pickering's life of crime, see a Broken Rites article HERE.]

John Walshe was ordained as a priest in Melbourne by Archbishop Frank Little on 14 August 1982 (the year in which he was turning 24). Father George Pell then was still based in Ballarat.

Father Walshe's curriculum vitae says his early appointments as an assistant priest in the Melbourne archdiocese included:

• Parish of St Mary of the Angels, GEELONG (1982-1983);
• Parish of St Thomas the Apostle, BLACKBURN (1983-1986);
• St Jude's, SCORESBY (1986-1988); and
• St Gerard's, NORTH DANDENONG (1988-1992).

Walshe told the Royal Commission that, while in his early parishes in the mid-1980s, he probably met Father George Pell socially, perhaps while re-visiting the seminary where Pell was the new rector. By 1988, he had became better acquainted with Pell as the new regional bishop for Walshe's area.

In answer to a question, Walshe told the Commission:

"When I was in the Parish of St Gerard in North Dandenong, Bishop Pell was our Regional Bishop...  He had the practice of inviting priests of his zone, his area, to dinners, so to get to know them because he wasn't a priest of Melbourne and he sort of took every opportunity to get to know the clergy, so I came to know him better through then."

Father Walshe, who is interested in church history, helped Cardinal Pell's research concerning some worldwide church matters, the Commission was told.

As an auxiliary bishop, George Pell was based at the Mentone-Parkdale parish (in Melbourne's outer south-east). In 1992, Walshe was appointed as an assistant priest at Bishop Pell's parish. Bishop Pell evidently played a role in making this appointment, Walshe told the Commission.

At Mentone, Walshe lived in the bishop's house with Pell, while two other priests lived in Mentone's normal presbytery (both houses are located at 10 Rogers Street, Mentone, with the bishop's house situated behind the presbytery). In 1995, Walshe was promoted to the rank of Dean of the Mentone parish, and he has remained in charge of that parish since then. This parish includes two churches: St Patrick's in Mentone and St John Vianney's in Parkdale.

In 1996, Pell managed to get himself appointed by the Vatican as the archbishop of Melbourne, replacing Archbishop Frank Little. Pell then left Mentone and became based at St Patrick's Cathedral, near central Melbourne. He was the archbishop of Melbourne until 2001.

[Broken Rites has been told that, after becoming the Archbishop of Melbourne, Pell continued to visit the Mentone parish, where he held meetings and social occasions in his former residence. These get-togethers at Mentone were attended by some of the priests in the pro-Pell wing of the Melbourne clergy. Some of these supporters also assisted Archbishop Pell at Masses and ceremonies in Pell's Melbourne cathedral.]

When Pell left Melbourne to become the archbishop of Sydney in 2001, Fr John Walshe attended the Sydney ceremony, according to Walshe's evidence at the Royal Commission.

Although he never rose above the rank of Parish Priest, John Walshe continued to be active in church affairs. For example, at the Royal Commission, he was questioned about some of his other activities in church circles.  He agreed that he is an office bearer in the Australian Confraternity of Catholic Clergy, presently the national chairman. [This is a group of conservative priests, whereas progressively-minded priests tend to be in a different national organisation.]

In response to another question, Walshe agreed that he has been associated with a Catholic organisation called "Courage", which minsters to homosexual people. Walshe said he has "helped" some of the people who come to the "Courage" organisation. It is not clear what sort of "help" this was.

[According to church websites, Fr John Walshe was among a number of priests who assisted Archbishop Pell and later Archbishop Denis Hart, in ceremonies and services at Melbourne's St Patrick's Cathedral. According to the church websites, others who assisted in cathedral ceremonies included Fr Charles Portelli and Fr Shane Hoctor. In 1999, Fr Walshe and others assisted Pell in conducting a traditional Latin Mass.]

Why Walshe contacted the Royal Commission

Fr Walshe told the Royal Commission that he visited Cardinal Pell in Rome on 17 November 2015. (This was seven days before the beginning of the Royal Commission's four-weeks public hearing public in Melbourne.) He had dinner with Cardinal Pell and Pell's private secretary (Father Mark Withoos, a Melbourne priest who was ordained by Archbishop Pell in 2000).

According to Fr Walshe, Cardinal Pell was obviously worried about his forthcoming appearance at the Royal Commission where he was to be asked questions about the church's handling of child sexual abuse allegations in Ballarat and Melbourne. Pell was expected to be asked about his time as an adviser to former Ballarat bishop Ronald Mulkearns regarding the movements of priests in the diocese, such as paedophile priest Gerald Ridsdale.

One of Gerald Ridsdale's victims was his nephew David Ridsdale who told Pell in a phone call in February 1993 that Father Ridsdale had sexually abused him. According to David Ridsdale's sworn evidence, Pell ignored David's complaint and (according to David) Pell allegedly wished to silence David. In statements to the media, Cardinal Pell has denied trying to silence David; and in 2015 Pell sought to have his denial accepted by the Royal Commission.

Thus, in late November (a couple of days after Walshe returned to Melbourne from Rome), Walshe received a phone call from Michael Casey (a personal assistant to Pell), who asked if Walshe would submit a written statement to the Royal Commission supporting Pell's version of David Ridsdale's 1993 phone call and thus undermining David's evidence about being silenced. Walshe agreed to participate in this strategy.

About December 2 or 3 in 2015 (during the second week of the Royal Commission's four-weeks public hearing) Walshe was contacted by a member of Pell's legal team. After phone discussions and an exchange of emails between Walshe and this lawyer, the lawyer drafted the final version of Father Walshe's written statement.

