• By a Broken Rites researcher, article updated 30 September 2020

One of Australia's most senior Marist Brothers — William Henry Wade (known as "Brother Christopher") — has made history as the first senior Catholic in Australia to plead guilty to concealing the child-sex crimes of Catholic colleagues. In the Sydney District Court on 30 September 2020, Wade (now aged 84) was sentenced for failing to provide information to police during child sex investigations into two other Marist criminals — Francis Cable (known as "Brother Romuald") and Darcy O'Sullivan (known as "Brother Dominic").

As well as these concealment charges, William Wade has previously been jailed (in 2018) for child-sex crimes which he himself committed. The 2018 case is outlined later in this Broken Rites article.

William Henry Wade was born on 27 December 1935. According to information given in previous court proceedings, Wade began training to become a Marist Brother, aged 17. After adopting the religious name "Brother Christopher", he began teaching in Marist schools when he was 19. He then began a life-long career, teaching in ten Marist Brothers schools in Sydney, Newcastle, Brisbane and Canberra between 1955 and 2000.

• In the 1950s and 1960s, he taught at Marist schools in Sydney (Parramatta, Lidcombe, Hunters Hill, Eastwood and Randwick).
• He was a deputy headmaster at Marist Brothers Hamilton (inNewcastle) from 1969 and became headmaster there from 1970 until 1976.
• He then became headmaster at Marist Brothers Kogarah (in Sydney) until 1983.
• He was later at schools in Brisbane (Marist College Ashgrove) and Canberra.

The crime of concealment is where someone "knows or believes that a serious crime has been committed, and fails, without a reasonable excuse, to inform the police".

During Australia's national Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse in 2016, the commission heard evidence from persons who said they told headmaster Brother Wade about offences committed by Brother "Romuald" Cable and Brother "Dominic" O'Sullivan. Wade told the royal commission he did not doubt most of the abuse against multiple boys happened, but he could not recall any of the details. Wade told the royal commission he could not recall ever referring any complaints about Marist Brothers staff to the Marist Brothers' headquarters. Wade admitted to the commission: "I should have at least informed the provincial [the head of the Marist order] and possibly gone to the police."

The head of the Marist Order, Brother Peter Carroll, told the royal commission the Order had failed to do anything about the sex crimes and excessive violence of many of its Brothers.

In court in 2020

In the Sydney District Court on 28 February 2020, Wade pleaded guilty to two counts of failing to provide information to police in 2014 during child sex investigations into Brother "Romuald" Cable and Brother "Dominic" O'Sullivan.

On 30 September 2020, Wade was sentenced by Acting Judge Michael Adams on the concealment charges. The judge sentenced Wade to four months imprisonment, to be served in the community.

Brother Wade's previous conviction, in 2018

In 2018, Brother William Henry ("Christopher") Wade was jailed by a court for indecent assaults which he committed against two boys in Sydney and Newcastle four decades ago.

The Wade case was related only to these two boys; these were the two victims who accepted their right to speak to police detectives. It is not known whether there are any other victims of Wade who have remained silent. And the New South Wales courts deal only with NSW crimes. Any offences reported in Brisbane or Canberra would be handled by the Queensland or Australian Capital Territory courts.

In a judge-alone trial, Wade faced three counts of indecently assaulting two boys — one boy at the Marist Brothers' Hamilton school in Newcastle in 1976 and another at the Marists' Kogarah school in Sydney in 1980. Wade pleaded not guilty.

The boys, who were 13 to 14 at the time, were assaulted by Wade in the headmaster's office. Each boy had been sent there because he felt unwell and had wanted to contact his parents.

Indecent assault is an offence which normally involves the perpetrator interfering with the victim's genitals. One of these two boys also alleged that Brother Wade placed the boy's penis into the Brother's mouth.

The victims waited many years before contacting police about the assaults, because they were worried about being believed, the court was told. The two men contacted police separately in 2015 and 2016, and the police then charged Wade.

Justice David Arnott found Wade guilty. In sentencing, the judge said that Wade relied on his authority and position "making it unlikely the victims would complain". It was "a serious breach of trust," he added.

The judge outlined Wade's career in the Marist Brothers, noting that "he devoted his life to the Brotherhood." The judge referred to testimonials which outlined Wade's high profile among Marist Brothers and the high regard held for him within education circles. But the judge also noted that Wade showed no remorse or contrition.

Judge Arnott sentenced Wade to a maximum of 18 months in jail, with the right to apply for release on parole after serving nine months behind bars.

Wade appealed against the conviction and the jailing but in May 2018 he lost the appeal and was taken to jail to serve his sentence.

After serving his jail sentence, he was charged by NSW police regarding the concealment offences. He is scheduled to be sentenced for the concealment offences in mid-2020.

• By a Broken Rites researcher, article updated 1 October 2020

Broken Rites is doing further research about how the Catholic Church harboured Father Daniel Dominic Hourigan, who committed sexual offences against children in the Sale diocese in eastern Victoria. Hourigan was recruited into the priesthood in his forties. He died three days after police charged him with sexual offences against a boy. Now, many years later, some of his victims are still feeling hurt by the church's cover-up. In 2019, one of Hourigan's victims died by suicide — a slow death lasting forty years. This victim's death is mentioned at the end of this article.

On 15 September 1995, detectives charged Hourigan with one incident of sexual penetration of a boy ("Karl"), and were preparing to lay further charges relating to three other boys. Hourigan, aged 65, died on September 18.

The death was sudden and unexpected. According to a death notice in the Melbourne Age on 21 September 1995, Hourigan died "peacefully". No autopsy was held to determine, for example, whether his body held an unusual amount of medications. Hourigan's relatives attributed the death to a "heart attack".

Criminal charges

Police had summonsed Daniel Hourigan to appear at Korumburra Magistrates Court in south-eastern Victoria on 9 November 1995 on the charge involving Karl. Police said this was a holding charge and that they were preparing more than 20 additional charges, including indecent assault and gross indecency, regarding the three other boys. The additional offences allegedly occurred in two parishes between 1978 and 1983.

Further offences are alleged to have occurred during a trip to Queensland in the early 1980s, but these did not come under the jurisdiction of the Victorian criminal code.

The police investigation began after "Karl" contacted Victoria Police in early August 1995, making a sworn statement.

Karl encountered Hourigan in the Leongatha parish in the early 1980s, aged 11. Karl says: "He was always at our house and was very friendly with my parents."

Karl says there were three incidents when he was aged 13 to 15. One of the offences occurred in the driveway of Karl's family home. Like most other church-abuse victims, Karl could not tell his parents, because he did not want to upset them with negative information about their priest. He finally told his parents in 1988, after Hourigan had transferred to a distant parish.

After Karl's police statement in August 1995, detectives widened their inquiries and interviewed three other young men (from the Warragul parish) about offences committed by Hourigan in 1978-1983.

One of the Warragul victims ("Sebastian") says he told Bishop Eric D'Arcy in 1986 about having been sexually abused by Hourigan, but Hourigan was allowed to continue in the ministry. Bishop D'Arcy left the Sale diocese in 1988.

"Karl" says he lodged a complaint with the Sale diocese in 1993, making it clear that he wanted Hourigan out of the ministry. After 1993, the diocese did not give Hourigan any more full-time postings, but he continued to live in a Catholic parish presbytery within the Sale diocese. And the 1994 edition of the Australian Catholic Directory listed him as a "supplementary priest" priest of the diocese, meaning that he was still available for casual or relieving ministry.

"Karl" became annoyed when he discovered that Hourigan was conducting a funeral service for someone — that is, he was still acting as a priest. Karl eventually contacted the police, when he was aged in his twenties.

After Hourigan's death, senior figures in the Sale diocese confirmed to members of the clergy and laity they had had known for some time about Hourigan's sexual abuse.

Children pray for an alleged child-abuser

A day before the funeral, children at St Lawrence O'Toole parish primary school in Leongatha were asked to say a prayer for Father Hourigan as he had formerly worked in this parish. At this stage, Hourigan's former parishioners throughout eastern Victoria did not know that Hourigan had been charged with child-sex abuse but this situation changed on the morning of the funeral (22 September 1995) when radio news bulletins mentioned the sex-charges for the first time. Some of Hourigan's colleagues heard the radio news items as they were preparing, or travelling, to attend the funeral.

During the funeral service at St Michael's church in Traralgon, a senior cleric of the diocese made an oblique mention of Hourigan's "troubled life"— presumably a reference to the child-sex charges.

On 26 September 1995, local newspapers (the Leongatha Star, the South Gippsland Sentinel Times and the Latrobe Valley Express) published the news about Hourigan's child-sex charges.

The priest's background

Dan Hourigan was born in 1930 and attended school in Traralgon, eastern Victoria. He was known to his relatives as "Tim" Hourigan.

During the 1950s, aged in his twenties, he spent several years as a lay missionary and teacher in New Guinea. During the 1960s he taught English at St Bernard's Christian Brothers College in Essendon, Melbourne. In 1969-72 he is believed to have again worked overseas, possibly as a lay missionary.

In the early 1970s he was recruited as a candidate for the priesthood on behalf of the diocese of Sale. He trained for the priesthood at St Paul's Seminary in Sydney. This was a short course for mature-age entrants — four years (instead of the seven years at Melbourne's Corpus Christi seminary). He was ordained in 1976, aged 46. His parishes in the Sale diocese included: Maffra and Warragul in the late 1970s; Leongatha, Sale, Omeo and Neerim South in the 1980s; and Orbost in 1988-1993.

Former altar boys of Daniel Hourigan still talk about their encounters with this priest. They say that one former altar boy, who did altar-serving for Hourigan in a small rural church near the city of Sale in the mid-1980s, shot himself dead in 1994. 

A victim dies by suicide in 2019

On 21 February 2019, one of Hourigan's victims died by suicide. A week later, this victim's sister told Broken Rites:

"My young brother was abused by Fr Hourigan on August 18, 1979. My brother was very damaged by this abuse, and he suffered a slow death that lasted forty years.

"My brother took his own life by hanging on Thursday 21February 2019. He just couldn't do it any more.

"I am his eldest living sister. He was our baby brother."

• By a Broken Rites researcher, article posted 15 December 2019

The Catholic Church has been forced to admit the crimes of Father Lloyd Reynolds (now deceased), who (the church authorities say) was one of the worst child-sex offenders in Australia's capital city, Canberra. Father Reynolds, who was a priest for 40 years until 1983, belonged to the diocese of Canberra-Goulburn which covers the Australian Capital Territory plus a large region of southern New South Wales. One victim has told Broken Rites about abuse committed by Father Reynolds around 1960, and this victim is still feeling hurt.

The Canberra-Goulburn diocese is one of the eleven Catholic dioceses covering NSW and the A.C.T. Originally, it was called the Goulburn diocese, and the bishop was located in the city of Goulburn. Later, because of the growth of Canberra, the diocese changed its name to Canberra-Goulburn, with the bishop now located in Canberra. As Canberra is a capital city, the bishop is given the rank of Archbishop.

Compensation

A local newspaper in the city of Goulburn — the Goulburn Post — reported on 4 April 2017 that the Canberra-Goulburn Catholic diocese had paid out $1.82 million in compensation to victims of sexual abuse by the year 2010. These figures, tendered to Australia's Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, related to abuse committed during the period 1950 to 2010.

A spokesperson for the Canberra-Goulburn diocese, Mr Matt Casey, said (according to the Goulburn Post article) that, of all the sex-abuse complaints received by the Canberra-Goulburn diocese, half of all the claims were made against two priests — Father Pat Cusack and Father Lloyd Reynolds. Cusack, who served in both the Canberra and Goulburn regions of the diocese, was the target of 23 claims, Mr Casey said. He said Cusack died in 1977 [but the public only became aware of the Cusack allegations in the 1990s]. Father Reynolds mainly served in the city of Canberra (and briefly in the Goulburn rural region). Reynolds died in 1983 and was the subject of seven claims of sexual abuse which allegedly occurred in the 1970s, Mr Casey said. [But a victim has told Broken Rites about abuse committed by Father Reynolds in 1960.]

Mr Casey pointed out that some people had alleged sexual abuse at the church’s hands but did not seek financial redress. He said the Canberra-Goulburn diocese was still receiving historical sexual abuse claims.

According to Broken Rites research, most Catholic clergy abuse victims remain silent for many years, into their forties or fifties or sixties or perhaps forever, although the child-abuse Royal Commission has resulted in some older victims deciding now to obtain justice for their abuse.

Background

Lloyd Reynolds was born in 1917 in Young, southern New South Wales (within the Catholic diocese of Goulburn-Canberra). After being trained in a seminary, he was ordained in 1944 as a priest for the Goulburn-Canberra diocese.

During his long career, his parishes in this diocese included Ungarie NSW, Goulburn NSW, Crookwell NSW, Queanbeyan NSW, Moruya NSW, O'Connor ACT and Aranda ACT. He died in 1983.

The story of one victim around 1960

Broken Rites has obtained the story of one of Father Reynold's victims — we will call him "Roger" (not his real name) — who was born in Australia in 1953. Roger's parents were poor immigrants from war-torn Europe, who arrived in Australia in 1950. Roger's father worked on the Snowy Mountains Scheme and the family eventually settled in Canberra but Roger's parents split. Around 1960, Roger was a child in St Joseph's parish in O'Connor ACT, where Father Reynolds was based.

Roger's wife, "Kathryn", told Broken Rites: "Father Reynolds took 'Roger' on a trip down the NSW south coast to the beach where the abuse would occur. Fr Reynolds lay on top of this boy and simulated sex between his legs.

"Fr Reynolds also used to attend the family home and would make 'Roger' or his brothers sit on his lap and he would fondle them. They would attempt to get away.

"My husband says there were many occasions of abuse by Fr Reynolds.

"Now, after a hard life doing manual work, 'Roger' is tired and is still feeling hurt by what this priest did to him."

Footnote

Broken Rites is continuing its research about Father Lloyd Reynolds. For example, we are obtaining information about Reynolds' activities at St Vincent's parish in Aranda ACT, where he was located from 1970 onwards.

• By a Broken Rites researcher, article updated 11 October 2020

A Catholic priest in North Queensland, Father Neville Joseph Creen, used his priestly standing to hide his child-sex crimes from the police. But many years later, some of his victims gradually began reporting his crimes to the police. As a result, Creen was convicted in two court cases in 2003 and 2004. Now, in 2020, more victims are bringing him to justice in yet another court case.

In the first two court cases (in 2003 and 2004), Creen admitted that he touched young girls sexually when he ministered at the Good Shepherd parish at Mount Isa (a mining town in north-west Queensland) in the 1970s. The girls, aged between five and 13, were pupils at Catholic schools in Mount Isa.

It was stated in court that the crimes were concealed from the police at the time but one victim eventually gave a statement to police as an adult, and the police then interviewed other victims. In 2003 Creen pleaded guilty regarding 18 of his victims and in 2004 he pleaded guilty regarding another two. These 20 were not necessarily his only victims — they were merely those who agreed to make a police statement.

According to Broken Rites research, Creen ministered in Mount Isa between June 1973 and December 1981. In the 1979 edition of the Directory of Australian Catholic Clergy, he was one of four priests at the Mt Ida parish, which is within the Townsville Catholic diocese. (From 1967 to 1983, this diocese was administered by Bishop Leonard Faulkner, who later became the archbishop of Adelaide.)

According to the annual Australian Catholic directory, Creen was still listed as a priest of the Townsville diocese in 1996, but his name vanished from the 1997 directory and from subsequent editions. Evidently, at this stage, he parted company with the priesthood. But he was not brought to justice in court until 2003.

It is unclear exactly when the Townsville diocese became aware that Creen was committing child-abuse crimes or what discussions it had with Creen in 1996 (or earlier). But on 9 September 2003, the day that the public was due to hear about the police charges and about his guilty plea, the diocese was finally forced to publicly acknowledge his crimes.

First court case, 2003

On 9 September 2003, Creen (then aged 63) appeared in the Brisbane District court, where he pleaded guilty to indecent dealings with 18 of the Mount Isa girls, who were aged between five and 13.

Crown prosecutor Carl Heaton described Creen as a trusted and accepted member of his community who "could not walk down the street without people stopping him for a chat".

"He was welcomed into the home of many families. They took him into their homes and fed him on many occasions, regular occasions, and included him as a member of the family to a large extent," Mr Heaton said.

"It was within that environment (Creen's) offending was committed."

According to the prosecution, Creen told one of his victims that God had placed trust in him. Mr Heaton said Creen's comment showed that he had expressly used the authority of his position in both the school and the church to achieve the abuses.

The offences occurred in a variety of places including in the families' homes during visits, on church youth camps, during confession and once at a wedding. One girl was aged just five when Creen abused her at a youth camp and later at the home of her grandparents.

Church statement

Meanwhile, on the day that Creen appeared in court to plead guilty, Bishop Michael Putney (who had administered the Townsville diocese since 2000) circulated a pastoral letter to parishes, announcing the case that was about to become public. He invited any of Creen's victims to contact the diocese for "pastoral" help.

Putney's letter seems to acknowledge that the 18 victims in the police charges were not necessarily Crean's only victims. Putney wrote: "Every time someone is convicted of such crimes one becomes aware of just how many lives have been damaged in this way and how many others there must be in the community who have not found a way to come forward."

Jailed

In sentencing Creen on 12 September 2003, Judge Ian Wylie said Creen had used his position as a priest and his standing in the community to intimidate the girls into remaining silent about their ordeals.

Judge Wylie sentenced Creen to 3 1/2 years' jail, with 14 months to be spent behind bars and the remainder to be suspended for four years. The judge said the part-suspension was to reflect mitigating factors in Creen's favour.

Prosecutors' appeal lost

In November 2003, the Queensland Attorney-General applied to the state's Court of Appeal to seek an extra seven months behind bars for Creen, but the appeal court refused, mainly because Creen now claimed to be rehabilitated. Appeal judge Geoff Davies said the sentencing judge (Judge Wylie) had correctly taken several factors into consideration: the fact that Creen had a new adult relationship; his good work in the community; and the fact that the charges were more than 20 years old (and consequently the long delay in the victims reporting the crimes to police).

One of Creen's victims ("Kathryn", aged 42 at the time of the appeal) told a journalist that she was molested by Creen on three occasions when she was 11. She said she was offended by one judge's comments about how long it took for victims to come forward. Kathryn said: "In my mind he has no comprehension of how the effects of child abuse work on a child."

2 more victims, 2004

In November 2004, after serving his 14 months behind bars, Creen was due to release. But, before walking free, he was charged in the Brisbane District Court with a further six charges of indecent dealing involving two more Mount Isa girls under 12. He again pleaded guilty.

The court was told that he offended against these two girls around the same time that he had touched the other 18 girls. The court was told that the new complaints were of a similar nature to the previous complaints.

The court was told that Creen, who dealt with a number of daughters of his parishioners, committed his offences while the children sat on his lap. He had slipped his hand under the girls' clothing to touch them in the genital region, even when their parents were in the room, and on two occasions had penetrated them digitally.

In his sentencing, Judge Brian Boulton said Creen's breach of trust had ruined the lives of the women who, at the time of the sentencing, were now in their thirties and forties.

"The effect upon them has been quite disastrous," the judge said.

However, the judge said he was taking into account that Creen had rehabilitated himself since the offences were committed, and he gave Creen a two-year wholly suspended sentence on the condition he did not re-offend during the next two years.

Aboriginal girls at risk

In the 1970s, Mt Isa had two Catholic primary schools (St Joseph's and St Kieran's). The pupils included some indigenous children.

As well as the primary schools, there was also a Catholic secondary girls' school, San Jose College, which had some indigenous students. (San Jose College later became a part of Mount Isa Catholic High School.)

A woman ("Donna") who was a schoolgirl in Mount Isa in the 1970s told Broken Rites in 2008: "I lived in Mount Isa with my parents, both of whom were indigenous. I encountered Father Creen at St Joseph's Catholic primary school in Year 7 when I was aged eleven, and I was one of a number of indigenous girls there. I had some bad experiences with Father Creen in this school. After Year 7, I went on to San Jose girls' college. Later, I left Mount Isa and worked in various parts of Queensland. Creen's behaviour disrupted my personal development, sending me off the rails in my teens, and I still feel the effects. I was not involved in the prosecutions in 2003 and 2004. The girls in those court cases were not Creen's only victims. I am glad that Creen was eventually brought to justice."

Of the indigenous girls at San Jose College, about 20 of them (aged from 12 to 16 years) came from distant areas and they boarded in Mount Isa at a Catholic hostel for indigenous girls, Marillac House. It is believed that Father Neville Crean had contact with Marillac House girls.

Military chaplain

Research by Broken Rites indicates that, as well as working in parishes, Neville Creen was also listed in the annual Australian Catholic directories as a part-time chaplain to Australian Army reserve units. Indeed, in the late 1980s and early 1990s, he was not in the Townsville diocese at all but was transferred to work as a full-time chaplain in the "Military Ordinariate of Australia" (this "ordinariate" was the equivalent of a diocese, covering chaplains in all Australia's navy, army and air force bases). The 1988 Catholic directory listed him as "Rev. N. Creen, RFD", presumably meaning that he held the Reserve Force Decoration (RFD), which is a medal 'for efficient service in the reserve forces'.

Crean's address in the late 1980s and early 1990s was listed as the "Character Training Team", care of the School of Artillery, Australian Army, Manly, Sydney. It is unclear what qualifications Creen had in "character training". Was he engaging in "character training" when he assaulted all those girls in Mt Isa?

In the early 1990s, Fr Neville Creen went back to the Townsville Diocese as the Parish Priest in charge of the Holy Spirit parish at Cranbrook in the city of Townsville, Queensland. In addition, in the 1994 Catholic directory, he was listed as a part-time university chaplain at Townsville (the city in which the James Cook University is situated).

However, from 1997 onwards, Creen was no longer listed as a priest anywhere in Australia.

When he appeared in court in Brisbane in 2003, he was listed in court documents as living in Sydney.

The Townsville diocese has never explained how Creen could have committed so many crimes against children in its parishes for so many years. And the diocese has never apologised to the public for having Creen in its ministry.

In court again in 2020

In 2020, Neville Creen is listed for proceedings in Mount Isa District Court, charged with committing sex-crimes against some more of his female victims.

• Footnote: To help internet searches: Neville Joseph Creen's name has sometimes been mis-spelt as Neville Joseph Crean.

• By a Broken Rites researcher, article updated 22 October 2020

The Marist Brothers have been forced to acknowledge that yet another one of their members — Brother Thomas Joseph Butler (known as "Brother Patrick") — committed sexual offences against children. Broken Rites began researching Butler in 1999. Former students, from several Marist schools in New South Wales and Queensland, told Broken Rites that the Marists knew about Butler's offences but the Marists allowed him to continue teaching — and offending — throughout his long career. In September 2016, Australia's national child-abuse Royal Commission held a public hearing (in Newcastle) to examine how the Marist leadership handled Brother Patrick Butler (plus some other offenders). The Royal Commission's report on this matter was published on the website of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation on 21 October 2020.

To read the ABC's article, see the link given at the end of this Broken Rites article.

In the year 1999, Broken Rites began researching the background of Brother "Patrick" Butler. His life story was typical among Australia's Marist Brothers. When he was still a schoolboy, Butler was groomed and recruited by the Marists and was inducted into the Marist's ways of behaving.

Broken Rites has ascertained that Thomas Joseph Butler was born in Sydney on 19 May 1929. He became a pupil at a Marist Brothers school in Eastwood (Sydney), where (by the age of 13 and a half) the Marists groomed him to consider a career as a Marist Brother. In January 1943 he was enticed away from his parent's home to live in a Marist Brothers "juniorate" (a boarding school for Marist "aspirants"), where he completed his secondary schooling (to year 11), followed by 18 months of Marist religious education and teacher-training, which included adopting the name "Brother Patrick". Then, just after his 17th birthday, he began his lifetime of "celibacy" (wink, wink) as a teacher in Marist schools in New South Wales and Queensland

Broken Rites has researched Brother "Patrick" Butler's teaching appointments. Between the late 1940s and the year 2001, he taught at many Catholic schools

• In New South Wales, Brother Patrick taught at the following Marist schools: Hamilton (in the late 1940s, again in the mid-1960s and again in the 1970s), Mosman, Darlinghurst, Hunters Hill (St Joseph's College), Eastwood, Parramatta,Kogarah, and Randwick (Marcellin College).
• In Queensland, he taught at Brisbane's Marist College Ashgrove (in 1962 and again in 1989-2000).

Broken Rites has interviewed ex-students of Brother Patrick Butler from three of his schools. They all said that Brother Patrick would invasively handle a boy's genitals, either from inside or outside the boys' pants. Brother Patrick did this openly, in the classroom, during a lesson, they said.

One ex-student ("Barnaby") told Broken Rites in 2002:

"I encountered Brother Patrick when he was the principal at Marist Brothers Eastwood in Sydney in the 1960s. He would sit down beside a pupil and place his arm around you and fondle your genitals through your shorts pocket. 

"One day, after school was finished for the day, I was required to see him to explain my reason for having been absent from school recently. After a brief questioning, he attempted to take my shorts off. I panicked and hit him with my open hand and ran out the door. My parents were notified a week later by mail that I was expelled from school for truancy.

"I could not tell my mother about the sexual abuse. She was a strict Catholic and would never believe that a thing like sexual abuse could ever be committed by Catholic clergy  or religious Brothers, so I was never vindicated."

"My entire school days, apart from my last year were spent at catholic schools and often we would hear different stories of this Brother or that Brother doing strange things to the kids."

"Brother Pat" died in 2006, aged 77.

In April 2015, responding to questions from the Newcastle Herald, the Marist Brothers Australian head office made a statement, admitting that it had received complaints about Brother Patrick from students at three Marist Brothers schools, although it did not name the schools. The Marists' statement made "an enduring apology to the victims of Patrick Butler and the victims of other Brothers or school employees."

ABC article in 2020

In September 2016, Australia's national child-abuse Royal Commission held a public hearing (in Newcastle) to examine how the Marist leadership handled Brother Patrick Butler (plus some other offenders). The Royal Commission's report on this matter was reported on the website of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation on 21 October 2020. See: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-10-21/royal-commission-child-sex-abuse-...

By a Broken Rites researcher, article updated 1 August 2020

In the 1970s and 1980s, Father Richard Cattell was a Catholic priest in western Sydney, where he committed sexual crimes against boys. In the early 1990s, the Catholic Church promoted Cattell to become the Vicar-General of the Parramatta diocese, supervising 48 parishes in western Sydney on behalf of the bishop. Eventually, several of Cattell's victims spoke (separately) to the police, so Cattell was jailed in 1994 and again in 2015 and 2019. And he is scheduled to appear in court again in late 2020 to face charges regarding an additional victim.

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

Cattell worked in various parishes (Broken Rites has compiled a list of these) until one victim managed to get Cattell convicted in court in 1994.  Since 1994, various Cattell victims have contacted Broken Rites which has advised these victims to have a private chat with NSW Police detectives These victims are from several parishes (and various years) and they do not know each other.

The 1994 court case

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Cattell in retirement

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

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

How the 2015 case began

New South Wales detectives travelled to the NSW/Queensland border, and interviewed Richard Cattell about one former altar boy ("Zachary") who alleged that he was sexually abused while Cattell was based at parishes in western Sydney in the 1980s. The matter was officially filed in a NSW Local Court on 24 March 2014.

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

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

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

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

The case was then passed on to a higher court, the Penrith District Court, for sentencing by a judge on the particular charges relating to the guilty plea. The District Court case number was 2014/00062169.

The victim in the 2015 sentencing

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

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

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

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

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

Pre-sentence procedures in the 2015 case

In Penrith District Court on 20 February 2015, Judge Jennifer English began by hearing submissions from the prosecutor and the defence about what kind of sentence should be imposed.

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

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

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

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

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

Victim impact statement in the 2015 case

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The sentencing in 2015

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

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

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

The priest's career

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

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

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

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

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

More complaints

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

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

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

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

Jailed again in 2019

In 2017 and 2018, prosecutors filed multiple additional charges against Cattell. In the Penrith District Court on 26 July 2019, Cattell was given a 30-months jail sentence (with a minimum of nine months behind bars) for sexual crimes committed against five victims during his time at several parishes between 1968 and 1991. The victims were aged between six and 16, including four males and one female.

By a Broken Rites researcher

In recent years, the Catholic order of Christian Brothers in Australia has made settlements (reluctantly) with sex-abuse victims of Brother Donald Pascal Alford at St Augustine's boys' home, Geelong, in the state of Victoria. In 2021, yet another former inmate of this orphanage (let's refer to him as "Basil") has engaged a Melbourne legal firm to tackle the Christian Brothers organisation, demanding compensation for abuse which Basil says he suffered at the hands of Brother Alford at this orphanage. At present, the church lawyers (and accountants) are resisting the amount of compensation that Basil is seeking but Basil is determined to obtain justice.

Broken Rites has discovered that, after Brother Alford committed these crimes in Australia, the Christian Brothers allowed him to transfer to the United States, where he targeted more victims at a boys' institution in the state of Connecticut.

According to Broken Rites Australia research, Donald Alford (born 23 September 1938) was himself an ex-inmate of Catholic orphanages including (in his teens) St Augustine's. At St Augustine's, he received little formal education and became an apprentice boot repairman before leaving to join the workforce. In his late teens, he decided to join the Christian Brothers and went back to school for more secondary schooling to Year 10 level. At age 21, he was professed as a Christian Brother and took the religious name of Brother Pascal Alford, in honour of an older member of the order. After an initial appointment at the Christian Brothers school at Bundoora in Melbourne, he worked at St Augustine's from 1970 to 1978. He took charge of one of the dormitories and also acted as a general rouse-about.

In 1993, Brother Alford moved to the USA where he worked for ten years at Mount Saint John, a Catholic home and school for boys in Deep River, Connecticut, where there have been complaints about Alford again sexually abusing boys.

In 2001-3, several ex-inmates of St Augustine's each told Broken Rites Australia, separately, that Brother Pascal Alford sexually abused them at that institution in the 1970s. These ex-inmates were not associated with each other. They were of different ages, having been born between 1959 and 1965. On the advice of Broken Rites, at least two of these ex-inmates took out-of-court civil action against the Christian Brothers, demanding a settlement. Consequently, the Christian Brothers made out-of-court settlements with both these victims in return for them not suing the Christian Brothers in the civil courts.

Brother Alford died on 14 April 2004. In the Christian Brothers, he was still officially "reverend". His grave is at the Christian Brothers' Cemetery at Parade College, in Plenty Road, Bundoora, in Melbourne's north-east.

The name Pascal Alford has sometimes been spelt as Paschal Alford.

By a Broken Rites reseacher 

This Broken Rites article is the most comprehensive account available about how the Catholic Church in Australia protected Father Terry Pidoto for 25 years while he committed crimes against boys in his parishes.

Terrence Melville Pidoto was jailed in Melbourne in 2007 for seven years after being found guilty of 11 charges including rape.

Pidoto's priestly career revolved around boys. His superiors and colleagues in the Melbourne archdiocese knew this but they tolerated him, thereby giving him access to victims.

According to court evidence, Pidoto was noted for giving boys a "massage", sometimes behind closed (or locked) doors. The "massages" enabled Pidoto to commit sexual assaults, sometimes by anal penetration.

According to court evidence, Pidoto even took a boy to visit one of Australia's leading priesthood-training colleges (Corpus Christi College, Melbourne) and sexually assaulted him in a room there. Other priests or student priests saw Pidoto with the boy at the seminary but they did not see anything unusual about this.

When Broken Rites established its Australia-wide telephone hotline in late 1993, some of our first callers told us about Father Terry Pidoto. Several of these contacted the Victoria Police sexual offences and child-abuse investigation team (SOCIT). Detectives eventually charged Pidoto with child-sex crimes, and a long series of court proceedings began.

Finally, in June 2007, Pidoto appeared in the Melbourne County Court, charged with 22 offences against seven boys. On 18 July 2007, after weeks of evidence and legal argument, the jury returned a GUILTY verdict on eleven charges, involving four of the boys.

On 17 September 2007, the court sentenced Pidoto to seven years and three months' jail. He was ordered to serve a minimum of five years before becoming eligible for parole.

Crimes at the seminary

According to evidence given in the Melbourne County Court in June 2007, Pidoto committed some of his crimes on the premises of Melbourne's Corpus Christi College, where the church trains its priests for all the Catholic dioceses in Victoria and Tasmania.

One victim, "Roger", stated that in 1972, when he was aged 13, he became a parishioner at St Bede's Catholic parish, Balwyn North (a Melbourne eastern suburb), which was one of Pidoto's earliest parishes. Roger said that Pidoto took him to the seminary, on the pretext of showing him "where priests are made". Pidoto, then aged about 27, was a recent graduate of this seminary.

Roger said that Pidoto took him to a bedroom, where there was a single bed, with three of Pidoto’s friends, sitting around, dressed in underwear.

The three men were evidently seminarians, or recently-ordained priests, from Pidoto’s peer group. Pidoto introduced Roger to these men in a sexual manner, saying ‘Isn’t he cute?’

Pidoto’s friends agreed that Roger was cute. Roger immediately knew that he was in danger and asked Pidoto to take him home. Outside this room, in the corridor, Roger and Pidoto passed two other men, apparently seminarians, both wearing shorts. These men exchanged greetings with Pidoto.

Pidoto showed Roger the chapel, saying "this is where we have Mass", and then took the boy to the dining room, which was deserted. There, he grabbed Roger's penis, performed oral sex on the boy and inserted his penis into the boy's anus.

[Pidoto is not the only priest who has taken boys to the Corpus Christi seminary for sexual purposes. Broken Rites has received complaints about two other Melbourne priests who have done this.]

The priest's background

Broken Rites has compiled the following account of Pidoto's career.

Terrence Melville Pidoto was born in Melbourne on 12 December 1944, the oldest of eight children. He was educated to age 15 (Year 11) at St Bernard's College (Christian Brothers), Essendon (in Melbourne's north-west). Pidoto has said that he then worked with the Victorian Forest Commission for three years and did Year 12 studies while working. In 1964, aged 19, he entered Melbourne's Corpus Christi College seminary to train for the priesthood.He spent the first four years at the seminary's Werribee campus (west of Melbourne), where his room-mate for the first six months was Michael Charles Glennon (Glennon, too, later ended up in jail for child-sex crimes). For the later years of his course, Pidoto transferred (along with other senior students) to the seminary’s new campus at Glen Waverley (in Melbourne's east).

He was ordained on 22 May 1971, aged 26. By then, Pidoto was already "working" with boys. The 1972 annual report of St Augustine's boys' orphanage, Geelong, said 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."

In late 1971, according to archdiocesan records, Father Pidoto spent four months on loan to the Ballarat diocese (ministering at Donald in western Victoria) and two months as a chaplain at Melbourne's Heidelberg Repatriation Hospital.

In March 1972 Pidoto became an assistant priest at Balwyn North (St Bede's parish). He also acted as a part-time chaplain and school "counsellor" at the nearby Marist Brothers'Marcellin College. The school's pupils were sent, one by one, to a room to have a private "counselling" session with Pidoto.