The final statement was delivered to Father Walshe by courier and he signed it on 5 December 2015. Walshe told the Commission: "It was all formatted for me and then I signed it and had it witnessed."

This was half way through the Royal Commission's four-weeks Melbourne hearing (and 11 days before Pell was due to give evidence in person in Melbourne).

Fr Walshe's submission reached the Commission on Sunday 6 December, a day before the Commission was due to focus on Ballarat (rather than Melbourne) matters (including survivor David Ridsdale's claim that Cardinal Pell wanted to silence him in 1993).

After Father Walshe's letter reached the Royal Commission, the chairman (Justice Peter McClellan) immediately issued a summons for all the notes and emails which Pell's lawyers possessed regarding Father Walshe's submission.

The Royal Commission scheduled Fr Walshe to appear in the witness box on December 15, the day before Pell's scheduled appearance.

Problems in Walshe's statement

Walshe's version of the 1993 David Ridsdale phone call failed to impress the Royal Commission.

The counsel assisting the commission, Angus Stewart, SC, said that Cardinal Pell's legal team had inserted a number of details into Father Walshe's written statement. These additions, Mr Stewart said, included:

• the time of day when the phone call occurred;
• Father Walshe's subsequent conversation with Bishop Pell about the phone call, and
• which part of the bishop's house they were in when Pell returned from taking the call.

When questioned, Walshe admitted to the Commission that some of his knowledge of the events of 1993 came from watching a television program, "60 Minutes", on the Nine Network in 2002.

Walshe said he discussed the "60 Minutes" program with some of his colleagues who, he said, would have included Father Charles Portelli and Father Anthony Girolami.

Father Walshe and "celibacy"

Towards the end of his evidence, Fr Walshe was questioned about the Catholic Church's policy of advertising its priests as "celibate".

He said he strongly supports "celibacy" and his remarks about it included the following:

"I believe that it's something that is a gift if people live it properly, and I believe that it's something that we've received from the Lord, and there's a long tradition of it...

"Ultimately the purpose of celibacy is supernatural and it will never be understood in human terms."

George Pell absent

When Fr John Walshe entered the Royal Commission witness box (on 15 December 2015), he intended helping Cardinal George Pell who was originally scheduled to step into the same witness box on the next day, December 16. But, in mid-December, Pell's lawyer informed the Royal Commission that Pell did not want to visit Australia.

An allegation against Fr John Walshe
concerning an 18-year-old student

On 23 December 2015 (seven days after Father John Walshe's evidence to the Royal Commission), the Australian Broadcasting Corporation revealed that Fr John Walshe was himself the subject of a sexual complaint. In 2012, the complainant, John Roach, received a written apology after the Melbourne Catholic Archdiocese accepted that Mr Roach had been sexually targeted by Father John Walshe in 1982 when John Roach was a student, aged 18.

John Roach told the ABC that he felt compelled to speak publicly after seeing video coverage of Father Walshe, giving evidence on 15-16 December 2015 at the Royal Commission

In 1982 John Roach was an 18-year-old first-year student at Melbourne's Catholic seminary, beginning his studies for the priesthood, when the incident took place. John Walshe, who was then in his mid-twenties (born in 1958), was at the end of his seminary studies and was facing his future career as a priest. Father Walshe was ordained as a priest in Melbourne by Archbishop Frank Little on 14 August 1982.

John Roach said: "One night he [Father Walshe] invited me up to his room, which was not uncommon.
We had a fair bit of port to drink — I was very unfamiliar with drinking — and I woke up in his bed and he was abusing me.

"I left as quickly as I could, I was very confused, I didn't know what to do, what to think."

Roach said there were two further encounters the following year (while Fr Walshe was an assistant priest in a parish at Blackburn in Melbourne's east). These later encounters, says Mr Roach, included an element of consent.

Mr Roach left the seminary in 1983, but two years later decided to return and had a meeting with the new rector, Dr George Pell.

Mr Roach told the ABC:

"In the course of the interview, he [Dr George Pell] asked me why did I leave in the first place and I told him one of the principal reasons I left in the first place was that I had been abused by a priest." .

"He said, 'I have got to ask you this, can you name the priest?' and I said 'sure, he is Father John Walshe', and he went, 'OK'."

Despite receiving this information, Pell accepted Fr John Walshe's appointment as Pell's assistant priest at the Mentone parish in 1992, where Pell was then residing as one of Melbourne's auxiliary bishops.

John Roach was eventually ordained as a priest, working in some parishes in Tasmania. But he left the priesthood and went to live in the United States. He took no further part in Australian affairs until he noticed the evidence which Father John Walshe gave to Australia's child-abuse Royal Commission in December 2015.

Then the Australian public learned that, in 2012, the Catholic Archbishop of Melbourne, Denis Hart, gave a written apology to Mr Roach for the "wrongs and hurt" he suffered at the hands of Father Walshe. Mr Roach was offered the maximum payment allowed under the church's Melbourne compensation system. Father Walshe was allowed to continue running the Mentone-Parkdale parish.

In his final report on the complaint, the Melbourne archdiocese's complaints officer (Peter O'Callaghan QC) defined sexual abuse as "conduct of a sexual nature that is inconsistent with the public vows, integrity of the ministerial relationship, duties or professional responsibilities of church personnel."

Although Mr O'Callaghan made no finding about which man's version of events should be believed, the final report said, "there is no doubt that sexual abuse occurred" because "a reasonable inference to be drawn is that [Fr John Walshe] had a degree of influence and control over the Seminarian". The finding was not based on any legal interpretation of sexual abuse.