Pidoto himself has said in court that, by the early 1970s, he was becoming very experienced at "massage". He said he had lost count of the number of boys he had "massaged" during his career. He "massaged" boys in their homes, at school and in his presbytery, he said.

Father Terry Pidoto became a chaplain for the Scouts movement in Victoria and was involved in their camps. He had a pilot's licence and went flying in light aircraft, from Coldstream airport, east of Melbourne, taking boys with him.

A Balwyn North woman, "Ruth", told Broken Rites in 1997: "I had brothers, aged 13 to 16. Terry Pidoto was always after them. He took them on outings, including a flight in a light aircraft. I never liked Pidoto. He was a creep. But he was a priest of the church, so we gave him the benefit of the doubt. [In 1997] we learned that Pidoto behaved intrusively towards these boys. One of my brothers, at the age of 21, came out as gay and said he had been conscious of his own gay orientation since the age of 13 [when he was associating with Pidoto]."

A former Marcellin College student told Broken Rites in 1996: "Terry Pidoto hovered around the Marcellin sports teams and gave them massages. Every kid knew that Pidoto was touching kids and therefore the Marist Brothers knew. Pidoto once put his hands on my shoulders from behind, but I knew his reputation, so I escaped his clutches fast."

Marcellin is one of Melbourne's most prominent Catholic schools. The sons of many well-known Catholics, including sons of Peter O'Callaghan QC, have been students there. (Peter O'Callaghan QC deals with sex-abuse complaints on behalf of the Melbourne Catholic archdiocese.)

Kilmore parish

In January 1975, Fr Terence Pidoto was posted to Kilmore (St Patrick's parish), 57km north of Melbourne, where he also acted as a part-time "chaplain" at the Marist Brothers'Assumption College, Kilmore. This was the second time that Pidoto had been given the run of a Marist Brothers school. Assumption College is big on sport and there were many opportunities there for Pidoto to give "massages".

At Kilmore, the court was told, Pidoto developed a relationship with the police force. He became chaplain for a youth group (the Police Scouts) run by the police. Pidoto was a probation officer for Kilmore and he would "look after" boys who got into trouble with the police. Such boys thus became indebted to Pidoto.

This arrangement was particularly advantageous to any offenders who were students or ex-students of Assumption College. At one of Pidoto's court appearances (in 2001), a retired senior police officer named Tom gave character evidence in favour of Pidoto. The court was told that Tom had been stationed at Kilmore during Pidoto's time. Tom said he and Pidoto would help each other regarding offenders. For example (Tom said), if offenders were from Assumption College, Father Pidoto would offer to take them under his supervision, and the police would not charge them. That is, offenders from Assumption College would be let off with a warning and would not have to face court.

[Although Tom did not say so, this arrangement also protected and enhanced the reputation of Assumption College. The arrangement would also be beneficial for any police officer who might want to get his children admitted to Assumption College — a school which enjoyed an unblemished public image.]

While at Kilmore, Pidoto's reach extended even to State schools, where he acted as a part-time chaplain. A defence witness (a former State teacher) told the court that her State school sent its Catholic students to a room to have an individual "counselling" session with Pidoto.

Pidoto left Kilmore in January 1978. About the same time, Marist Brother John Desmond Dyson (later convicted of sex crimes against boys) was arriving at Assumption College.

Later parishes

Pidoto's later parishes were in Melbourne suburbs, including St Clare's parish in Box Hill North (in the late 1970s), St John the Baptist parish in Clifton Hill (about 1979 or 1980), St Pius X parish in Heidelberg West (early 1980s) and St Edmund's parish in Croydon (during the 1980s). His time at Croydon co-incided with that of another assistant priest, Father Jack Gubbels, who was indecently assaulting boys in that parish.

About 1984, according to court evidence, Pidoto was the victim of a bashing. [This is believed to have been an anti-gay bashing in a public park.]

A Croydon parent told Broken Rites in 1997: "Pidoto used to associate with my son, then aged 11, who was in a Catholic scouts group. Pidoto was a district Scouting official. My son, who is now an adult, is oriented towards males. I asked him if anything happened with Pidoto but my son is loyal to Pidoto and won’t say anything against him."

In 1988 the diocese promoted Pidoto to be in charge of one of the diocese's most remote parishes — at Yea (Sacred Heart parish), 80km north-east of Melbourne, where he was the only priest. Some of Pidoto's victims are wondering if the church hierarchy posted him to such a remote parish in order to get him out of the way. Pidoto remained at Yea, out of sight and unsupervised, until the police contacted him in 1997.

An ex-parishioner from an earlier parish told Broken Rites in 1997: "I visited Pidoto at Yea and he had a boy in his presbytery. Pidoto said it was a homeless youth who he was looking after."

At one of Pidoto’s court appearances (in 2001), one of his character witnesses (from the Croydon parish) told the court: "I visited Terry at Yea and his presbytery was often full of young people — for example, drug addicts and Scouts."

After 25 years

While at the Yea parish, Pidoto appeared to be a pillar of the community. In 1993, he was proclaimed as "Citizen of the Year" in Yea. In May 1996, he celebrated the 25th anniversary of his ordination and glowing articles about him appeared in the Yea and Kilmore newspapers on 29 May 1996. The papers had photos of Pidoto, looking holy in his vestments, celebrating Mass with eight other priests.

These articles were seen by "John", a former altar boy for Pidoto at Kilmore. John (born in 1967) was still upset in 1996 about sexual "massages" he received from Pidoto at the age of ten. In November 1996, John contacted the police sexual offences unit, which already had other complainants about Pidoto — from two males in the Yea parish.

In late 1996, following the widely-publicised jailing of various Catholic Church personnel for child-sex crimes, the Melbourne Catholic Archdiocese established an "in-house" system (under Peter O'Callaghan QC) to receive complaints about clergy sexual misconduct. The diocese advertised publicly, inviting complainants to contact Mr O'Callaghan. So John contacted Mr O'Callaghan, demanding that Pidoto should not have access to children. Mr O'Callaghan also received reports about Pidoto from other males.

In June 1997, because of the police investigation, the Melbourne diocese issued a media statement saying that Father Pidoto had been placed on administrative leave until the police investigation was resolved (Melbourne Sunday Herald Sun, 15 June 1997). Subsequently, police received several more complaints about Pidoto, including one from the Croydon parish and one concerning a Catholic school in Ringwood — making a total of half a dozen complaints. And, simultaneously, the Scouting movement removed Pidoto as a chaplain.

In April 1999, the Office of Public Prosecutions gave authority for Pidoto to be charged on summons concerning eight incidents involving three of the complainants — John of Kilmore, plus one of the Yea complainants and one from Marcellin College. Pidoto indicated that he would contest the charges, by pleading not guilty.

Before the committal hearing in the Melbourne Magistrates Court in October 1999, the Yea complainant dropped out. A magistrate ordered Pidoto to stand trial regarding the remaining two alleged victims. The magistrate granted Pidoto a name-suppression order in case Pidoto won the right to have two separate juries. This order meant that Pidoto's name and charges could not be reported in the media until the time of sentencing.

In the Melbourne County Court in February 2000, Judge Campbell granted separation of trials — that is, a different jury for each complainant. This means that each jury thinks there is only one complainant, making a conviction less likely.

While awaiting his trial, Terence Pidoto (according to later court evidence) was living with the Columban Fathers (a Catholic order of priests, officially called St Columba's Mission Society) at their headquarters, 69 Woodland Street, Strathmore (north Essendon), in Melbourne's north-west. The 69 Woodland Street address was given for Pidoto also in the 2001 federal electoral roll. According to court evidence, the Melbourne archdiocese was paying Pidoto’s living costs while he awaited trial. The archdiocese was also providing him with a priest's stipend, plus a diocesan car, the court was told.

First jury, 2000: The story of John

In the first jury trial in the Melbourne County Court in the year 2000, Terence Melville Pidoto was charged concerning four incidents involving "John" when he was a 10-year-old altar boy at the Kilmore parish — including one indecent assault (meaning indecent touching) and three incidents of buggery or, alternatively, indecent assault. The incidents occurred during "massage" sessions over a period of 18 months in 1977-8.

The prosecution alleged that, in one incident, Pidoto massaged John's penis and that, in three other incidents, he somehow penetrated John's anus, thereby necessitating medical treatment.

The court was told that Father Terry Pidoto was a friend of John's parents. During his frequent visits to their house, Pidoto would take John into the boy's bedroom, lock the door and then massage him on a table.

In court, Pidoto admitted massaging John, using a lubricant, but he denied committing any sexual assault.

John said he was too frightened to tell his devout parents about the alleged indecent assaults because of Pidoto's priestly status. Eventually, while John was having marriage problems in his late 20s, he told his wife about Pidoto. At his wife's insistence, John spoke to a counsellor and finally to the police.

Pidoto's barrister in the year 2000 (presumably financed by church sources) was energetic and skilful. This barrister persuaded the jury (incorrectly) that John might be "making up" his complaint against Pidoto in order to gain compensation from the Catholic Church.

In fact, however, John had not claimed compensation from the church. His only aim was to get Pidoto removed from access to children.

Jury discharged

Some members of this 2000 jury were confused by the defence's misinformation about "compensation" (and by the assumption that there was "only one" complainant). Thus, the jury was split between those who said Pidoto was "Guilty" and those who said "Not Guilty". Judge Campbell, requiring a unanimous verdict, discharged the jury and ordered a retrial.

After the jury members left the court, they were stunned to learn that that John was not Pidoto's only alleged victim.

Second jury, 2001: 'Guilty' verdict

In January 2001, a second jury was empanelled for a new trial on the same "John of Kilmore" charges. This time, the prosecutor was careful not to let the jury be mis-led about the church’s system of compensation payments.

One issue in both trials in 2000-2001 was the question of buggery. Medical evidence could not prove how John's anus was penetrated; furthermore, if the penetration was done by a finger, this would not count as buggery as the law stood in 1977-8.

The second jury found Pidoto guilty on four counts of indecent assault, instead of the more serious charge of buggery.

In sentencing, Judge Neesham told Pidoto (then aged 57): "Your breach of trust is truly wicked…As a priest you were above suspicion."

Judge Neesham said Pidoto had shown no remorse. He said the priest’s not-guilty plea, together with his attitude in the witness, "militates against any such emotion".

The judge said a child molester gambles on the age difference and power difference to silence his victim — that is, the offender takes the chance that the victim might speak out later (as John finally did).

Jail sentence, February 2001

Pidoto's offences against John are serious crimes, with a maximum penalty of five years' jail per incident. On 21 February 2001, Judge Neesham declared Pidoto a Serious Sexual Offender (under the crimes statutes) and sentenced him to three years' jail (eligible for parole after 18 months).

The Office of Public Prosecutions was satisfied with winning the case of John and decided not to proceed with a trial involving the Marcellin College student. The Marcellin victim agreed, as he shared the satisfaction of seeing Pidoto removed from access to children after John’s case.

Pidoto had a very expensive and well-resourced legal defence team for his two trials.

Media coverage in 2001

Pidoto's sentencing on 21 February 2001 was widely reported on Melbourne radio and also in the newspapers — the Melbourne Age, 22 February 2001, the Sunday Herald Sun on 4 March 2001 and the Whitehorse Gazette in Box Hill (circulating in one of Pidoto's former parishes) on 26 March 2001. This media coverage prompted more Pidoto victims to contact the Victoria Police sexual crimes squad.

After the jailing of Pidoto on February 2001, the case was discussed on Melbourne Radio 3AW by presenter Neil Mitchell who expressed sympathy for the victim, "John". This irritated Father Michael Shadbolt, of the Doveton parish (in Melbourne's south-east), who had set himself up as "the Catholic Priests Anti-Defamation League". Fr Shadbolt published a letter-to-the-editor in the Herald Sun (5 March 2001), attacking Mitchell for having not presented "the church's side" of the story.

Mitchell then phoned Fr Shadbolt and allowed him to present "the church's side" on air. The following day, Mitchell interviewed "John", who gave a first-hand account of the incidents for which Pidoto was convicted. Thus, "both sides" got a hearing. However, Father Shadbolt might have served "the church's side" better if he had stayed out of the Pidoto affair. In subsequent "talkback" segments, listeners phoned in, supporting John and denouncing "the church's side".

Pidoto wins appeal, 2002

Pidoto's legal team lodged an appeal against his February 2001 conviction. Meanwhile, Pidoto remained in jail during 2001. However, he was still listed as a priest ("on leave") in the mid-2001 edition of the Directory of the National Council of Priests of Australia. In fact, Father Pidoto was spending his "leave" in the Ararat prison and later the Port Phillip prison. And he was still a priest.

In May 2002, the Victorian Court of Appeal ruled that some inadmissible evidence had been given at Pidoto's trial. The appeal judges quashed Pidoto's conviction and ordered a retrial. Pidoto was released from jail, pending the retrial. He had been behind bars for 15 months.

Pidoto's release was reported in the media, and this prompted more Pidoto victims to contact the Victoria Police sexual crimes squad. Therefore the new trial would involve a bigger number of victims.

More victims

By 2005, detectives had prepared a file for a new prosecution. The investigator was Detective Senior Constable Fiona Bock, who was then at the Sexual Crimes Squad in St Kilda Road (she has since transferred to a higher position elsewhere).

The Office of Prosecutions chose seven complainants for the new trial. "John" of Kilmore opted not to participate in the new trial, because he considered (understandably) that he had already done his civic duty by putting the Pidoto matter on the public agenda in 2000 and 2001. Also, he said, he had achieved his objective, which was getting Pidoto removed from children.

In 2005 and 2006, Pidoto made several attempts to delay or stop his new trial, claiming health problems such as "sleep apnea". The County Court eventually rejected this procrastination and scheduled the trial for June 2007. Pidoto again pleaded not guilty.

Pidoto also tried to get a separate jury for each alleged victim, meaning that each jury would think that the offence was an isolated one. But the County Court insisted on having a single jury.

New trial, June 2007

Pidoto's new trial (with the seven alleged victims) began in the County Court in June 2007 before Judge Ross Howie. After weeks of evidence and legal argument, the jury spent one whole day (18 July 2007) considering the various charges and at the end of the day the jury returned its verdict of "guilty" on eleven charges. These included one count of rape, one count of buggery, seven counts of indecent assault, one count of assault occasioning actual bodily harm, and one count of gross indecency. (The words "buggery" and "rape" were used because these were the terms used in Victoria's criminal statutes in whichever years the offences were committed.)

The guilty verdict related to offences against four of the seven boys.

• One one these four was "Roger", the above-mentioned 14-year-old boy from St Bede's parish in Balwyn North, who was penetrated anally by Pidoto at the Melbourne seminary in 1972 (at that time, this crime against a male was defined as buggery).
• More assaults on two 15-year-old boys took place at St Clare's Catholic parish in Box Hill in the late 1970s. One of these boys says his mother complained about Pidoto's offence to Father James Brazier, who was the head of the Melbourne archdiocese's Catholic Family Welfare Bureau at the time. The boy says that Brazier's attitude was: "Well, what do you expect me to do about it?"
• The fourth victim, a 13-year-old boy ("Sam"), was targeted by Pidoto in 1982-83 after the priest officiated at the wedding of Sam's sister. In one of several incidents, Pidoto drove the boy to a park, where he masturbated himself (gross indecency) in the boy's presence and then masturbated the boy (indecent assault). In another incident, he inserted his penis into the boy's anus (at that time, this crime was defined as rape).

Two of the victims — Roger and Sam — submitted written impact statements to the court, describing how the abuse (especially as it was committed by a priest) had adversely affected their lives. The judge studied these impact statements when calculating the sentence that Pidoto should receive.

The judge also took into account the fact that Pidoto had expressed no remorse about his crimes.

Jailed in 2007

Judge Howie said Pidoto's actions were a betrayal of his vocation and had permanently scarred some of his victims.

"These were the premeditated, intentional acts of an ordained priest of the church, a person trusted by the boys concerned and by their families as a representative of what they regarded as the highest good," he said.

The judge said that Pidoto's position of power and authority (as a priest) discouraged his victims from reporting the offences at the time.

The judge then listed each of the crimes for which Pidoto had been convicted, giving a term of imprisonment for each charge. The total came to a maximum of seven years and three months' jail, with a minimum of five years before becoming eligible for parole.

The judge ordered that Pidoto's name be added to the Register of Serious Sexual Offenders. He also ordered the prison authorities to take a DNA sample from Pidoto's mouth, for adding to the national criminal database.

A victim has the final say

Several of Pidoto's victims, including "John" of Kilmore (from the court proceedings of 2000 and 2001), were present in court at the 2007 sentencing, accompanied by a representative from Broken Rites.

Outside court, one victim ("Sam") told the media that his experiences at Pidoto's hands had affected his personal and professional relationships.

"It's quite hard to trust people. I didn't really like myself growing up. I always put myself in abusive situations, including drugs and alcohol.

"There will never be closure, because I'm a different person to what I might have been had I not been abused.'

Pidoto out of jail and facing new charges but he died

On 9 December 2014, Terrence Pidoto completed his jail sentence (which he had served in a prison at Ararat in western Victoria). He was therefore released but Victoria Police detectives immediately charged him in court with additional offences regarding some more alleged victims who had contacted the police while Pidoto was in jail. Pidoto's new case was scheduled to have a preliminary mention in the Melbourne County Court on 20 November 2015. However, a week or so before this court procedure, he died. Therefore, the new case could not go ahead. And the additional victims are unable now to obtain justice.