In December 2015, the ABC contacted Father Walshe, seeking a comment. On 22 December 2015, Father Walshe issued the following written statement to the ABC regarding his dealings with John Roach:

"In 1982 I was a sexually naïve and emotionally vulnerable young man. For a short time, as a young adult, I formed an emotional attachment to another young adult, and engaged in consensual conduct with that person.

"My conduct was contrary to my religious beliefs. However, it by no means constituted any form of abuse.

"I must emphasis that we were both adults and our conduct, was completely consensual.

"Following those events, I underwent extensive counselling to deal with the internal conflicts I faced. My conduct since that time has been exemplary.

"I have worked tirelessly as parish priest and have enjoyed the complete confidence of three Archbishops over the past three decades.

"I have devoted my life to the Church and I have worked tirelessly within my Parish to improve the lives of my Community. I look forward to continuing that work in the future.
- Fr John Walshe, 22 December 2015"

On 24 December 2015 (the day after the ABC's story about Mr John Roach), Melbourne Archbishop Denis Hart issued a statement through his vicar-general, Monsignor Greg Bennet.

Monsignor Bennet said:

"Father Walshe has admitted that he engaged in consensual conduct contrary to his religious beliefs and acknowledged that he then undertook extensive counselling.

"Mr O'Callaghan strongly recommended to Archbishop Hart that Father Walshe not be withdrawn from public ministry and this recommendation was accepted by Archbishop Hart.

"Later Mr Roach applied for and was awarded compensation through the Melbourne Response's Compensation Panel."

Monsignor Bennet also stated:

"Father Walshe has spoken to his parishioners and apologised for any hurt or disappointment his behaviour has caused.

"We are aware that these revelations are upsetting for all concerned."

Parishioners of Mentone-Parkdale held a meeting on 6 January 2016, attended by 130 people at short notice, to discuss getting Fr John Walshe replaced as the parish priest.

On Tuesday morning 2 February 2016, a group of about 20 parents from Fr Walshe's parish withdrew their children from the parish's weekly Mass at the Mentone church - as a sign of protest against Fr Walshe being their parish priest (and thereby being the owner of their school). These parents then delivered their children to school later in the morning.

Victoria's Catholic Education executive director Stephen Elder told The Age newspaper that parents (and presumably parishioners) could not influence the position of a parish priest. He said:

"The parish priest has ownership of Catholic schools in Victoria and he delegates the operation of that school to the principal."

Regarding Mr Elder's statement about Fr Walshe being the "owner" of the parish schools, a former seminary student (from the same era as Walshe) has emailed Broken Rites, saying:

"If Walshe 'owns' the school, should he have to pass a 'fit-and-proper-person' test for his school to receive government funding or for the government to be satisfied that he meets the standards required to run a registered school?"

Angela Sdrinis, a lawyer acting on behalf of the parents group, told the ABC in mid-2016:

"There's been a lot going on behind the scenes. The parents have been making representations to the Australian Conference of Bishops.

"I understand that a letter has been, or will be, sent to the Pope.

"There is currently a complaint before the regulatory authority — the Department of Education — and the parents have been talking to members of Parliament about a private members' bill which will be aimed at codifying and clarifying a separation of responsibilities in Catholic schools as between the parish priest and the principal.

"So what's been happening at the Parkdale school, in terms of the influence Walsh has at the school and the power of parish priests in Catholic schools, is an issue that has I believe raised wider concerns about how Catholic schools are run and managed."

On 3 June 2016, Broken Rites received an email from one of its Melbourne informants, stating: "A Melbourne priest told me today that John Walshe is going to Ireland 'to study'."

A spokesman for the Catholic Archdiocese confirmed on 8 June 2016 that Fr Walshe would be taking a scheduled break. Fr Walshe would return to his position in about three months' time, the spokesman said.

On 29 September 2016, a group of parents in the Mentone-Parkdale parish circulated an email among their members, stating:

"The Archdiocese of Melbourne today confirmed that Walshe is due back at the end of the month [September] and has been called to an urgent meeting with the Archbishop as soon as he returns.

"We are aware that people are hearing rumours that a decision regarding Walshe’s future has been made. We are assured by the Archdiocese that this is not the case and that a conversation will only take place between Archbishop Hart and Father Walshe when he returns from sabbatical."

When Fr Walshe resumed work in the Mentone-Parkdale parish in October 2015, many of his parishioners continued to demand his removal.

Finally, on 25 November 2016, Fr Washe announced in his parish bulletin that he is resigning from this parish as from 18 January 2017.

A local newspaper in the Mentone-Parkdale area (the Mordialloc-Chelsea Leader) reported on 7 December 2016:

"Yesterday the Archbishop of Melbourne, Denis Hart, confirmed the priest [Fr Walshe] would receive another appointment...

“He has resigned from this parish and will receive another appointment in due course.”

In February 2017, it was revealed that Fr Walshe was currently residing in a church house adjoining St Finbar's parish church (and parish school) in Melbourne's Brighton . Some parishioners were objecting to this placement.

Death of John Roach

After completing his seminary studies, John James Roach was ordained in 1991 as a priest for the Hobart archdiocese, where he ministered until 2001. His work included being in charge of Tasmania's West Coast parish, serving the communities of Queenstown, Rosebery, Zeehan and Strahan.

After leaving the priesthood, John married and lived in the United States.

After Fr John Walshe's evidence in Australia's child-abuse Royal Commission, Broken Rites contacted John Roach in Boston USA and exchanged several emails with him.

However, John Roach died on 10 April 2016, after a short illness, aged 51. A death notice appeared in a Burnie (Tasmania) newspaper.

• By a Broken Rites researcher, 28 June 2019

Christian Brother Terence Patrick Aquinas Kingston had a 40-year career as a teacher and administrator in Australian Catholic boys' schools — and he became one of the leaders of the Christian Brothers in Australia. Meanwhile, he was committing sexual offences against schoolboys. As usual in Catholic Church crimes, his victims suffered in silence throughout their childhood but eventually (when aged in their fifties) several of them spoke to police investigators, and this resulted in Kingston being sentenced to jail in two states (in Queensland in 2017 and in New South Wales in 2019). The charges involved eight victims, and Kingston pleaded guilty regarding all of these. These eight victims were not necessarily his only victims; the eight were merely those who helped the police.

Brother Kingstson was born on 9 August 1937 and was a schoolboy at St Brendan's College, a day and boarding school established by the Christian Brothers, at Yeppoon, Queensland. The Christian Brothers recruited him to become a Brother.

In those years, the Christian Brothers in Australia were divided into several "provinces", and Brother Kingston worked in two of these:

• In the 1960s and early 1970s (according to Broken Rites research), Brother Kingston worked in schools in the New South Wales province (at Wagga Wagga, Goulburn, Manly and Waverley).
• At some time during the 1970s, he was transferred to a different province, covering Queensland and the Northern Territory. In this province (according to Broken Rites research) he worked at Abergowrie, Holland Park, Indooroopilly, Kingston, Logan in Queensland; and at Darwin and Wadeye in the Northern Territory. In 1990-1995 he was the Provincial Superior (that is, the head) of the Christian Brothers for Queensland and the Northern Territory.

Kingston's first court case was in Queensland. Therefore, this Broken Rites article will deal first with Queensland. The New South Wales court case is given later in this article.

The Queensland charges

The Queensland charges (officially called "indecent treatment of a child under the age of 16") involved nine offences against seven boys while they were in grade eight and nine.

The abuse occurred in the 1970s when Brother Kingston was the principal of St Teresa's College, a Catholic boys' boarding school located in Abergowrie, near Ingham (between Townsville and Cairns). Many of this school's pupils came from remote (including indigenous) families across northern Australia. This school, which was originally described as an agricultural school, was then under the jurisdiction of the Christian Brothers but nowadays it comes under the education office of the Townsville Catholic Diocese.

Queensland Police investigation

Queensland Detectives began investigating Brother Kingston in late 2014 after one complainant, who is now aged in his fifties, contacted the police. The case was handled by detectives from a Child Protection Investigation Unit in North Queensland. The detectives located six more victims of Brother Kingston in Queensland.

When detectives interviewed Kingston in 2015, he was living, with two other Christian Brothers, on an acreage property outside of Caboolture (near Brisbane). Kingston's court charges had a brief procedural mention in Caboolture Magistrates Court on 30 October 2015, with further Magistrates Court proceedings in subsequent months.

Before going to Caboolture, Terrence Kingston was associated with the Blackall district, in central Queensland, 680 km west of Rockhampton. A website of the Rockhampton Catholic Diocese stated in 2013 that Christian Brother Terry Kingston has been "living in semi-retirement in his home town of Blackall, having spent over forty years teaching and administrating in New South Wales, Queensland and the Northern Territory."

Detective Inspector Geoff Marsh, in North Queensland, told the media in 2015 that Queensland detectives were making inquiries about Terrence Patrick Kingston through police in other Australian states. (However, the Queensland police can charge Kingston only with crimes committed in Queensland; charges relating to any other State would need to be heard in a court in the other State.)

The Queensland court

During Kingston's court proceedings in Queensland, the court was told that Kingston on some occasions would direct a boy to come with him to Kingston's room where he then touched the boy indecently.

In other instances, the students were taken to the science lab to try on clothes. While a boy was changing, Kingston would touch the boy's genitals.

Regarding two of the boys, he put oil on these boys and rubbed their genitals.

Crown prosecutor Russell Hood said all the victims expressed their "anger, shock and horror" at what occurred to them by someone in a position of trust. He said that while Kingston had pleaded guilty, he had never expressed remorse or apologised to his victims.

At a pre-sentence hearing, four of the seven victims each submitted an impact statement to the court, telling how the abuse (and the need to remain silent) had affected this victim's later life.

One victim said that if the abuse had not occurred, "I would never have these feelings of fear and shame, guilt, anger and loneliness."

Jailed in Queensland

In sentencing Kingston in the Queensland District Court on 31 January 2017 , Chief Judge Kerry O'Brien said the offences occurred while Kingston was in a position of authority, as headmaster, and the abuse had a lasting effect on victims.

"These boys were offended against in the formative years of their lives," the judge said. "It is not surprising to me ... these events should have had an ongoing effect upon them."

The judge acknowledged that Kingston's advanced age, his current ill-health and the lapse of time since the offending were mitigating factors in fixing a sentence. But he told Kingston: "The nature of your offending is such that the only appropriate penalty is one that sees you go to prison."

The judge sentenced Kingston (then aged 79) to three years jail. After Kingstson serves nine months behind bars, the remainder of the jail term would be suspended.

Jailed again in NSW, 2019

In New South Wales District Court on 21 June 2019, Terence Kingston was jailed again for offences committed against a 12-year-old boy at Waverley Christian Brothers College (in Sydney's east) in 1978. Kingston was the boy's Year Seven dormitory master.

During a pre-sentence hearing this victim (now in his fifties) submitted a victim impact statement describing how this church-related offending had had a long-term effect on the victim's life.

In sentencing Kingston, the judge noticed that the victim showed great dignity during his impact statement. The judge found that the victim had suffered substantially from what had happened.