Broken Rites research has ascertained that Max Blumenthal (born in 1936) began his Catholic Church career in New South Wales as a member of the Marist Brothers (a religious order which provided reverend Brothers for Catholic schools); later (at the age of 38) "Brother" Max upgraded his career by becoming ordained as a priest ("Father" Max) to work in parishes. Father Max eventually retired from parish appointments. In February 2021, aged 85, he appeared in court charged by police with having indecently assaulted a young boy in the mid-1980s.The alleged victim, now a mature-aged adult, had recently contacted police.

The Broken Rites background research was based on two documents:

*The Marist Brothers' official list of all Brothers, who have ever worked (as a Marist Brother) in Australia, includes: "Maximus BLUMENTHAL, born 10 January 1936."

*A list of ordinations says that the date when Brother Max became Father Max was 20 April 1974. Father Max's parishes were in the diocese of Bathurst, which covers an extensive region in central western New South Wales. (The cathedral for this diocese is located in the city of Bathurst.)

On 19 February 2021, police arrested Max Blumenthal at a Sydney residence. He was taken to Sydney's Waverley Court, where the charges were filed with a magistrate.

Robert Maximus Blumenthal, 85, is charged with two counts of sexual intercourse with a person under the age of 10 and three counts of sexual intercourse with a person between 10 and under 16 who was under authority.

The case was adjourned pending further gradual steps in the NSW court system. Meanwhile, Max Blumenthal is released on bail.

• By a Broken Rites researcher (article posted on 24 February 2021

For 15 years until 2011, Father Peter Andrew Hansen was a priest belonging to the Melbourne Catholic Archdiocese. He became a priest as a mature-age adult (he says) while coping with some personal sexual issues. While he was a priest (he says) he developed a dependency on pornography. He left the priesthood in 2011 and spent the subsequent years working with Vietnamese asylum seekers. Eventually, he was arrested by Australian Federal Police at Sydney airport while returning from Asia. In court in February 2021 (aged 63), he pleaded guilty to 31 charges, including one of engaging in sexual intercourse with a child under 18 in the Philippines and 15 counts of producing child abuse material. He now awaits his sentencing.

Originally, Peter Hanson studied law in Australia. Later, he obtained a Bachelor of Theology degree from the Catholic Theological College in Melbourne and a higher degree in Asian history and religious history from the Melbourne College of Divinity.

As a mature-age adult, he became a priest belonging to the Melbourne Catholic archdiocese. (A spokesperson for the Melbourne archdiocese has confirmed this in response to an inquiry from the media.)

Broken Rites has ascertained that Father Peter Hansen is listed in the annual editions of the printed Australian Catholic Directory between 1997 and 2011. As well as residing in Melbourne parishes (including Altona North, Mitcham and Fitzroy), Hansen was the founder of the Mary of the Cross Centre 2000 in Fitzroy (in inner-Melbourne). This centre provided counselling and support for victims of drug and alcohol abuse.

After leaving the priesthood, Hansen worked as a legal advisor for Vietnamese asylum seekers in Hong Kong and the Philippines. He knows how to handle the Vietnamese language.

In October 2018 (when he was aged 61), Peter Hansen was arrested at Sydney Airport (when returning from Vietnam) and was charged with some specific child-sex offences (but, according to statements made in court, there were also other non-charged incidents). After gradual preliminary proceedings, he pleaded guilty to the specified incidents. In February 2021, the case then went to the New South Wales District Court for sentencing.

By a Broken Rites researcher (article updated 3 March 2021)

Richard John McPhillamy has been a prominent layman in Catholic Church affairs in the diocese of Bathurst, in central-west New South Wales. He was formerly listed as an "acolyte", assisting in various matters at Bathurst's Cathedral of St Michael and St John. Also, he worked as an assistant dormitory master at St Stanislaus College — a Bathurst boarding school for boys. As a dormitory master at this school in the 1980s, Mr Rick McPhillamy had his own room in the "priests corridor", located near the Year Seven dormitory. (This school was conducted by the Catholic religious order of Vincentian priests and Brothers.) In 2011 and 2015, McPhillamy was convicted of committing sexual crimes against three of the boys who were under his control. McPhillamy appealed against these convictions but in 2017 his appeal was dismissed.

This Broken Rites article begins by reviewing the convictions in 2011 and 2015.

The first court case

In December 2008, Bathurst police charged McPhillamy with having committed child-sex offences at St Stanislaus College in the mid-1980s. In 2010, he faced jury proceedings in the New South Wales District Court.

McPhillamy pleaded not guilty to one count of sexual assault and five of indecent assault, allegedly committed against two boys, aged 12 to 13,in the mid-1980s while he was working at the school.

The jury verdict was "Guilty" regarding both boys. In 2011 the judge sentenced McPhillamy to a minimum of 12 months jail.

Boy #1 in the 2010 trial

During the jury proceedings in 2010, the court was told that the first complainant was upset at becoming a boarder when he was only 12. McPhillamy "comforted" the boy and allowed him to sit on McPhillamy's bed to relax.

McPhillamy allegedly gave the boy a hug, using one hand to reach down and stroke the boy's genitals, the court heard.

The boy allegedly left the room, telling McPhillamy not to touch him and to leave him alone.

When the boy was 13, McPhillamy allegedly touched the naked boy who was drying himself in the shower block. The boy moved away and said: "F--k off, you dirty f--king perv, leave me alone."

A week later, the boy was hauled to the headmaster's office and was told that swearing at staff members ''wasn't tolerated'' at the school. The boy wanted to tell the headmaster the reason for the swearing but he was not given the opportunity. Instead, the boy was reprimanded for swearing at the staff member and was sent to be caned.

Boy #2 in the 2010 trial

The second pupil in the 2010 trial, an "extremely homesick" 13-year-old, was upset and did not want to return to the school following a weekend with his parents. McPhillamy allegedly took the boy to his private room and said he could make him feel better by giving him a massage. After massaging him on the neck and shoulders Mr McPhillamy allegedly worked his hands down the boy's back to his private parts.

Three charges related to McPhillamy allegedly straddling the boy to massage him before pushing his hands underneath him to touch the boy's genitals.

The court was also told that McPhillamy would talk to the boy about sex and masturbation.

On another occasion, when the boy fell asleep during a massage, he woke to find his penis being sucked by McPhillamy. The boy jumped up and left the room, and thereafter he avoided McPhillamy.

Further evidence in the 2010 cases

After McPhillamy's offences, the behaviour of both boys at school began to deteriorate and they were disciplined for it, the court was told.

The court heard that when police searched McPhillamy's home in December 2008, they found photographs of the two victims.

On McPhillamy's computer, the police found four images of child pornography. The prosecution argued that these images indicated McPhillamy's sexual interest in young boys.

Jailed in 2011

For sentencing purposes in 2011, the court dealt with the six charges in two batches:

• On 10 March 2011, McPhillamy was sentenced to a minimum of six months behind bars.
• On 10 June 2011, he was sentenced to an additional minimum of six months behind bars (to be served consecutively, making a total of at least 12 months in custody).

Convicted in 2015

On 13 February 2015, McPhillamy appeared before Judge King in the District Court, in Sydney's Downing Centre, after a jury returned a finding of guilty on six charges relating to a third boy. These incidents occurred in the 1990s. The jury found McPhillamy guilty of:

• two counts of aggravated indecency (the victim was under 16 and under authority of  the offender),
• two counts of aggravated indecent assault (victim under the age of 16 years), and
• two counts of sexual intercourse (person 10 and under 16 - under authority - strictly indictable).

McPhillamy was refused bail and he was remanded in custody for sentence proceedings, scheduled for later in 2015. McPhillamy appealed to the Court of Criminal Appeal in the Supreme Court to overturn his conviction but in 2017 the appeal court dismissed his appeal.

Footnote

When Richard John McPhillamy was charged in December 2008, the website of the Cathedral Parish of St Michael and St John in Bathurst was displaying a list of active parishioners who were in charge of various activities in the cathedral parish. The list included:
Acolytes - Rick McPhillamy

On 10 January 2010, before McPhillamy's trial, Broken Rites was still able to retrieve a cache of the same webpage (mentioning Rick McPhillamy and acolytes) via a Google search. However, another attempt to retrieve this webpage on 15 October 2010 (after the conviction) was unsuccessful.

• By a Broken Rites researcher, article updated 12 March 2020

In the 1960s, Brian Spillane began training towards a career in the Catholic priesthood. In 2020, he is in jail in New South Wales for sexual crimes which he committed against boys (and also some girls) during his religious career. Spillane's eligible release date is November 2026.While he is in jail, police have investigated some additional allegations about Spillane. .

Some background

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Spillane's previous court proceedings

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Convicted regarding female victims

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bail refused in 2010

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

Attempt to stop the proceedings

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

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

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

Sentenced regarding the girls, April 2012

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Jailed regarding the girls, 2012

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

Charges regarding boys, 2013-2016

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

The boys' cases resulted as follows:

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

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

Another jail sentence, 2017

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A victim speaks out, 2017

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

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

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

Charged again in 2018

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

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

However, in March 2020, the Director of Public Prosecutions decided not to proceed with the 2018 charge.

• By a Broken Rites researcher, article updated 1 February 2021

An elderly Catholic religious Brother (John David Frith) has been ordered to undergo a criminal trial, with a jury, in the Australian state of Victoria. He is charged with offences allegedly committed some years ago against boys at a Catholic secondary school — Monivae College, situated at Hamilton, 290 kilometres west of Melbourne. The trial date has been delayed because of the Coronavirus pandemic.

The case of John David Frith was investigated by detectives from a specialist unit (the Sano Taskforce) in the Victoria Police, Melbourne. The investigation was concerned with the 1970s and 1980s.

The case had its first mention in the Melbourne Magistrates Court on 14 September 2018. A preliminary (committal) hearing was held in February 2019. This magistrate ordered Frith to stand trial with a judge in the Victorian County Court.

A jury trial for Frith was due to begin in the County Court in March 2020, and the trial was expected to continue for several weeks. However, the onset of the Coronavirus pandemic (about this time) made it risky for a significant number of people to sit together in such a courtroom. Therefore the trial was postponed. Now the trial is expected to be held  in 2021.

Monivae College was established by a Catholic religious order, the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart. For many years, it was a boarding school for boys only.

• By a Broken Rites researcher, article updated 1 October 2020

Broken Rites is doing further research about how the Catholic Church harboured Father Daniel Dominic Hourigan, who committed sexual offences against children in the Sale diocese in eastern Victoria. Hourigan was recruited into the priesthood in his forties. He died three days after police charged him with sexual offences against a boy. Now, many years later, some of his victims are still feeling hurt by the church's cover-up. In 2019, one of Hourigan's victims died by suicide — a slow death lasting forty years. This victim's death is mentioned at the end of this article.

On 15 September 1995, detectives charged Hourigan with one incident of sexual penetration of a boy ("Karl"), and were preparing to lay further charges relating to three other boys. Hourigan, aged 65, died on September 18.

The death was sudden and unexpected. According to a death notice in the Melbourne Age on 21 September 1995, Hourigan died "peacefully". No autopsy was held to determine, for example, whether his body held an unusual amount of medications. Hourigan's relatives attributed the death to a "heart attack".

Criminal charges

Police had summonsed Daniel Hourigan to appear at Korumburra Magistrates Court in south-eastern Victoria on 9 November 1995 on the charge involving Karl. Police said this was a holding charge and that they were preparing more than 20 additional charges, including indecent assault and gross indecency, regarding the three other boys. The additional offences allegedly occurred in two parishes between 1978 and 1983.

Further offences are alleged to have occurred during a trip to Queensland in the early 1980s, but these did not come under the jurisdiction of the Victorian criminal code.

The police investigation began after "Karl" contacted Victoria Police in early August 1995, making a sworn statement.

Karl encountered Hourigan in the Leongatha parish in the early 1980s, aged 11. Karl says: "He was always at our house and was very friendly with my parents."

Karl says there were three incidents when he was aged 13 to 15. One of the offences occurred in the driveway of Karl's family home. Like most other church-abuse victims, Karl could not tell his parents, because he did not want to upset them with negative information about their priest. He finally told his parents in 1988, after Hourigan had transferred to a distant parish.

After Karl's police statement in August 1995, detectives widened their inquiries and interviewed three other young men (from the Warragul parish) about offences committed by Hourigan in 1978-1983.

One of the Warragul victims ("Sebastian") says he told Bishop Eric D'Arcy in 1986 about having been sexually abused by Hourigan, but Hourigan was allowed to continue in the ministry. Bishop D'Arcy left the Sale diocese in 1988.

"Karl" says he lodged a complaint with the Sale diocese in 1993, making it clear that he wanted Hourigan out of the ministry. After 1993, the diocese did not give Hourigan any more full-time postings, but he continued to live in a Catholic parish presbytery within the Sale diocese. And the 1994 edition of the Australian Catholic Directory listed him as a "supplementary priest" priest of the diocese, meaning that he was still available for casual or relieving ministry.

"Karl" became annoyed when he discovered that Hourigan was conducting a funeral service for someone — that is, he was still acting as a priest. Karl eventually contacted the police, when he was aged in his twenties.

After Hourigan's death, senior figures in the Sale diocese confirmed to members of the clergy and laity they had had known for some time about Hourigan's sexual abuse.

Children pray for an alleged child-abuser

A day before the funeral, children at St Lawrence O'Toole parish primary school in Leongatha were asked to say a prayer for Father Hourigan as he had formerly worked in this parish. At this stage, Hourigan's former parishioners throughout eastern Victoria did not know that Hourigan had been charged with child-sex abuse but this situation changed on the morning of the funeral (22 September 1995) when radio news bulletins mentioned the sex-charges for the first time. Some of Hourigan's colleagues heard the radio news items as they were preparing, or travelling, to attend the funeral.

During the funeral service at St Michael's church in Traralgon, a senior cleric of the diocese made an oblique mention of Hourigan's "troubled life"— presumably a reference to the child-sex charges.

On 26 September 1995, local newspapers (the Leongatha Star, the South Gippsland Sentinel Times and the Latrobe Valley Express) published the news about Hourigan's child-sex charges.

The priest's background

Dan Hourigan was born in 1930 and attended school in Traralgon, eastern Victoria. He was known to his relatives as "Tim" Hourigan.

During the 1950s, aged in his twenties, he spent several years as a lay missionary and teacher in New Guinea. During the 1960s he taught English at St Bernard's Christian Brothers College in Essendon, Melbourne. In 1969-72 he is believed to have again worked overseas, possibly as a lay missionary.

In the early 1970s he was recruited as a candidate for the priesthood on behalf of the diocese of Sale. He trained for the priesthood at St Paul's Seminary in Sydney. This was a short course for mature-age entrants — four years (instead of the seven years at Melbourne's Corpus Christi seminary). He was ordained in 1976, aged 46. His parishes in the Sale diocese included: Maffra and Warragul in the late 1970s; Leongatha, Sale, Omeo and Neerim South in the 1980s; and Orbost in 1988-1993.

Former altar boys of Daniel Hourigan still talk about their encounters with this priest. They say that one former altar boy, who did altar-serving for Hourigan in a small rural church near the city of Sale in the mid-1980s, shot himself dead in 1994. 

A victim dies by suicide in 2019

On 21 February 2019, one of Hourigan's victims died by suicide. A week later, this victim's sister told Broken Rites:

"My young brother was abused by Fr Hourigan on August 18, 1979. My brother was very damaged by this abuse, and he suffered a slow death that lasted forty years.

"My brother took his own life by hanging on Thursday 21February 2019. He just couldn't do it any more.

"I am his eldest living sister. He was our baby brother."

• By a Broken Rites researcher

This Broken Rites article is the most comprehensive account available about how Catholic Church leaders remained silent for 30 years about the child-sex crimes of Father John Joseph Farrell (also known as "Father F"). In 1993, Broken Rites began researching the Farrell cover-up. In 2012, our research helped to create a "Four Corners" television program about the Farrell cover-up, thus bringing this cover-up to nationwide attention. And this helped to encourage the Federal Government to establish its national child-abuse Royal Commission. Gradually, some of Farrell's victims spoke (separately) to child-protection police, resulting in the jailing of Farrell in 2016. Meanwhile, more of his victims were speaking to the detectives, and therefore on 2 November 2018 Farrell (then aged 65) was sentenced to more time in jail for these additional crimes.

To see a summary of the court proceedings, resulting in the jailing of Farrell, click a link at the end of this article.

First, here is the background to Farrell's life, as researched by Broken Rites.

Church document

According to a church document, Catholic Church officials knew that Father John Joseph Farrell had been committing sex-crimes against children in New South Wales but the church officials preferred to conceal these crimes, so as to protect the church's image.

According to this document (written by senior priest Father Wayne Peters, acting for the church authorities), Father John Farrell admitted to the church authorities in 1992 that, during the previous ten years, he had committed sexual offences against altar boys. These boys were 10 and 11 years old at the time of the offences. The church document quoted Father Farrell as admitting that he began doing these things to the boys in his very first parish in the early 1980s.

According to this 1992 document, the church authorities feared that "one or some of the boys involved may bring criminal charges against [John Farrell] with subsequent grave harm to the priesthood and the Church."

That is, according to this document, the church's priority was to protect the church's public image, rather than to protect the children. Indeed, the document made no mention of the welfare of the children. Thus, the church authorities did not help Father Farrell's former altar boys to consult the state's child-protection police about Farrell's actions Thus, the church's public image was protected — until the church's cover-up of "Father F" was revealed in an ABC "Four Corners" program in July 2012. This program prompted the NSW Police to start investigating Farrell, resulting in his jailing in 2016.

Some background

Father John Joseph Farrell spent his priestly career in New South Wales. The Catholic Church in New South Wales is divided into eleven dioceses, with each diocese being responsible for recruiting its priests and assigning them to various parishes or other postings. Farrell belonged to the Armidale diocese (comprising two dozen parishes) in north-western New South Wales, extending along the New England Highway to the Queensland border.