The NSW judge sentenced Kingston to a total jail term of one year and nine months, with a non-parole period of nine months. The sentence was backdated to commence on 21 December 2018. So his release date from custody would be 20 September 2019. He would then be on parole until his sentence expires on 20 September 2020. The judge backdated the sentence to December 2018 to give effect to the principle of totality. This essentially means that the Judge had to take into account the Kingston's Queensland offences, and what would have happened if Kingston had been sentenced for both the Queensland and NSW offences at once.

A civil settlement

In November 2015, a Sydney legal firm forced the Christian Brothers to settle a claim by a New South Wales former student, involving sexual abuse by Brother Terence Kingston at Wagga Wagga (in southern NSW) in 1966-1967. This student from Wagga is evidently an additional victim - not the same as the one who got Kingston jailed in 2019 for the offences at Sydney's Waverley. So how many more schoolboys were targeted by Christian Brother Terence Kingston during his long career in New South Wales and Queensland?

Footnote

Brother Kingston's full name was given in the Queensland criminal court case as "Terence Patrick Aquinas Kingston". The name "Aquinas" refers to the fact that, some decades ago, a new Christian Brother would adopt a religious "middle" name. Brother Kingston was given the saintly name "Aquinas", a name that was originally made famous by Saint Thomas Aquinas. Thus, some church documents refer to "Brother T.A. Kingston".

• By a Broken Rites researcher, article updated 28 June 2019

A Catholic priest (Father Carl Stafford, born in 1939) is listed for proceedings in the Sydney District Court, charged with child-sex abuse 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 child-sex offences allegedly committed some years ago.

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 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.

In June 2019, the Stafford case had an administrative procedure in the District Court. The main proceedings are scheduled to be held on a later date.

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".

• By a Broken Rites researcher (article updated 7 July 2019)

This Broken Rites article gives some background about how a Catholic priest, Father Robert Claffey, committed sexual offences against children (mostly boys) while the Catholic Church transferred him around parishes in western Victoria for 14 years between 1969 and 1992. Some of Claffey's victims began contacting Broken Rites in 1993, and Broken Rites gave each victim a Victoria Police phone number where the victim could have a chat with child-protection detectives. In 1998, Claffey was convicted regarding two of his victims, and in 2016 he was jailed regarding 12 more of his victims (Claffey's offences included buggery, indecent assault and sexual penetration of a child). The 2016 court case brought the court's total to 14 children. Since then, two additional alleged victims have contacted police and, as a result, Claffey is facing court on 8 July 2019 regarding these new charges.

Broken Rites understands that Robert Claffey was ordained as a priest by 1969, belonging to the Ballarat diocese. In 1969, as outlined in the charges in court, Claffey attacked a seven-year-old girl who was preparing for her first Communion. Claffey went on to assault altar boys and children making preparations for religious ceremonies. He abused children as young as five at their schools, home, and church. Some of the offences occurred while Claffey was wearing his priestly vestments.

In August 2016, Robert Patrick Claffey was due to stand trial in the Victorian County Court where he had indicated that he would plead "Not Guilty" to 21 charges relating to 12 victims (ten males and two females). But, instead, he changed his plea to "Guilty" on 19 charges. Prosecutors withdrew two of the 21 charges. The guilty plea removed the need for a jury trial.

In the Geelong County Court on 4 October 2016, Claffey (then aged 73) was sentenced to more than 18 years jail. He will be eligible to apply for release on parole after 13 years behind bars.

Western Victoria

From 1970 to 1992, Father Robert Claffey worked in the Ballarat Diocese (which covers all of western Victoria) under the supervision of Bishop Ronald Mulkearns. Bishop Mulkearns (born in 1930) was the bishop of Ballarat from 1971 to 1997. Ballarat is the town where western Victoria's bishop is located.

Claffey's charges relate to various towns in western Victoria, including Ballarat, Warrnambool, Apollo Bay and Portland, between 1970 and 1992. The most recent incident involved a child in Portland between 1991 and 1992.

Bishop Ronald Mulkearns, who died in 2016, is on record as having claimed that Claffey's crimes were merely "improper behavior", rather than crimes. This lenient attitude meant that paedophile priests such as Father Claffey (and his colleague Father Gerald Ridsdale) were protected by the church during their life of crime.

Claffey's background

Broken Rites has ascertained (by searching through the annual editions of the Australian Cathholic Directory) that Father Claffey's early parishes (in the late 1960s and in the 1970s) included Terang (St Thomas's parish), Warrnambool (St Joseph's) and Apollo Bay (Our Lady Star of the Sea parish).

At Apollo Bay, Claffey replaced another criminal priest, Father Gerald Ridsdale. One Apollo Bay boy was abused by both Ridsdale and Claffey.

During the 1980s, Claffey was in charge of the Wendouree parish (Our Lady Help of Christians), situated in the city of Ballarat, with a junior priest (Father Glynn Murphy) as his assistant. However, parents complained about Claffey sexually touching their children, and therefore Bishop Mulkearns felt obliged to find a new parish for Claffey.

Claffey was listed in the 1990 Australian Catholic Directory as being "on leave", along with another criminal priest, Father Gerald Ridsdale. But in 1991 (according to the Directory) Father Claffey was sent as an assistant priest to Portland (All Saints parish), working under Father Eric Bryant.

More problems occurred at Portland. Claffey's house was next to the All Saints parish school. and Broken Rites understands that the head nun did not like Claffey being in the school playground. However, he was still the chaplain at Portland's other Catholic primary school, the Mary McKillop School.

A mother complained about Father Claffey touching her son indecently under the water at the Portland swimming pool.