One of Father Farrell's first parishes (from November 1981 to about April 1984) was the town of Moree, where he assisted the Parish Priest, Monsignor Frank Ryan. Monsignor Ryan was descended from Irish immigrants; Ryan's mother (born as Elizabeth Farrell) was a member of the large Farrell clan in northern New South Wales.

Father Farrell's first full year in Moree was 1982 — and this is when the church's 30-year silence began. (Moree is 600 kilometres north-west of Sydney.)

Ten years later, in 1993, the newly-established Broken Rites victim support group began its Australia-wide research on church sexual-abuse. Broken Rites received a phone call from a former altar boy of Father Farrell at Moree, reporting certain things that allegedly happened to him and other altar boys (aged about ten and eleven) in this parish in 1982-1983.

Soon, Broken Rites had similar phone chats with other Moree families, who said that, by 1983, they had spoken to Father Farrell's immediate superior (Monsignor Frank Ryan, the senior priest in charge of the parish), expressing their concern.

Thirty years later, in 2012, Broken Rites arranged for some of these families to speak to the producers of the Australian television public-affairs program Four Corners. In an interview aired on 2 July 2012, one of the Moree parents (Patrick) told Four Corners that his son (Michael) was indecently assaulted on the genitals by Father Farrell in 1983. Immediately after the abuse occurred, Michael (an altar boy) told his father about it. Patrick said in the Four Corners interview:

• "I immediately went to the presbytery, spoke to Monsignor Frank Ryan, who was the Parish Priest, told him what had happened and how I felt that it'd be best if he [Father Farrell] was kept away from our children and so that it didn't happen again.

That is, the church received this complaint in 1983. The Four Corners program displayed a typewritten letter, from Monsignor Ryan to this parent, admitting that the church authorities knew in 1983 about the Father Farrell complaints. Monsignor Ryan wrote in the letter:

• "I made discreet inquiries and liaised with families known to have children involved in the matters that were brought to our attention."

That is, Monsignor Ryan knew of other victims (for example, according to Michael's dad Patrick, one of these was an abused boy who was a friend of Michael).

As well as being in charge of the Moree parish, Monsignor Ryan was the Vicar-General (that is, the bishop's deputy) for the whole of the Armidale diocese. The bishop, Most Reverend Henry ("Harry") Kennedy, was located in the town of Armidale.

Parents have told Broken Rites that, in 1983 and 1984, Bishop Henry Kennedy and Monsignor Ryan showed no surprise about these complaints regarding Father Farrell (and they showed no concern about the welfare of the altar boys).

The church discouraged these families from lodging a complaint with the police. Two of the mothers had jobs in local Catholic schools and neither of these mothers wanted to jeopardize this employment. And some parents helped priests to serve Communion at the altar and did not want to fall out with the clergy.

Thus, the church protected Father Farrell from any police investigation in 1983 and 1984. The church merely transferred him to another parish (as we will explain later in this article).

Father Farrell admitted the offences

So what was Father Farrell doing to some of his altar boys in his first parish in 1981-1984? Father Wayne Peters, a senior priest representing the Armidale diocese, wrote some answers in a church document in 1992. This document, which is a report of an interview with Father Farrell, was quoted in a courtroom during an unrelated court case in Sydney in 2004. The court document was revealed by the Four Corners program on 2 July 2012. In the document, Father Peters alleged:

• "He [Father Farrell] admitted that there had been five boys around the age of ten and eleven that he had sexually interfered with in varying degrees in the years approximately 1982 to 1984 while he was the assistant priest at Moree."

The letter quotes Father Farrell as saying that, in the case of Boy One and Boy Two, he made "advances" which both these boys resisted.

In the case of Boy Three, Father Farrell admitted "that he fondled the boy's genitals" during a car trip to Narrabri parish. [There will be more about Boy Three, Damian Jurd, later in this Broken Rites article.]

Regarding Boy Four and Boy Five, Father Peters alleged:

• "The situations of boys four and five were the occasion of more serious admissions on the part of [Father Farrell]. He admitted that over a period of approximately twelve months he fondled the genitals of each of these [two] boys and, to quote, 'sucked off their dicks'. As far as [Father Farrell] can remember, this was done on about a monthly basis over a period of twelve months."

[Broken Rites understands that, according to the New South Wales criminal laws, it is possible that any adult could be charged by police with a crime called "indecent assault" for allegedly doing such things to a child, especially as it was allegedly done while the child was in the custody of a person of authority, such as a clergyman.]

It is significant that Bishop Henry Kennedy and Monsignor Frank Ryan seemed to ignore the concerns expressed by parents in 1982-84. And these leaders did not bother to find out what harm was suffered by the altar boys and how this harm also affected the boys' families.

The perpetrators of the 1982-84 cover-up

Father Farrell's early protectors — Bishop Henry (or "Harry") Kennedy and Monsignor Frank Ryan — were significant figures in the Australian church.

• Bishop Henry Kennedy, as a young priest, had been the private secretary to Cardinal Norman Gilroy in Sydney, and had eventually become vice-chancellor of the archdiocese of Sydney. After being an auxiliary bishop in Brisbane, he became bishop of the Armidale diocese in 1971, aged 56 (when John Joseph Farrell was aged about 18).
• Monsignor Francis Patrick Ryan was born in the Armidale diocese. He was a pupil at De La Salle College in Armidale city, and later served as the school's chaplain. He became one of Australia's youngest monsignors (the rank immediately below a bishop). He served as the Armidale diocese's vicar-general (that is, the bishop's deputy) throughout Bishop Kennedy's reign. As well as being vicar-general, Monsignor Frank Ryan simultaneously worked in parishes (for example, St Francis Xavier parish at Moree). As Monsignor Ryan's family was related to Farrell's family, Ryan became a significant figure in helping to launch Farrell's priestly career.

Father Farrell's background

Born on 4 July 1953, John Joseph Farrell was the youngest of seven children. He grew up in the town of Armidale. His secondary school was Armidale's De La Salle College, operated by the De La Salle religious Brothers. This school had a tradition of grooming some boys for a career as a priest or a religious brother.

For years, young John Farrell served as an altar boy at the Armidale Cathedral (the Cathedral of St Mary and St Joseph). Thus, he grew up knowing three successive Armidale bishops: Bishop Edward Doody who was based at Armidale until John Farrell was 15; Bishop James Freeman who was based at Armidale briefly during John Farrell's mid-teens (Freeman later became cardinal archbishop of Sydney); and Bishop Henry Kennedy (who took over in 1971, when Farrell was 18).

Farrell seems to have spent his childhood and teenage years "hanging around" churches, being groomed by priests and bishops. It would be interesting if, at some time in the distant future, Farrell were to tell the public something about the grooming process which he experienced.

In 1974, when he was aged 21, John Farrell was endorsed by Bishop Henry Kennedy to go to Sydney to study for the priesthood. The early years were to be spent in a seminary at Springwood and the later years in another seminary at Manly. After commencing at Springwood, Farrell took a year off but returned to continue his training.

During his seminary years (in the late 1970s), Farrell still kept his connection and allegiance to northern New South Wales. He was being trained specifically for the Armidale diocese and normally he would be expected to spend his career in the various towns of this region.

Farrell was ordained as a deacon on 28 November 1980 and as a priest on 28 September 1981. During this period of traineeship in 1980-81, he spent some time (as a trainee) at the Narrabri parish, in an outlying town of the Armidale diocese. According to former parishioners at Narrabri, Farrell was sexually targeting altar boys in that parish.

From 11 November 1981, Farrell was appointed as an assistant priest in the parish of Moree (called the St Francis Xavier parish), and continued molesting altar boys there.

Farrell was not the only young man from Armidale who was recruited into the priesthood for this diocese. An earlier example is Father Gerard Joseph Hanna (born 22 Dec 1941, 12 years older than Farrell). Hanna became in charge of parishes, where Father Father was an assistant priest. (More about Hanna later in this article.)

Father Farrell in 1984-87

In April 1984, after Farrell had been involved with the altar boys in the Moree parish for more than two years, Bishop Henry Kennedy was forced to take action to protect the interests of the Catholic Church. Father Farrell was abruptly removed from the Moree parish and was sent on what was euphemistically described as "sick leave".

Farrell then spent a short period visiting the presbytery of another priest, Father Rex Brown, at Tweed Heads in the Lismore diocese on the New South Wales north coast. Father Rex Brown, who was a child-sex offender, had access to a residential shelter in Tweed Heads for homeless boys. Rex Brown is the subject of a separate article on the Broken Rites website. (Broken Rites is doing further research about John Farrell's visit to Tweed Heads.)

About the end of July 1984, Father Farrell returned to the Armidale diocese. Despite the previous complaints about Father Farrell, Bishop Henry Kennedy kept him as a priest and appointed him to St Nicholas’s parish in Tamworth (the largest town in the Armidale diocese). There, he worked under the parish priest-in-charge, Father Gerard Hanna.

In Tamworth, various priests and laypersons knew that that Farrell was a danger to children. For example, according to a church report (compiled for the church in 2012-13 by Antony Whitlam QC), there are two letters in the diocesan records protesting to Bishop J Kennedy about Farrell's proposed appointment to Tamworth. Whitlam reported:

• "One [letter] was from Harry O'Halloran, a prominent Catholic layman and solicitor. He pointed out the close community ties between Tamworth and Moree and said that F's recent conduct in Moree was known to parishioners in Tamworth. . .
• "The other letter was from Fr [Bernard] Flood expressing his serious disquiet that 'the earlier incidents [at Moree] are likely to re-occur [in Tamworth]'."

Despite these warnings, the church continued to allow Father Farrell to have priestly access to children in 1984-87 while he was based at St Nicholas's parish, Tamworth.

Reverend Gerard Hanna, who was Father Farrell's superior at the Tamworth parish, is a significant figure in the Farrell story. Hanna, like Farrell, grew up in the town of Armidale and attended school there. Hanna, who came from a high-profile Armidale business family, was ordained as a priest in 1968 and served in the Moree parish in the late 1970s (before Father Farrell arrived there). Later, after being at the Tamworth parish, Hanna served as the vicar-general (that is, chief administrator) of the Armidale diocese) and was given the title of "Monsignor" Hanna. In 2002 he became the bishop of Wagga Wagga (covering the Riverina region in southern New South Wales). Therefore, Hanna became one of the leaders of the Catholic Church in Australia. He must know a great deal about the story of John Joseph Farrell.

Tamworth was not Farrell's final parish. The church allowed him to continue working in other parishes until 1991, thereby giving him priestly access to more children. By the end of 1991, it was ten years since he had begun working as a priest.

The story of one altar boy, Damian Jurd

Meanwhile, in 1984-87, one of Farrell's former altar boys in 1983-84 (Damian James Jurd, born on 7 March 1972) was having troubles of his own. By mid-1984 (aged 12) Damian ceased being an altar boy and refused to go to church any more. His behaviour deteriorated at home and at school. Damian's parents could not figure out what was troubling the boy.

Eventually, in 1987, Damian ended up on the streets of Sydney, homeless and in distress, aged 15. He was interviewed by child-protection workers and by a children's psychiatrist. While asking Damian about his past, these experts discovered that Damian had allegedly been sexually abused by Father Farrell while he was in this priest's custody in 1983, when he was aged eleven.

Damian's Catholic family had presumed that the child would be safe while in the custody of a Catholic priest. Damian felt unable to tell his "very Catholic" family about what allegedly happened during his weekend with this Catholic priest.

The child-protection experts agreed that the alleged sexual abuse (plus the alleged breach of trust and the accompanying Catholic Church cover-up) had disrupted Damian's adolescence, resulting in severe personal damage.

The church shuns the police

Until mid-1987, the church authorities had successfully protected Farrell from coming to the notice of the police. However, the Sydney child-protection experts referred the Farrell matter to Juvenile Services detectives in the New South Wales Police Service in Sydney.

When these Sydney detectives began their investigation, they notified the police in Tamworth, where Farrell was now ministering (at Tamworth's St Nicholas parish). However, the Tamworth police did not show much enthusiasm for this case. A Tamworth police officer (a Catholic who was acquainted with Farrell) was heard commenting that Father Farrell's accuser "must be telling lies". Because of this inadequate police response in Tamworth, the Sydney detectives decided not to rely on the Tamworth police.

The Sydney detectives visited Moree and contacted some of Farrell's former altar boys and their families but these families were reluctant to help the police. A note written by Bishop Kevin Manning (dated 9 October 1991 and quoted by a church-appointed barrister, Antony Whitlam QC) refers to "the silencing of witnesses in Moree by Monsignor Ryan."

Therefore, the detectives were hamstrung. They could proceed on behalf of only one of the alleged victims — Damian Jurd. The church's code of silence protected Farrell and the church's reputation and assets, but it created problems for Damian Jurd and other altar boys.

Police charges re a car-trip to Narrabri

On 11 August 1987, the detectives arrested Farrell in Tamworth and charged him with having committed sexual crimes on Damian Jurd. Damian's police statement alleged that these incidents occurred during a weekend car-trip from Moree to Narrabri (St Francis Xavier parish). Farrell and Damian stayed in Narrabri overnight, so that Farrell could conduct the weekend Mass for a priest who was away. Damian acted as the altar boy.

On the advice of the church's Catholic solicitor, Farrell refused to answer various questions (about the alleged incidents) which were put to him by the police.

On the evening of 11 August 1987, the arrest of Father Farrell was reported on the news bulletin of a north-west NSW commercial television service. The news item said that the charges relate to sexual abuse allegedly committed against a 12-year-old boy (not named) in the early 1980s.

Damien Jurd's court case

Supported by the church leadership, Farrell indicated that he would plead "not guilty" in court. Farrell's defence team was well resourced. The Armidale Diocese hired a leading Sydney barrister, Mr Chester Porter QC, who had conducted the defence for prominent criminals in Sydney courts.

According to church documents (examined by Antony Whitlam QC), the church paid for Mr Porter to do the Farrell case.

(Where did the church obtain this money for the QC's fees? Did any of it come from money that parents had put into the collection plate at Mass on Sundays?)

A preliminary hearing (called a "committal" hearing, to decide whether the case should be passed on to a judge and jury) was held in a closed courtroom at Narrabri Local Court on 18 February 1988. The magistrate who was listed to hear the case was Raymond George Alexander Blissett. who happened to be (surprise, surprise) personally acquainted with Father Farrell.

(Why did Magistrate Blissett not step aside from hearing the case?)

When Damian's family heard the name of this magistrate, they felt pessimistic about the outcome, because Ray Blissett was a parishioner in the Catholic Church (at "Our Lady Help of Christians" parish in Tamworth South.

In court, after Damian gave his evidence, the church's celebrity barrister cross-examined Damian about his evidence. According to another priest (Father Harry Leis), Chester Porter QC "made mince-meat" of Damian in the witness box. (This is quoted by Antony Whitlam QC in his report for the church in 2012.)

On the other hand, Farrell called no evidence and reserved his defence. (This sometimes happens in a preliminary hearing, when a defendant may decide to retain his/her side of the story until telling it to a judge and jury at a subsequent trial).

At the end of these preliminary proceedings, Magistrate Blissett refused to refer the case to a judge and jury. Explaining his refusal, he said that he preferred to believe "a Catholic priest" (who had pleaded not guilty and who had "no previous convictions"), rather than a troubled 15-year-old boy. This was despite the fact that Farrell had not given evidence and therefore the magistrate had not examined Farrell's side of the story.

Why did the Catholic magistrate choose to believe "a Catholic priest" when this priest had not given evidence to the court.

Accordingly, Magistrate Blissett discharged Farrell, who then walked free from the court, continuing to enjoy the status of "a Catholic priest" with "no convictions", while Damian (having been damaged "like mince-meat") left the court feeling very hurt.

Magistrate Blissett prohibited the media from reporting the court case. Thus, the "good" reputation of the church (as of 1988) was protected.

When the Armidale Catholic dioceseengaged Antony Whitlam QC in 2012 to write a report for the church about the Father F matter, Mr Whitlam reported that the reasons of Magistrate Blissett in discharging 'F' in 1988 were "plainly unsatisfactory and provide no support for his [the magistrate's] stated conclusion" and "reflect a flawed approach to the exercise of his jurisdiction to discharge." Mr Whitlam wrote: "it is difficult to see how a decision was made not to continue the prosecution of 'F' on an ex officio indictment."

The damage control continues

After the Damian Jurd court case, the church authorities arranged for Father Farrell to take a few weekend Masses in Tamworth, so that he would "be seen as vindicated". But after Easter 1988, Farrell was given "leave" from parish work. He was allowed to live in Bishop Henry Kennedy's house in Armidale, where (he said) he would spend his time doing some university studies.

Although Father Farell was never again appointed to a parish position in the Armidale diocese, the church authorities allowed him to work in another diocese (as explained later in this article).

Complaint by a female, 1988

In the late 1980s, while Father Farrell was without a parish, a complaint emerged about him having committed a sexual offence against a 15-year-old girl.

Antony Whitlam QC says, in a report compiled for the church in 2012:

• "In early 1988, Fr [Wayne] Peters received from another priest in Armidale a report of 'F' [Farrell] sexually assaulting a 15-year-old girl. The matter was handled [by the church] in accordance with the [church's] 'Towards Healing' protocols, notwithstanding that there was no allegation relevant to F's priestly status. The criminal charges that resulted were apparently dismissed by a magistrate on 4 February 1999 after a two-day hearing in Armidale."(Whitlam report, paragraph 118.)

In stating that "there was no allegation relevant to F's priestly status", Whitlam evidently means that the girl was not a parishioner.