About August 1992, Claffey was removed overnight from the Portland parish, without being given the customary parish farewell. Claffey went to live with his parents in Geelong, where he was noticed frequenting the Geelong swimming pool.

Broken Rites found him listed in the annual Australian Catholic Directory in 1994 as being "on leave". Eventually he ceased being included in the list of Australian priests in the annual directory. By then, Broken Rites Australia had helped to get Father Gerald Ridsdale charged in court, and so some of Claffey's victims began to contact Broken Rites.

The first court case, in 1998

Claffey victims who contacted Broken Rites in the mid-1990s included two brothers, who eventually spoke to the Ballarat office of the Victoria Police child-protection detectives; this unit is now called the Sexual Offences and Child-abuse Investigation Team (SOCIT).

In February 1998, Claffey (then aged 55) appeared in the Ballarat Magistrates Court, charged with indecently assaulting these two boys. These assaults occurred in 1978 when the brothers were aged 12 and 13. The boys' sister had died in a road accident in 1978, according to court evidence. Claffey started visiting the boys' house after the accident to "comfort" them at bed-time. He touched each boy indecently on several occasions while the boy was in bed.

Neither brother knew that the other had been molested by Fr Bob Claffey until they discussed the matter in their twenties.

The boys were part of a devout Catholic family.

As there were only two victims in the case (and as the offences were at the lower end of the criminal scale, with courts taking a relatively lenient attitude in 1998), Magistrate Rowan McIndoe placed Robert Claffey on a good-behaviour bond.

Broken Rites had alerted the media that the court case was coming up and, as a result, the case was reported in the Ballarat "Courier" on 19 February 1998 and in the Warrnambool "Standard" on 25 February 1998. This alerted other Claffey victims about their right to consult the child-protection detectives.

Second court case, beginning in 2014

After the 1998 case, more Claffey victims spoke the child-protection detectives - and some of these victims did so at the suggestion of Broken Rites. By 2014, the detectives were ready to begin acting on behalf of additional Claffey victims.

During a preliminary procedure in the Geelong Magistrates Court on 12 December 2014, the court was told that one of the alleged assaults involved Father Claffey going to a boy’s house and indecently assaulting him during the 1980s. Police told the court that the boy allegedly reported the assault to his father, who then allegedly reported it to Bishop Mulkearns. Claffey was then moved from his parish at Wendouree (a suburb of Ballarat) and was later apppointed to another parish [at Portland], police said.

The December 2014 hearing was told that ex-Bishop Mulkearns had initially agreed to give a statement to police in the investigation against ex-priest Claffey, but church lawyers later told police that Mulkearns did not wish to give evidence, because of ill-health. Ex-Bishop Mulkearns then failed to attend a medical assessment that was organised to determine whether he was indeed too ill to take the witness stand, the court was told.

The magistrate told the December 2014 hearing he was satisfied that ex-bishop Mulkearns had refused to provide a statement. He granted the prosecution’s application to have Mulkearns undergo compulsory questioning in court. After the December 2014 hearing, the case was adjourned until 2015.

The bishop in court, July 2015

Claffey's preliminary proceedings resumed in mid-2015 when ex-Bishop Mulkearns (then living near Victoria's Great Ocean Road) was forced to give evidence in court. The church authorities hired a Queen's Counsel to advise Mulkearns about how to handle his appearance in court.

In the witness box on 29 July 2015, Bishop Mulkearns was questioned by the crown prosecutor. Mulkearns agreed that Claffey had been one of his priests.

But on other questions, Mulkearns was blank. For question after question, his answer was "I cannot recall".

Prosecutor Peter Rose QC asked Bishop Mulkearns whether a parishioner from Wendouree (a suburb of the city of Ballarat), came to him to complain about Mr Claffey.

“I don’t recall that,” Bishop Mulkearns said.

Mr Rose produced a note on stationery from the Bishop’s House in Ballarat and signed by Bishop Mulkearns. The note stated that a parishioner went to see the bishop on July 7, 1989, and complained that Father Claffey had made sexual advances to his son and touched him sexually. The note stated that Bishop Mulkearns asked Father Claffey to see him that afternoon and “he [Claffey] admitted that there had been some improper behaviour”. Bishop Mulkearns wrote that Father Claffey agreed to his suggestion that he receive counselling and that he would leave this parish.

Mr Rose asked Bishop Mulkearns what recollection he had of Father Claffey outside of the note. “I remember he had been misbehaving … in a sexual way,” Bishop Mulkearns said.

After the examination of Bishop Mulkearns, Claffey's lawyer asked that the case be sent straight to the Victorian County Court [where a trial could be heard by a judge].

On 28 September 2015, the Claffey case had a mention in the Victorian County Court. The court agreed to postpone the case until 2016 because of concerns that publicity about Australia's national Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse could adversely affect a jury. The Royal Commission was investigating the alleged concealing of clergy sexual abuse in the Ballarat Catholic diocese.

At this stage, Claffey was pleading "not guilty", but he finally switched to a guilty plea in August 2016.

Jailed in 2016

On 4 October 2016, Judge Felicity Hampel gave Claffey a jail sentence of 18 years and four months, with a minimum of 13 years and four months before becoming eligible to apply for release on parole.

In her sentencing remarks, Judge Hampel noted that Claffey has offered no apology to his victims - nor shown any remorse.

Judge Hampel said Claffey was a "sexual predator" who groomed parents and children by visiting families, establishing trust, and threatening children to keep them quiet.

The judge told Claffey: "That you were able to act with impunity for such a period speaks volumes for the power you exerted over your victims and the gross nature of the breach of trust of a priest in respect of the children of the parish. The consequences for your victims have been profound and, for many, life-long."

More charges in 2018

After the 2016 court case, two additional alleged victims contacted the Victoria Police sexual crimes squad, which then laid new charges against Claffey. On 28 June 2018, after a committal hearing in court, a magistrate ordered Claffey to stand trial on eight new child-sex charges. he allegations, which relate to alleged offences against two young boys, date back to the 1980s and include seven counts of indecent assault of a child under 16 and also one count of gross indecency.

Meanwhile, Claffey remains in jail serving his previous sentence.

The Claffey investigation is being conducted by detectives in the Sano sex-crimes unit in the Victoria Police in Spencer Street, Docklands, Melbourne.

A victim's death

Father Robert Claffey's "reverend" crimes (and the church's "reverend" cover-up) left some long-term feelings of hurt among his victims. A man ("Timothy") told Broken Rites in 2019:

"My little brother (born in 1982) was one of the boys abused by Claffey. This abuse occurred in the Portland parish. My brother eventually reported Claffey's crimes to the police, and I went to the hearing in court to support my brother. My brother was still feeling damaged, and hurt, by the church's cover-up of Claffey. Unfortunately, eventually, my brother lost his life. In 2017 (aged 35) he was found dead from a heroin overdose. The church should never have transferred Claffey to the Portland parish."

• By a Broken Rites researcher 

Broken Rites research has discovered how an Australian Catholic leader (Bishop William Brennan) covered up allegations of clergy sex-abuse in his diocese. Police charged one of Brennan's priests (Father Bernard Connell) with allegedly abusing two boys in different parishes but Bishop Brennan hired an expert legal team to defeat the charges. One of these victims then asked Bishop Brennan for help but the bishop shunned him. The bishop's main aim was protecting the church's holy image, instead of protecting children.

The accused priest, Father Bernard M. Connell, belonged to the Wagga Wagga diocese in southern New South Wales. This diocese extends southward to Albury on the Victorian border. This is one of the eleven dioceses into which the state of New South Wales is divided. Bishop Brennan was in charge of the Wagga Wagga diocese from 1983 to 2002.

Bernie Connell, born in 1938, came from a large family in Cootamundra, southern NSW. He attended school at De La Salle Brothers in Cootamundra until 1951 and then completed his schooling at St Patrick’s College in Goulburn. He began training for the priesthood in 1957. He was ordained as a priest in 1963.

Bishop Brennan, too, was born in 1938. He started studying for the priesthood in Sydney but did some of his studies in Rome. Father Connell always belonged to the Wagga Wagga diocese, whereas Brennan started in another diocese and moved to Wagga Wagga to become its bishop.

Broken Rites has searched the annual editions of the printed Australian Catholic Directory to compile a table of Father Bernie Connell's parishes. From early 1964 to late 1991, his parish postings included:

• parishes at Junee and Albury in the 1960s;
• South Wagga Wagga parish in the early 1970s;
• working as a chaplain at army bases in Puckapunyal (Victoria) and Holdsworthy (NSW) in the 1970s;
• Lockhart parish in 1978;
• Albury and Tocumwal parishes in the 1980s; and
• Leeton parish in 1990-91.

The 1985 edition of the printed Australian Catholic Directory listed Fr Bernard Connell as the secretary of the Diocesan Council of Priests in the Wagga Wagga diocese.

In 1992, Bishop Brennan arranged for Father Connell to take leave from the Wagga Wagga diocese, so that he could work as a priest in the tiny Pacific nation of Kiribati (situated between Nauru and the Gilbert Islands). For legal reasons, it suited Bishop Brennan to have Connell absent from Australia. Father Connell then began playing a significant role in the Kiribati diocese. However, officially, he still belonged to the Wagga Wagga diocese. In 1992, the Australian Catholic Directory listed him, in the Wagga Wagga section, as "on leave/overseas", with his mailing address given as "care of" the Wagga Wagga diocese office.

In November 1993, Broken Rites victim support group was contacted by a former altar boy (let us refer to him as "Trevor", born in 1954), who says he encountered Father Connell in 1964, aged ten.

In 1993, Trevor gave certain information to detectives in the NSW Police. An investigation was conducted by the Child Protection Investigation Team in Sydney. Two years later, in October 1995, detectives arrested Connell when he was re-visiting Australia on holidays. The detectives charged Connell with three offences against "Trevor", comprising one  incident of sodomy and two incidents of indecent touching of the child. These charges, together with Father Connell's name, were reported in the Wagga Wagga Daily Advertiser newspaper on 19 October 1995.

Court proceedings

In November 1995, Connell appeared before a magistrate in a NSW Local Court, where the charges were officially filed. The magistrate committed Connell to stand trial in the NSW District Court.  The charges were reported in media outlets in southern NSW on 19 November 1995, including the Wagga Wagga Daily Advertiser, ABC Radio Wagga Wagga and Radio 2AY Albury. These news reports named the defendant as Fr Bernard Connell.

Following this news coverage, the detectives received information from another alleged victim (Broken Rites will refer to him as "Kraig"), who encountered Connell in a different parish.

On 15 May 1997, Connell (then aged 59) appeared in Albury District Court, charged with sexual offences against "Trevor" and "Kraig". These two complainants did not know each other. The District Court decided to hear these two cases separately, with a different jury for each. Neither jury would know about that there were two complainants, and therefore each jury would presume that Connell had allegedly abused only one boy.

Both cases were heard by Judge Dent. This judge happened to be a Catholic — a  fact  which suited the church authorities.

Father Connell came to court dressed in a way which identified him as a priest. 