In Sydney, 1989

By 1989, Father Farrell was living as a guest in a parish priest's house in a suburb of Sydney. According to a letter written by Farrell on 29 June 1989, he was living in the presbytery of the Carlingford parish (St Gerard Majella parish) in Sydney's north-western suburbs. Carlingford was within the new diocese of Broken Bay (which had been carved off from the Sydney archdiocese) and the priest in charge of the Carlingford parish was Father Finian Egan. Some Carlingford parishioners say that they remember Father Farrell being in this parish — they had presumed that Father Farrell was officially working in this parish as a relieving priest.

Three months later, on 3 October 1989 (according to church documents), Father Farrell wrote from this Carlingford address to Bishop Bede Heather (of the Parramatta diocese, covering Sydney's western suburbs) seeking to discuss "the possibility of going on loan for your diocese". Bishop Heather spoke to Armidale's Bishop Henry Kennedy about this on 9 October 1989, the church records state.

[Farrell's host at the Carlingford parish, Father Finian Egan, was sentenced to jail in December 2013 for sexually abusing children during his 50 years as a priest in the Sydney region.]

Transferred to the Parramatta diocese

In late 1989 it was arranged that Father Farrell would transfer (on loan) to minister in the Kenthurst parish in the Parramatta diocese, although officially he would still belong to the Armidale diocese.

The Parramatta diocese, formed in 1986 (with Bishop Bede Heather as its leader), comprised about four dozen parishes in Sydney's outer western suburbs. Parramatta proper is merely where the bishop and the cathedral are located.

Western Sydney is 500 kilometres away from Armidale.

Parishioners in the Armidale diocese were not told why Father Farrell was no longer allowed to work in the Armidale diocese, and his new parishioners at Kenthurst in the Parramatta diocese were not told why he was arriving there.

Thus, Father Farrell spent more than two years ministering in the Parramatta diocese:

1. From late 1989 until late 1990, he was an assistant priest at Kenthurst (St Madeleine Sophie parish).
2. Next (throughout 1991 until early 1992) he was an assistant priest in the Merrylands parish (St Margaret Mary parish). At this parish, Farrell encountered another altar boy, Daniel William Powell, who is mentioned later in this Broken Rites article.

Eventually, some parishioners in the Parramatta diocese became concerned about Farrell.

One parent spoke to Father Roderick Bray (who was in charge of St Margaret Mary parish in Merrylands), and threatened to "go public" about Father Farrell. Furthermore, someone in the Parramatta diocese heard about Farrell's problems in the Moree parish in northern New South Wales in 1982-84, and this information began to circulate in the Parramatta diocese.

In late 1991, while he was still on loan to the Parramatta diocese, the church authorities were finally forced to consider some damage-control regarding Farrell.

After Bishop Henry Kennedy retired in 1991 (aged 76), he was succeeded as bishop of Armidale by Bishop Kevin Manning, who conferred with other church officials in Sydney about how to manage the Farrell problem.

Crisis meeting in 1992

By mid-1992, Father Farrell had finished his term at the Merrylands parish and was seeking a new parish in the Parramatta diocese.

He was summoned to a meeting at the Sydney Cathedral presbytery, on On 3 September 1992, attended by three church officials:

• Reverend Brian Lucas (then based at the Sydney Cathedral), who was involved in the administration of the Sydney archdiocese. (According to another church document, Lucas had been a student in the seminary at the same time as John Farrell and he had attended Farrell's ordination ceremony in Armidale.)
• Reverend John Usher, of the Sydney archdiocese, chairperson of the Australian Catholic Welfare Commission.
• Reverend Wayne Peters, a senior priest of the Armidale diocese, whose responsibilities then included the Armidale diocese Tribunal (Peters later became Armidale's vicar-general, the bishop's deputy).

Father Peters wrote a report to Armidale Bishop Kevin Manning (dated 11 September 1992), giving an account of this meeting. In the report, Peters says that Lucas and Usher were representing the "Special Issues Resource Committee" of the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference.

In the 1990s, the term "Special Issues" was a euphemism for clergy sexual abuse. The Special Issues Committee had been established in conjunction with the church's own insurance company (Catholic Church Insurances Limited), which handles "confidential" compensation payouts to victims of church sexual abuse.

In his report, Father Peters alleges that Farrell made the admissions at this meeting about how he committed sexual actions (such as "sucking off boys' dicks") upon children in his custody in 1982-84.

The church leaders explained to Farrell that it would be too risky for the church to appoint him to a new parish because (as Fr Peters' wrote in his letter) "the possibility always remains that one or some of the boys involved may bring criminal charges against [John Farrell] with subsequent grave harm to the priesthood and the Church."

Thus, the church officials were worried about possible harm to the church (that is, harm to its corporate brand-name and its assets), rather than harm that may have been done to the altar boys.

The church officials showed no interest in checking among the altar boys in Farrell's former parishes to find out if any of them needed help.

And the church officials did not help any of the former altar boys to have a chat with detectives in the Sexual Crime Squad of the New South Wales Police. Why not? The reason was given in the report by Father Wayne Peters — that if police laid criminal charges against Farrell, this would cause "subsequent grave harm to the priesthood and the Church."

Farrell in the 1990s

By late 1992, John Farrell was back in his home-town, Armidale, living in a private house this time (not the bishop's house). Although now living as a private citizen, in the eyes of the Catholic Church he was still a priest (a priest without a parish).

Despite his record, the Armidale diocese allowed him to continue playing an active role (as a layman) in church affairs in Armidale town.

And (according to Antony Whitlam QC) church records state that in May 1997 Father Farrell heard confessions one weekend at a parish in the Broken Bay diocese (in Sydney's north) where a seminary classmate was parish priest. Did these parishioners realise exactly to whom they were confessing their sins?

Farrell's status, as a priest without a parish, continued for another ten years while he lived as a private citizen.

Compensation for Damian Jurd

Meanwhile, during the 1990s, Damian Jurd of Moree was feeling hurt by damage which (he alleged) had been done to his life by the church's protecting of Farrell He hired a Sydney legal firm to tackle the Armidale diocese for compensation. The church resisted this application but it eventually was forced to make a confidential financial settlement with Damian (then aged 26) in 1998. Such settlements serve a business purpose — in order to end (and limit) the diocese's financial liability to the alleged victim.

Damian used his compensation as a deposit to buy a house for his partner and his two young children.

Death of Damian Jurd

Despite receiving compensation, Damian was still feeling damaged by the church's victimisation of him. At the end of 2000, his depression became particularly bad and he was feeling worn out. He had lost the will to continue living. He took his own life and was found unconscious in bed. He died on New Year's Day, 2001, aged 28, leaving two children — a boy then aged nine and a girl then aged eight. The Catholic Church had indeed succeeded in "making mince-meat" of him.

When the story of the "Father F" cover up became public in July 2012, Damian's son and daughter were aged 20 and 19 (and they are still feeling hurt about what the Catholic Church did to their father and their grandparents).

An archbishop knew in 2002

Another altar boy,"Bill" (not his real name) re-surfaced in 2002. Bill had encountered Farrell in the Moree parish in 1982-84. Bill's experiences with Farrell began at the age of eight but the church culture intimidated Bill into remaining silent for many years. Finally, in 2002 (when he was in his late twenties with children of his own), Bill wrote a letter to the archbishop of Sydney, complaining about how Father Farrell (and the church's protection of Farrell) had disrupted Bill's life. The archbishop replied that this was a matter for the Armidale diocese.

So Bill's complaint was flick-passed to the Armidale diocese, which then took an evasive attitude towards Bill. Thus, Bill felt intimidated into not pressing the matter further.

Despite Bill's complaint in 2002, none of the church leaders in 2002 gave him the telephone number of the Sex Crimes Squad of the New South Wales Police. Why not? This squad has a team of detectives to investigate such matters. It is not the role of the Catholic Church to "investigate" its own crimes.

Daniel Powell, altar boy

Meanwhile, trouble was brewing for another of Farrell's altar boys. Daniel William Powell (born on 28 May 1979) was aged 12 when he encountered Farrell in the Merrylands parish in the Parramatta diocese during Farrell's final months there in 1991-92.

In 1997, aged 18, Daniel's life was in a mess. He contacted Farrell, telling him how the priest had damaged the boy's life. According to Daniel, Farrell paid money to Daniel on the understanding that Daniel would not go to the police. Unwisely, Daniel accepted this money from Father F. (Instead, Daniel ought to have asked a solicitor to tackle the Parramatta diocese, not the priest, for compensation.)

Farrell arranged for the police to charge Daniel with the crime of demanding money with menaces.

The matter first went to court for a preliminary ("committal") hearing in October 2003 when Daniel was aged 24. The matter then proceeded to a jury trial in 2004.

To demonstrate that Daniel had been seeking reparation (rather than committing extortion), Daniel's defence barrister (Philip Massey) recited to the court a 24-page statement by Daniel, alleging multiple incidents of sexual abuse by Father John Farrell which had disrupted Daniel's life. Broken Rites possesses a copy of this statement.

Farrell again admits his child-sex assaults

During Daniel Powell's jury trial in 2004, Daniel's defence barrister revealed (and quoted from) Father Wayne Peters' letter of 11 September 1992, containing Farrell's admission that he had committed oral-sex assaults on altar boys.

During the 2004 jury trial, Farrell again admitted these sexual assaults. While he was being cross-examined by Daniel Powell's lawyer, the following exchange occurred (on page 176 of the transcript):

LAWYER: I suggest to you that at that meeting you made certain admissions to those priests [Lucas, Usher and Peters] that you had had oral sex with young boys. What do you say about that?
FARRELL: Yes.

LAWYER: And that's the reason why they [the Armidale diocese] won't let you carry out your duties as a priest, isn't it?
FARRELL: That's part of it, yes…

LAWYER: That, of course, breaks your promise of chastity, doesn't it?
FARRELL: Actually what you are talking about is the promise I took of celibacy, which is not getting married, but if you are saying it was wrong and sinful to engage in wrong practices the answer is yes, and I am deeply sorry for what happened.

This 2004 admission by Farrell (made while under oath) now makes it difficult for Father Brian Lucas to deny the admissions that were cited in Father Wayne Peters' 1992 letter.

The church in damage control

The 2004 jury found Daniel Powell not guilty of the extortion charge.

After the 2004 trial, the church authorities realised that Father Peters' letter about the 1992 meeting with Farrell could become a public-relations problem for the church. Therefore, after the 2004 trial, the church authorities took steps to officially "laicise" John Farrell (that is, remove his priestly status). Thus, he finally became "Mister" Farrell (merely a "former" priest). But this was done to protect the assets of the church. And this was 20 years too late for the altar boys.

And, still, no church official bothered in 2004 to help any of Father F's former altar boys to make an appointment with the NSW Police crime squad.

Compensation and death for Daniel Powell

Daniel engaged a legal firm to tackle the church for compensation for his damaged life. The church resisted this claim but a "confidential" settlement was reached in 2005 when Daniel was 26.

Daniel Powell never recovered from the disruption of his adolescence and he took his own life, by hanging, on 25 November 2007, aged 28. He was the father of two young children.

The significance of Damian and Daniel

Damian Jurd and Daniel Powell lived in different parts of New South Wales and they never knew each other. Damian was born seven years earlier than Daniel. Each of them gave up living at the age of 28.

Whereas Damian Jurd first contacted Broken Rites in 1993, Daniel Powell did not contact us until 2004, and by then Damian Jurd had already died. Broken Rites told Daniel about the trouble in the Moree parish in northern New South Wales and the story of Damian Jurd. Daniel Powell's lawyer then used this information to help get Daniel acquitted from the criminal charges of "demanding money" from Farrell.

Broken Rites arranged for Daniel Powell to have telephone contact with Damian Jurd's family in northern New South Wales. Damian's family expressed sympathy and encouragement to Daniel.

Both Damian and Daniel were damaged not only by the church's culture of clergy sexual abuse but also because of the church's protecting of Father John Farrell from 1981 onwards. While Father Farrell remained in parish work, the lives of Damian Jurd and Daniel Powell were spiralling downwards.

Each died at the age of 28.

Neither the Armidale nor Parramatta diocese seems to show any concern for the future welfare of Damian's two children or Daniel's two.

And, judging from Father Wayne Peters' letter about the 1992 meeting, the church officials showed no interest in trying to find out the names of all the altar boys who may have been affected. In 1993, however, Broken Rites EASILY discovered the names of these altar boys — the names that the church officials in 1992 did not want to know about.

Broken Rites and "Four Corners"

In early 2012, Broken Rites spoke to the producers of the Australian television program Four Corners and this program eventually ran a story about "Father F" on Monday, 2 July 2012 — thirty years after Bishop Henry Kennedy and his deputy (Monsignor Frank Ryan) first ignored the complaints about "Father F". Four Corners displayed the letter that was written by Rev. Wayne Peters to Bishop Kevin Manning about Father F's 1982-84 activities. A link to this letter is given at the end of this Broken Rites article, under the sub-heading "Further reading".

The "Four Corners" program prompted other media outlets to take up the "Father F" story. A day after the "Four Corners" program, a Sydney Morning Herald journalist stated in his article: "The [Father F] saga has intensified calls for a royal commission into sexual abuse in the Catholic church and allegations of widespread cover-ups."

Go to "a police station"

After the "Four Corners" program, many people wondered how the church had managed to keep the "Father F" story away from the police for 30 years.

When Broken Rites is helping any church-abuse victim, we give them a police telephone number, where (if they wish) they can arrange to have an private interview with a Crime Squad detective who specialises in investigating crimes against children. Too often, however, the Catholic Church has been off-putting about a police interview. For example, when interviewed on ABC Radio's "AM" program on 6 July 2012, Father Brian Lucas was asked why the church had not helped each victim of Father F to arrange an interview with police investigators. Lucas replied, unhelpfully that "those men [the victims of Father F] today ought to go to a police station and report this abuse ."

Go to "a police station"? The local cop shop? And queue up at the reception counter, waiting for the person ahead of them to report a stolen bicycle?

Father Brian Lucas's attitude is discouraging.

The church investigates itself

After the Four Corners program in 2012, the bishops of Armidale and Parramatta announced that they would engage a senior barrister (Mr Antony Whitlam QC) to conduct an investigation for the church on certain aspects of the Father F matter.

The church released the Whitlam report to the media on 17 January 2013. The Whitlam report was based on church correspondence, plus Antony Whitlam's interviews with some bishops and priests, Damian Jurd's parents and Daniel Powell's mother, and a number of other persons.

Royal Commission

Meanwhile, in late 2012, the Australian federal government decided to establish a national Royal Commission to investigate the issue of child abuse in religious and other organisations more generally. The commission would examine the manner in which these organisations have handled (or mis-handled) the problem of child sexual abuse.

The Royal Commission began its work in early 2013. Any victim around Australia could apply to have a private interview in order to tell his/her story to the commission behind closed doors (and some victims of Father Farrell took this opportunity). Also, the Royal Commission would hold a series of public hearings on particular case studies (and Case Study #44, at a public hearing in September 2016, was to examine how the Catholic Church handled the matter of Father John Joseph Farrell).

The church leaders' 30-year silence

The church authorities have some explaining to do:

WHY did the church authorities remain silent about Father John Joseph for thirty years? Why did no church official ever arrange for any of Farrell's altar boys to have an interview with the NSW Police sex crimes squad? In New South Wales law, concealing an alleged crime can itself be a crime.

WHY was it left to the television program "Four Corners" to reveal the "Father F" matters in July 2012?

DO the church authorities feel any responsibility towards the parents and siblings and (especially) the children of Damian Jurd and Daniel Powell? The lives of these families have been damaged by the church's behaviour in harbouring and protecting Father Farrell. The next generation is still feeling the impact of the church's cover-up. Likewise, some of Farrell's other altar boys now have children of their own and the impact of the church's behaviour (in keeing quiet about Father Farrell for 30 years) is being felt by these children, too.

In memory of Damian Jurd and Daniel Powell

Broken Rites has a policy of not publishing the real names of victims. However, Damian Jurd told us in the 1990s that he WANTS his name to be published when his story is told. Likewise, Daniel Powell told us in 2005 that he, too, wants his name published.

Therefore Broken Rites is publishing this article in memory of Damian Jurd and Daniel Powell, two boys who did not deserve their tragic deaths.

Further reading

• To see the letter by Fr Wayne Peters (on 11 September 1992) about Father Farrell admitting child-sex assaults (as displayed on the "Four Corners" program in 2012), click HERE. In 2012, for legal reasons, the "Four Corners" website redacted (that is, deleted) John Farrell's name. A more complete version of this letter is filed among the exhibits of the Royal Commission's case study #44 in 2016, where the letter is given the number CTJH.240.01001.0123_R.pdf.
• To see some additional information from Broken Rites about the altar boy Damian Jurd, click HERE.
• To see a detailed Broken Rites article about the altar boy Daniel Powell, click HERE.
• You cam still read a transcript of the ABC "Four Corners" program in 2012 (based on Broken Rites research) including our material about the church leaders' cover-up of John Joseph FARRELL. The 45-minute program is in three sections:
  *SECTION 1 is an introduction about church victims in Ballarat VIC;
  *SECTION 2 (starting at 5min 50sec) is about John Joseph FARRELL (referred to, for legal reasons, in this program as "Father F"); and
  *SECTION 3 (starting at 32min 50sec) is about a different priest, Father Julian Fox.
  To read the "Four Corners" transcript, click HERE.
• After Farrell was jailed in May 2016, the ABC "7.30" program ran a major item about the church's cover-up of Farrell. To watch "7.30", click HERE.
• And to see the Royal Commission website regarding a public hearing in 2016 about the Catholic Church's handling of the Farrell matter, click HERE.

The Broken Rites research (as outlined on the "Four Corners" program in 2012) was one of the factors which finally prompted the Australian government to establish a national Royal Commission to investigate how churches have managed to cover up the child-sex crimes committed by members of the clergy. Broken Rites will continue doing research about how the Catholic Church covered up the crimes of Father John Joseph Farrell.

• To see a Broken Rites summary of the court proceedings in the jailing of John Joseph Farrell in 2016 and 2018, click HERE.

• By a Broken Rites researcher, article updated 16 April 2021

New South Wales police have conducted criminal proceedings against Marist Brother John Patrick O'Brien (born in 1940) over child-sex offences committed about 50 years ago at St Joseph's College, a prominent boarding school in Hunters Hill, Sydney. In court on 15 April 2021, Brother O'Brien was found guilty of a number of offences committed between 1966 and 1970. Now he is waiting to be sentenced.

The allegations against Brother John Patrick O'Brien were originally raised at Australia's Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. The O'Brien matter was first investigated by detectives from the New South Wales State Crime Command’s Child Abuse and Sex Crimes Squad. A special unit,"Strike Force Gallagher", was assigned to do the investigation.

On 12 December 2017, following extensive inquiries, Strike Force Gallagher detectives charged Brother John O'Brien with a number of offences against students at St Joseph's College. The court process finally resulted in a conviction in April 2021.

The court will schedule the sentencing on a future date.

Brother John Patrick O'Brien (born on 31 March 1940) entered the Marist Brothers order after he had been a pupil at a Marist school. After working at St Joseph's College in Sydney, he moved to the Newcastle region to take up a senior position at the Marist Brothers Hamilton College from 1971. Later, from 1981 to 1986, he was principal of a Marist Brothers' school in Kogarah, Sydney.

• By a Broken Rites researcher, article updated 1 May 2021 

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 "Mister 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. 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. Since 2015, some more of Dowlan's alleged victims have spoken to police detectives, and therefore in 2021 these detectives are preparing a new prosecution of Edward Dowlan (alias "Ted Bales").

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.

Update in 2021

Since 2015, some more of Dowlan's alleged victims have spoken to police detectives, and therefore in 2021 these detectives are preparing a new prosecution of Edward Dowlan (alias "Ted Bales").

A senior priest in the Jesuit religious order - Father Theo Overberg - began facing court in New South Wales in 2020 regarding sex offences which were allegedly committed in the 1970s against boys at Sydney's St Ignatius College Riverview.

The charges relate to early in this priest's career when he was on the staff of this college.

The charges were filed by New South Wales Police in a brief introductory procedure with a magistrate at a Local Court in suburban Sydney on 11 November 2020. After this,  the case began working its way through various steps in the NSW court system.

Father Overberg was born in the Netherlands and emigrated to Australia as a child. He joined the Jesuit religious order in the 1960s and served as a Catholic priest in the Jesuit order in Sydney, Adelaide and Perth. He moved to Rome about 2010, becoming the secretary for the Jesuit Conference Asia-Pacific at the Jesuit Curia in Rome.

• By a Broken Rites researcher, article updated 5 May 2021

This Broken Rites Australia article reveals how Catholic Church authorities covered up the child-sex crimes of an Australian priest, Father Paul David Ryan, during his career in Australia (and also during seven visits by Ryan to the United States). This enabled Ryan to endanger more children in more parishes in TWO countries. Eventually, helped by Broken Rites, some victims began reporting Ryan to Australian police, resulting in Ryan being jailed in Australia. And now, in 2021, Ryan could be extradited to the US to face a fresh spate of sexual abuse charges. (By a Broken Rites researcher, article updated 5 May 2021.)

The latest developments in the USA are described towards the end of this article. But, first, here is some background.

Broken Rites research

During Ryan's court appearance in the Australian state of Victoria in 2006, Broken Rites took copious notes from the evidence. This Broken Rites article is based on that research, plus numerous other sources.

With the permission of his Australian superiors, Father Ryan made seven trips to the United States — and he ministered in parishes there. In between these trips, his Australian superiors kept placing Father Ryan in various parishes in the Australian state of Victoria, giving him access to new victims. In Victoria, the church even promoted him to a higher rank in the priesthood.

Father Ryan’s movements were revealed in his 2006 court case. On 8 September 2006. Ryan appeared in the Warrnambool Magistrates Court in south-western Victoria, aged 57. He was jailed for at least a year after pleading guilty to indecently assaulting two altar boys in his parish house in rural Penshurst. Three incidents concerned one boy (“Drew”) and two incidents concerned the other boy (“Anton”).

These two were not Ryan’s only victims. These were merely the two who were chosen by the prosecutors for the purpose of this 2006 court case. It is impossible to estimate the number of boys who were targeted by Ryan in both Australia and the United States.

Another one of Ryan's victims in Victoria (Peter) ended up dying by suicide — and Peter's mother (Mrs Helen Watson) has finally forced the Catholic Church to apologise. The tragic story of Peter is told later in this article. Ryan was never prosecuted for the crimes he committed against Peter.

What Father Ryan did to victims

In Australian states, the crime of “indecent assault” involves an invasive touching of another person’s genitalia – that is, offences falling short of rape or buggery. Typically, Ryan used to invite a boy to his parish house, where he would show him videos containing sex scenes. He would offer alcohol (and, in the United States, marijuana) to the boy before undressing him and mauling him – in the lounge room or in bed or while the boy was having a bath.

Ryan’s offences were facilitated by the fact that his status as a “celibate” priest placed him above suspicion in the Catholic community. Unsuspecting parents would allow their son to have an overnight stay in Father Ryan’s parish house, thinking that their son was in safe hands, but the victims were reluctant to report the assaults because they felt embarrassed or because they did not want to upset their parents or because they thought their complaints might not be believed.

The cover-up disrupted the adolescent development of these victims, and some had to undertake years of psychological counselling to repair the damage.

The inside story of this priest

When Broken Rites began researching church-related sexual abuse in 1993, it soon began hearing mentions of Father Paul David Ryan in the Diocese of Ballarat. This diocese covers the western half of the state of Victoria.

Broken Rites kept contact with some of these people. Eventually, in 2005, detectives from Victoria Police began investigating Ryan. Broken Rites co-operated with that investigation, giving the detectives some possible lines of inquiry.

Broken Rites can reveal now the full story of Father Ryan and the church's handling of this case.

According to his passport application (of which Broken Rites possesses a copy), Paul David Carl Ryan was born 12 September 1948 in Melbourne. In his younger years, he evidently spent some time in Adelaide, South Australia. After working in his late teens, he began training for the priesthood at the Adelaide Catholic seminary (St Francis Xavier's seminary, conducted by the Vincentian Fathers) in 1969, aged 20. In June 1971, half-way through third year, the Adelaide seminary asked Ryan to leave.

Meanwhile, Ryan became a close friend of prominent priest of the Melbourne archdiocese, Father Ronald Dennis Pickering, who had already been a priest for 20 years. Ronald Pickering had contacts in the Catholic hierarchy. For example, Pickering knew the new Bishop of Ballarat, Bishop Ronald Mulkearns. Pickering and Mulkearns had both studied for the priesthood at the Melbourne seminary in the early 1950s. Pickering became Ryan’s main mentor and career adviser for the next 20 years.

Trainee priest, Melbourne 1972-6

In late 1971, Paul David Ryan moved to Victoria to take up a temporary teaching position in the Diocese of Ballarat. This position was at St Joseph’s College, Mildura, in the far north-west of this state. In October 1971, Ryan applied to Bishop Mulkearns to sponsor him as a Ballarat candidate for the priesthood at the Melbourne seminary (Corpus Christi College). Paul David Ryan’s Adelaide references were not good but Ballarat accepted him as a candidate and he spent the next five years at the Melbourne seminary.

According to seminary documents, Ryan’s seminary teachers reported that they found him abrasive and difficult to deal with. In mid-1975, as the end of Ryan’s training approached, the Ballarat Diocese and seminary authorities had to decide what to do about him. Before ordination, he was given a three-months probationary period in St Columba’s parish, Ballarat North, and he spent some of this time teaching at a Ballarat Catholic school.

On 28 May 1976, aged 27, Ryan was ordained in St Patrick’s Cathedral, Ballarat. In that very week, a Ballarat woman (Mrs M) contacted the diocese in distress, complaining that Ryan sexually abused her son (“Sid”) at the Ballarat North parish. After this abuse, she said, Sid had a breakdown and had to leave his university course. The mother blamed Ryan for this and she threatened to “go to the newspapers” about Ryan if he was allowed to minister in parishes. Despite Mrs M’s complaint, the church took a tolerant attitude towards Ryan, hoping that he might mend his ways.

Sex in the seminary, 1972-6

After his ordination, like all seminarians, Ryan remained at the Melbourne seminary until the end of 1976 to complete his studies. About October 1976, according to seminary correspondence, the seminary authorities learned that Father Ryan had been engaged in sexual relationships with about six trainee priests during his seminary course [more about this later].

At the end of 1976, having completed his seminary course, Paul Ryan was living with Fr Pickering, who was the parish priest at St Peter's parish at Clayton, in Melbourne. Ryan was to also to become a frequent visitor at a later parish of Pickering's, in Gardenvale, Melbourne. Ryan frequently carried out priestly duties in Pickering's parish, including conducting services.

At the end of 1976, church authorities were considering which parishes their newly-ordained priests would be assigned to for the coming year. But where could they put Ryan? According to seminary documents, the seminary arranged for him to see its consulting Catholic psychologist, Ronald Conway who, in turn referred Ryan to a Catholic psychiatrist, Dr Eric Seal. On 18 November 1976, Dr Seal wrote to the rector of the Melbourne seminary (Fr Kevin Mogg), saying that he had a comprehensive report from Ronald Conway – “and I have also spoken at length about him to Fr Pickering who is an old friend and confident of his [Ryan’s].” Seal supported a suggestion by Pickering that Ryan should have at least a year’s “spiritual formation” in a religious community overseas.

The American solution, 1977

The Melbourne seminary happened to know a Father John Harvey in the U.S. who specialized in “ministry to homosexuals”. Harvey (who was located at De Sales Hall school of theology in Hyattsville, Maryland, USA) later founded a Catholic group, called "Courage", for ministering to homosexuals.

In January 1977, Fr Harvey was asked where Paul David Ryan could undergo “spiritual formation” in the United States. The Ballarat diocese was keen to place Ryan in the U.S. quickly because Ballarat usually made its parish appointments at this time (January) and some awkward questions could be asked if Ryan was not assigned to a parish or to further study.

Father Harvey suggested that Ryan could stay at a certain Catholic “spiritual center” in the state of Maryland. Harvey's letter suggested that, as well as “spiritual formation”, Ryan should do “some form of work or study while here.” (This idea about Ryan working in the U.S. would eventually result in more sexual abuse – against U.S. victims.)

Fr Harvey requested details from Australia about Ryan’s kind of sexual activity. Did it involve adults or minors? The Melbourne seminary replied to Harvey (on 19 February 1977), stating that the sexual behaviour of Ryan and his fellow seminarians had included “mutual masturbation … but it seems certain that more serious acts occurred not infrequently”. The letter said that Ryan was sexually active “even on the night of his ordination.”

The Melbourne seminary’s letter added: “As to how long homosexual acts have been occurring, I do not know. A close friend of Paul’s, Fr Ron Pickering, told me that some seven years ago he met Paul in Adelaide and the company he was mixing with at that time was definitely questionable . . . I know that during his stay at Ballarat incidents occurred.” [But the letter did not mention that the Ryan incidents in Ballarat included offences against a teenager – Mrs M’s son Sid.]

Ryan went to the U.S. in February 1977 for 15 months (trip no. 1). When he returned to Australia in June 1978, the Ballarat Diocese considered appointing him to one of its parishes but a senior priest pointed out that Mrs M (the above-mentioned mother of Ryan’s victim “Sid” in 1975-6) might protest, thereby creating a public scandal for the church.

Ryan remained in Victoria, for the next 12 months and spent much of this time at Fr Ronald Pickering’s new parish -- St James's parish in Gardenvale, Melbourne. Ryan used to bring boys to the Gardenvale parish house -- and so did Pickering.

Ryan continued to visit the Melbourne seminary for several years, even in the 1980s, and acted as a mentor to younger seminarians. Through Pickering, he came into contact with prominent clerics – and this networking continued into the 1980s.

Offences in the U.S., 1979

From June 1979 to April 1980, Paul Ryan was again in the U.S. (trip no. 2) and did some theological studies there.

During these U.S. study trips, Ryan lived and ministered in parishes. One was the Star of the Sea parish in the city of Virginia Beach (Diocese of Richmond) in the state of Virginia. His role there included work as a counsellor with a local Catholic school, the Star of the Sea school. This was a primary (or “grade”) school, going up to Year 8. While he was still in this parish, it was discovered that Father Ryan was sexually abusing boys at the school in 1979.

As background for the September 2006 court case, Australian police obtained information from several ex-students of this school.

One boy (“B”) was in 7th and 8th Grade, aged 14, at the Star of the Sea Grade School when Ryan was there. B stated that Ryan plied him with alcohol and marijuana and took the boy to bed, where he sexually abused him.

Two other boys (“M” and “R”) stated that Ryan held “counselling” and “religious instruction” sessions with the two boys (when they were aged 14 to 15) and sexually abused them.

Victim “B” wrote in a letter to his local diocese in 1995: “Although the general population of the church [at Star of the Sea parish] was shielded from knowing the specific details for Fr Ryan’s removal, it was more or less common knowledge among certain known victims and their families.”

Ryan's Australian superiors exchanged letters with his U.S. supervisors throughout 1977-1980 and, presumably, his offences in the U.S. were reported back to Australia. (If not, why not?)

“Sex education” classes, 1980-5

In April 1980, Paul David Ryan returned to Australia, and, despite his record, the Ballarat Diocese appointed him as an assistant priest in St Joseph’s parish in Warrnambool, a substantial city on Victoria’s south-western coast. This included acting as a chaplain for Warrnambool Christian Brothers College and St Anne’s College (these two schools later merged as Emmanuel College). Ryan conducted “sex education” classes and took Confession from students. Hearing these Confessions enabled Ryan to identify boys to whom he would give special attention.

According to the prosecution documents, one such student, “Daryl” (then aged 17) divulged to Ryan in Confession that he felt he was attracted to males. Within a month of this, Daryl’s parents went away for a weekend and arranged for Father Ryan to mind Daryl and his younger brother at their home. On the first night, Ryan told Daryl to take a bath before he went to bed. Daryl told police (in 2006) that Ryan got into the bath with him and handled him indecently.

In 1985, after five years in the Warrnambool parish, Ryan applied for leave from the Ballarat Diocese to do a “Doctorate in Ministry” course in at the United Theological Seminary in Dayton, Ohio, USA. The diocese granted this leave and Ryan left for the U.S. (trip no. 3). Ryan told the Ballarat Diocese that he hoped to find a parish position while in the USA. During this trip, Ryan's address was: Church of the Holy Angels, 218 K Street, Dayton, Ohio.

In January 1986, Bishop Mulkearns appointed Ryan as an assistant priest at St Thomas’s parish in Terang, in south-western Victoria, under Monsignor Leo Fiscalini. Ryan then returned to Australia from Ohio to take up this post. A Terang man (“Paddy”) has told Victoria Police that, at age 16-17, he attended a youth group for which Father Ryan was the convenor. He said that Father Ryan gave him alcohol at the parish house and on several occasions performed sexual antics in front of him, such as walking around naked, with an erection, and masturbating in front of him.

In April 1988, Ryan went to the U.S. for a few months (trip no. 4) to complete his “doctorate in ministry”. He then returned to the Terang parish.

Promoted, 1989

Despite Ryan’s record, Bishop Mulkearns appointed Ryan to the rank of Parish Priest (i.e., in charge) at St Joseph’s parish, Penshurst, as from 14 January 1989. The Penshurst parish was a small rural one but this was a promotion to a higher status (previously, at Warrnambool, he had been merely an ASSISTANT priest). At Warrnambool and Terang, he had been under the supervision of other priests but at Penshurst he was on his own – unsupervised. The Penshurst parishioners were ignorant about Ryan’s past.

At Penshurst (according to the September 2006 prosecution file), Ryan used to coax one or other of the altar boys to the parish house to watch sexy videos and for an overnight stay.

One altar boy, “Drew”, told police in 2006 that he had several sleepovers at Ryan’s parish house in 1989-1990, aged 16. He said Ryan walked around the house naked (with an erection), made the boy take a bath with Ryan, took the boy to bed and groped the boy while the priest masturbated himself. Drew tried to evade Ryan’s unwelcome assaults. The prosecution’s summary of charges states that Drew “was in fear, out of respect for Father Ryan, as he was the parish priest and someone whom all the community looked up to.”

In a very similar manner, Ryan assaulted another Penshurst altar boy, “Anton”, aged 13-14, during sleepovers in 1990. When Ryan’s attacks on Anton became increasingly forceful and invasive, Anton escaped and ran home. Not wishing to tell his mother the full extent of the attacks, Anton merely told her that Father Ryan had wanted to have a bath with him. Several days later, the mother went to the bishop’s office in Ballarat and expressed her concern about Ryan.

In early 1991, Mulkearns decided to move Ryan from Penshurst but delayed the move until Easter time (a time when other changes are often made) so that this move would not seem extraordinary.

Despite the Penshurst complaint concerning Anton, the Ballarat Diocese then assigned Ryan as a relieving priest at the Immaculate Conception parish in Ararat, western Victoria. Again, Ryan proceeded to target boys at this parish. One witness, “Sam”, told police in 2006 that he went to Ryan’s parish house after being kicked out of home. Father Ryan told him that he could stay at the Presbytery for the night but that he would have to stay in Ryan’s bed.