In both cases, he pleaded Not Guilty.

The church's well-resourced legal team, representing Connell, seemed to be much better prepared than the public prosecutor who appeared for each of two alleged victims.

Court case no. 1

Kraig's case was heard first. Connell pleaded not guilty to indecent assault of Kraig, aged in his mid-teens, when Connell visited this boy's house in a rural district north of Wagga Wagga

A jury was empanelled but, because the two cases were being heard separately, the jury was not told about the other alleged victim ("Trevor" in Case no.2).

Kraig's police statement, typed by police and signed by Kraig, stated that Connell's home-visit home-visit was in 1967 but Connell's defence disputed this date, saying that the visit was in 1965.

The complainant said that, about a week after the alleged offence, he told his girlfriend (who later became his wife) and also his mother. He said he also told the Reverend Francis Patrick Carroll, who had long been a senior official the Wagga Wagga diocese, eventually becoming the bishop.

Kraig said that his alleged conversation with Carroll took place at a family barbeque, and that Kraig's future wife overheard the conversation. Kraig’s wife would have confirmed this in court but the prosecutor neglected to call her to give evidence. Police believe that the prosecutor (a Catholic) fumbled the prosecution case.

The jury was not told that in 1992 the Wagga Wagga diocese arranged for Connell to work overseas after there had been complaints about abuse of others boys in his parishes.

Bishop Francis Carroll, who was the Archbishop of Canberra-Goulburn in 1997, gave evidence in court, denying that "Kraig" had told him about the Connell incident. Carroll claimed that, "if" he had known about the offence, he "would have" done something about it. The defence lawyer, in his closing address, referred to Carroll’s denial several (implying that a bishop would speak truthfully).

On the second day of the trial, while the defence was into its closing address, Judge Dent called for a short break to allow the jury to freshen up. During this break, the jury indicated that it wished to terminate the two-day trial. The jury gave Father Connell the benefit of the doubt and returned a “not guilty” verdict.

Court case no. 2

In Trevor's case, Connell was charged with sexually assaulting 10-year-old Trevor in a different parish in 1964. Trevor’s signed statement alleged one incident of sodomy and two of indecent assault. 

However, early in the proceedings, Judge Dent granted Father Connell a permanent stay in Trevor's case (that is, the judge stopped Trevor's case permanently).

Further complaints from the past

After his court cases, Bernard Connell re-settled in New South Wales, living at a private address.

In the printed edition of the Australian Catholic Directory in 2002, the Wagga Wagga diocese included "Rev. Bernard Connell, retired" in a list of Wagga Wagga diocese's "supplementary priests" (that is, priests who are not working full-time in a parish). Normally, supplementary or retired priests are available to conduct weddings or funerals or to do Mass (or other locum work) for another priest who is ill or on leave, perhaps in another diocese. The 2002 edition gave Father Connell's residential address as being in Lagoon Street, Ettalong (on the coast, just north of Sydney).

When searching the internet in 2001 and 2002, Broken Rites found that Connell was still referring to himself as "Father Bernie". In an internet posting on 17 November 2001, he gave his name as "Rev. Fr. Bernard. M Connell", of Ettalong Beach. He wrote:

"It is six AM Sunday morning and as I am not saying Mass till evening I am just surfing the net, the sea is a wee bit too cold for a swim..."

In another post on 12 September 2001, Connell wrote: "Now I am retired, I have time to look at how other priests are expressing the Gospel..."

Meanwhile, Kraig and Trevor were not the only young persons who made allegations against Father Connell concerning his earlier career. But some of the other complaints merely went to the church authorities, and the church did not arrange for these complainants to contact the police. After Judge Dent's court hearings, the Catholic Church’s statewide complaints authority for New South Wales [not just the Wagga Wagga diocese] considered some of these complaints against Connell and the possible legal consequences if any of these complainants ever took action against the church. As a result, Bishop Brennan of Wagga Wagga was forced (reluctantly) by the church's statewide authority to officially remove Connell from working as a priest in the Wagga Wagga diocese.

The impact on a victim

Trevor has told Broken Rites that he feels hurt not only by the alleged abuse but also by the church's cover-up. He said:

"When the abuse first occurred, I had to remain silent about it. Priests were on a pedestal of holiness, and I knew that my parents would not believe me if I told them about the abuse. I expected that people would be angry with me for saying negative things (or 'telling lies') about the clergy. Therefore, there was nobody for me to tell. I was forced to remain silent.

"The church's cover-up, as much as the original incidents, had a negative impact on my life. It undermined my relationship with my family, including the wider family of the church and the community. I became less trusting and less conformist. I eventually got into addictions. This development messed up my adult life.

"Eventually, in the early 1990s, I went to counselling for the addictions and, during this counsellng, I revealed for the first time about how I had suffered sexual abuse when I was a ten-year-old altar-boy. The counsellor was horrified and realised that I had been forced to keep this secret for too long. I was later interviewed at a rape crisis centre and I heard about Broken Rites. So in late 1993, I decided to ring Broken Rites as part of my therapy."

The bishop shuns the victim

Trevor said that, after the failure of his court case in 1997, he phoned Bishop Brennan, seeking help. Trevor says:

"All I wanted to know from the bishop was what I could do about Connell and maybe get me some help dealing with the problems that had been caused to my life.

"But all I could get out of Bishop Brennan was, 'Well what the heck do you think I can do?'

"Brennan said this with real sarcasm."

"And that was about the end of my experience with the Catholic church."

Trevor still wants the Catholic Church authorities to apologise to him for the way he was re-victimised by Bishop William Brennan.