Another boy who was invited to Ryan’s parish house at Ararat was Peter. Eventually, Peter died by suicide and his story is told towards the end of this article.

Overseas again, 1991

Early in 1991, Ryan's superiors and colleagues were wondering what to do with him. Someone in authority suggested sending Ryan “to work somewhere on the African mission for a while” but Fr Ron Pickering asserted that the Africa idea was unsuitable for Ryan, who really needed “a period of leave, say a year” to recuperate “spiritually”. [It is not clear what Pickering meant by “spiritually”.]

Later in 1991, Ryan went to the U.S. (trip no. 5), where he received some “advice” from a certain priest, and he then did a retreat in Rome with another priest. [But three years later, on 3 February 1994, while Ryan was being interviewed by the sexual-abuse committee of the Ballarat Diocese, Ryan had difficulty remembering the name of either of these two priests.]

In September 1991, while Ryan was overseas, Bishop Mulkearns received a complaint from a mother about Ryan sexually abusing her son [the above-mentioned matter of “Daryl”] at Warrnambool Christian Brothers College in the early 1980s. Daryl (aged 25 in 1991) was himself in trouble with the police in 1991 and was about to face charges in a Melbourne court for sexually assaulting a boy. Daryl was telling police that, at school, he himself had been sexually abused by Father Paul David Ryan. Bishop Mulkearns was concerned that Daryl's accusation against Ryan might cause scandal for the church.

Another parish, 1992

In December 1991, Paul Ryan returned to Victoria and stayed at Fr Ron Pickering's parish house in Gardenvale, Melbourne. Bishop Mulkearns appointed Ryan to an ongoing position at the Ararat parish as an assistant priest (instead of merely being a relieving priest) as from 18 January 1992. This was despite the fact that Ryan had not cleared his name regarding the various sex-abuse allegations, including the new allegation by “Daryl”.

Ryan moved into the Ararat parish house (under the supervision of the resident parish priest) but, immediately, his Ararat career was scuttled when the secret of his sexual abuse of “Daryl” started to leak out. In early January 1992, Daryl appeared in court charged with sexual assault of a boy and was jailed. Daryl’s barrister told the court, in defence of Daryl, that Daryl himself had been abused by a priest. Newspaper coverage of Daryl’s trial did not name the abusive priest but Ryan's superiors and fellow-priests knew that it was him.

In jail, Daryl was telling everybody that he had been sexually abused by Fr Paul David Ryan. It seemed possible that, in the future, Daryl might well lay criminal charges against Ryan. Bishop Mulkearns was concerned that it would be hard for Ryan to defend himself because Ryan sexually abused Daryl after hearing the boy’s Confession about same-sex leanings -- and the Catholic Church has always claimed that a priest was not supposed to reveal (or take advantage of) anything that he learns from a penitent during Confession.

Ryan continued living in the Ararat parish house as a guest, instead of having an official appointment there. He also continued making visits to Fr Ron Pickering’s parish at Gardenvale, Melbourne.

Early in 1992, Ryan began having “counselling” with a Ballarat priest-psychologist, Father Daniel Torpy. Following the publicity about the Daryl court case, Ryan realised that it would be impossible for him to minister in the Ballarat diocese. He decided that it would be "best" to work in the U.S., with which he had some familiarity.

Therefore, in late January 1992, the Ballarat Diocese contacted a religious order, called the Servants of the Paraclete, which runs a refuge in Jemez Springs, New Mexico, USA, for sexually abusive priests. Ballarat asked if Ryan could visit this refuge to discuss his options for “exercising his ministry” in the USA. It is unclear whether anything eventuated from this application. (Another sexually-abusive Ballarat Diocese priest, Fr Gerald Ridsdale, had already spent time at this refuge.)

More travels, 1993

Later, the Ballarat Diocese applied to admit Ryan to the St Luke Institute, Maryland USA (another refuge for priests with sexual problems). Ryan arrived at this institute in early 1993 (trip no. 6) and underwent an evaluation process but was unable to gain admission to the institute’s program. The St Luke Institute did a medical examination of him and advised him that he had an alcohol problem and that he should cut down his drinking. However, Ryan said he kept on with his normal drinking pattern.

Leaving the St Luke Institute, Ryan returned to Australia but did not contact Bishop Mulkearns. During 1993, he spent time in Western Australia, where his mother and brother were living.

Returning to Victoria from Western Australia, Ryan still did not contact Bishop Mulkearns but evidently stayed as a guest in the home of a Warrnambool family.

Meanwhile, Ryan's "spiritual advisor", Fr Ronald Pickering, was in trouble. Early in 1993 a Melbourne man alleged that, as a teenager in the 1960s, he had been sexually abused by Pickering. After learning about this complaint, Pickering suddenly left his Melbourne parish in May 1993 and went to England. Later in 1993 Paul David Ryan made a trip to England (without informing Bishop Mulkearns) to spend some time with Pickering, who was living near Margate.

In the 1994 Directory of Australian Catholic Clergy (and also in the 1995 edition), Father Paul David Ryan was still listed as a priest of the Ballarat Diocese ("on leave from the diocese”). On 3 February 1994, while Ryan was “house-sitting a friend’s house in Warrnambool”, he was called before the Ballarat Diocese Special Issues Committee (an in-house committee, responsible for dealing with complaints about clergy sex-abuse in the diocese). The committee questioned Ryan about the matter of “Daryl” at Warrnambool and also about Ryan’s plans for the future.

On 19 July 1994, the Ballarat Diocese vicar-general (chief administrator), Fr Brian Finnigan (who later became an auxiliary bishop in Brisbane), signed an “Employment Separation Certificate” on behalf of Ryan, making it possible for him to apply for Australian Government social security benefits. The certificate stated that Ryan’s church employment began on 28 May 1976 (his ordination) and ended on 31 December 1993. In ticking boxes to give the reason for the termination, the diocese ticked “unsuitability for this type of work”. It did not tick “unsatisfactory work performance”. Nor did it tick "misconduct".

[This Employment Separation Certificate is significant -- and not just for the Ryan case. The Catholic Church usually claims that its priests are not employees but self-employed freelancers. Thus, the church seeks to limit its legal liability when victims claim damages from the a diocese for its negligence in inflicting an abusive priest on to vulnerable parishioners. Ryan's Employment Separation Certificate describes Ryan as an "employee" and it describes the Ballarat Diocese as his employer. This document will be useful for any victim claiming compensation from the Ballarat diocese.]

Counselling for U.S. victims, 1995

Meanwhile, during the 1980s and '90s, Paul Ryan's victims at Virginia Beach (in the U.S. Diocese of Richmond) were still needing psychological counselling to try to repair the damage done to their lives by Ryan in 1979. In 1995, the U.S. victims sought payment from the Catholic Church for the cost of counselling. A Virginia Beach lawyer, J. Brian Donnelly, acted for these victims.

The Richmond Diocese insisted that these expenses should be paid by the Ballarat Diocese, because Rev. Paul D. Ryan had come to the United States with the permission of the Ballarat diocese.

The Ballarat Diocese accepted responsibility and made one modest lump-sum payment to each of the Virginia Beach victims. These payments were not compensation but merely a contribution towards the victims' on-going counselling expenses. By mid-2006, one Virginia Beach victim alone had already spent three times as much on psychiatrists' fees as the amount that he received from the Ballarat Diocese.

When the Ballarat diocese made these payments, it required the U.S. victims to sign a Deed of Release, certifying that the Ballarat Diocese had no further liability. However, the church concealed the fact that Ryan had also committed offences in Australia. The Virginia Beach victims were led to believe that they were Ryan's only victims. Therefore, these Deeds of Release were based on deception, which may undermine their validity.

More victims

How many other children did Reverend Paul D. Ryan target in the U.S.? According to U.S. documents, Virginia Beach was not the only parish in which Ryan lived while in the U.S. Father Paul T. Gaughan, who supervised Ryan at the Virginia Beach parish in 1979-80, has stated that Ryan was also involved in a parish in Dayton, Ohio, where he might have committed further offences. In a statement to U.S. church authorities, dated 26 September 1995, Father Paul Gaughan said: “Paul spent some time on more than one occasion in Ohio under the pretext of study. He was living in a parish. I am afraid that the same problem might very well have happened there but I guess you might as well let the dead dog lie.”

It is possible that the parish in Dayton, Ohio, was the Church of the Holy Angels.

At last, Ryan’s name was deleted from the 1996 edition of the Directory of Australian Catholic Clergy.

In early 1996, Ryan asked the Ballarat Diocese for financial help for a course of studies. The diocese agreed to continue quarterly payments to Ryan until the end of 1996 to help him re-skill himself in another field.

In 1997, Ryan was in the USA (U.S. trip no. 7).

A suicidal victim

On 22 May 1997, the Catholic Church’s newly-formed Professional Standards Resource Group for Victoria (also called "Towards Healing") received a complaint from Mrs Helen Watson who had discovered that her son (Peter) was abused (and badly damaged) by Father Paul David Ryan at Ararat in the early 1990s. Mrs Watson told the diocese that, by 1997, Peter had made at least two attempts to take his own life, the last time being when he tried to shoot himself. Mrs Watson said that Peter “is in this condition because he was abused by Paul David Ryan when he was relieving at Ararat for a few months for Father Brendan Davey."

At the end of May 1997, Ronald Mulkearns took early retirement from the position of Bishop of Ballarat and moved to a seaside house at Aireys Inlet, Victoria. In an open letter to fellow priests and parishioners on 30 May, he alluded to the pressures of the criminal investigations into sexual abuse by priests and religious brothers in the Ballarat diocese. He said: “My own emotional energy has been sapped by the pressures of leadership over 26 years and especially the draining effect of endeavouring to cope with the effects of the tragic events which have come to light in recent years” (Herald Sun, Melbourne, 31 May 1997).

Mulkearns was referring mainly to the scandal of Father Gerald Ridsdale, but also various other priests and religious Brothers in the Diocese of Ballarat.

Ryan moved to far north Queensland and worked for several years as a government-funded mental health officer for Aboriginal communities. In Queensland, he called himself “Dr” Paul-David Ryan, on account of his American “Doctorate in Ministry” degree. He also hyphenated his forenames – as Paul-David Ryan.

This priest is brought to justice

In 2003, yet another woman was telling the church’s Professional Standards Resource Group how Ryan’s sexual abuse had damaged her son. Understandably, her son had kept silent about the abuse for more than a decade – and this secrecy disrupted his personal development. This mother was wondering whether other boys had also been damaged by Ryan. However, this mother says that a representative of the PSRG told her, “on several occasions”, that “this particular priest's name [Ryan] had never been reported, or come up, before.”

Eventually, in late 2005, this woman’s son was ready to have a chat with the Victoria Police sexual offences and child abuse (SOCA) unit at Warrnambool, where he lodged a formal written statement about Ryan. The Warrnambool Criminal Investigation Unit then began making inquiries in the parishes where Ryan had ministered. Broken Rites gave the detectives several lines of inquiry.

The detectives learned that the Ballarat Diocese had been receiving complaints about Ryan since his ordination in 1976 and, furthermore, that the Catholic Church's Professional Standards Resource Group had indeed received a complaint about Ryan in 1997 (from Mrs Watson, about her suicidal son Peter).

The detectives soon located various victims of Ryan. In April 2006, aged 57, Ryan was arrested at his unit in Cairns, Queensland, and was charged with Victorian incidents of indecent assault. While on bail, awaiting a court hearing, he taught English in Cairns. Extradited to Victoria, he appeared at Warrnambool Magistrates Court on 8 September 2006.

Jailed in 2006

For procedural reasons, the Victorian state prosecutors confined the charges in 2006 to two Penshurst victims. The magistrate was not required to take into account that Ryan had abused other teenage boys and that he had been exposed as a child-abuser long before he went to Penshurst. Nor did the magistrate have to consider that after resigning as the parish priest at Penshurst, Ryan was moved to the Ararat parish and assaulted another boy (Peter) who later committed suicide. The matter of Peter was never prosecuted.

Similarly, the earlier incidents in the U.S. were not relevant to the Victorian court. The U.S. incidents were dealt with as civil matters, resulting in the Catholic Church making payments towards the victims' counselling expenses.

Referring to the two Penshurst victims, Magistrate Michael Stone said Ryan’s behaviour had been "classic grooming of young people for sexual pleasure". He told Ryan: "You were in a position of trust. You grossly abused that trust.

Mr Stone sentenced Ryan to 18 months jail, with possible release on parole after 12 months. He said Ryan would be a registered sex offender for the next 15 years.

Ryan was escorted from the court in custody – on his way to prison.

The court hearing was finished by 11.00am. Because Ryan had pleaded guilty, the victims were not required to give evidence in court. The prosecution merely had to submit a file of documentation to the magistrate.

Previously, on behalf of victims, Broken Rites had alerted all media outlets about the court hearing. As a result, the west Victorian TV network (WIN TV) had a camera crew at the court. Footage of Ryan (arriving at the court) was shown in that evening’s news bulletin. The conviction was reported in newspapers in Melbourne, Warrnambool and Ballarat. Thus, the Ryan case – and the church’s cover-up of sexual abuse – became a topic of conversation throughout Victoria. The cover-up was over.

One victim's story

One victim, Drew, was in court as an observer, together with his family. After the court hearing, Drew (now 32) said that, looking back, he had been an easy target for Ryan at the age of 15-16, being the eldest of a large family and living a fairly isolated existence on a farm.

Drew said: “His [Ryan’s] whole idea was that my interests were his common interests. I was happy, innocent, fresh. When everyone was going out to parties at 16 and 17, I was watching a video and drinking cola. That was my idea of having a good time.”

Drew’s mother told Broken Rites: “Ryan befriended our family, he made out that he shared common interests with my husband such as gardening, renovation etc. He certainly worked on gaining our trust, now that we look back. He shared many meals with us.

“At that time, another of our children had an adverse medical diagnosis. Fr Ryan was so supportive, as it was a difficult time for us. All the time, it was just part of his disgusting plan.

“My husband and I have been so sick with guilt for ever trusting Ryan. However, we have moved on from this emotion, now we are very angry and bitter towards the Catholic Church. All the pain and suffering endured by Ryan's victims and their families could have been prevented if the Catholic hierarchy had removed Ryan’s priestly status.

“My son is a wonderful man. He endured so much in those 15 years of silence. Our family is so open and up front, one would never imagine any one of them to be so afraid to speak out. I guess this is the case with most of the victims.

“We are appalled by what has unfolded about Paul David Ryan. We are also appalled by the covering up, deceit and lack of care for families in the church community who trusted this person with their sons.”

“The last 3 years have been an emotional roller coaster for our family, trying to come to terms with the devastating results of Ryan's abuse. Learning that the Catholic Church had full knowledge of his behaviour over the years and kept him circulating around devastates us beyond belief. “

“My son is a beautiful person There have been many hurdles in his personal life, but these hurdles that would have been non-existent if the Catholic Church had done the right thing by the community.”

The victim who ended up dying by suicide

Also present in the Warrnambool Court hearing was Mrs Helen Watson, whose son Peter died by suicide in 1999 after his life had been damaged by Paul-David Ryan’s sexual abuse at Ararat. After the court case, Mrs Watson spoke to Broken Rites, telling the story of her son.

About 1991, Peter (then aged 15-16) was a student at Marian College, a Catholic secondary school (for Years 7 to 12) in Ararat – situated next door to Father Paul David Ryan’s parish house. Until then, Peter had been a normal boy with a quick wit and a love of sport.

One day, Ryan (smelling of alcohol) drove Peter home to the family’s farm after the boy had stayed overnight at the parish house. On arriving home, Peter immediately started acting in a disturbed manner and he “was never the same after that."

Peter did not tell his parents about Ryan's sexual abuse, and his parents were puzzled why Peter's personality suddenly changed. He became a disturbed teenager, with low self-esteem. He got into drugs and he abandoned sports. By age 18, he was leading a transient life, was unable to work and tried several times to kill himself.

In his late teens, a psychological report on Peter said he spoke about having been sexually abused "by a priest" (un-named). It was only at about age 20 that Mrs Watson realised that the abuser was Paul David Ryan. By then, Peter's life had been badly damaged. Like most church victims, Peter had remained silent about the priestly abuse because he thought it would upset his parents to know about the priest. Furthermore, like many church victims, he felt guilty himself for what the priest had done to him.

In 1997, when Peter was 22, Mrs Watson contacted the Catholic Church's newly-established Professional Standards Resource Group for Victoria (the "Towards Healing" process) and told them how Father Paul David Ryan had damaged her son's life. A member of the resource group interviewed Mrs Watson but all he did was to offer to arrange "counselling" for herself. Mrs Watson believes that it was the church hierarchy, not she, who needed "counselling".

A lonely death

Meanwhile, Peter was deteriorating. By age 24, he was in a psychiatric unit but in March 1999 he went missing and his mother never saw him alive again.

Six years later, police ascertained that Peter had taken his own life. It turned out that, in October 1999, a young man had been found hanged in a bathing box on a Melbourne beach but this body could not be identified at the time, so it was buried in a pauper’s grave. In late 2005 a check of fingerprints revealed that this body was Mrs Watson's son Peter.

Peter’s body was exhumed, so his mother could give him a proper funeral, which was held in December 2005.

In February 2006, two months after Peter's re-burial, Mrs Watson went to see the Bishop of Ballarat, Bishop Peter Connors (who had succeeded Mulkearns as bishop in 1997). She wanted to tell the church what it had done to her son. At that time, Mrs Watson did not know that the police were investigating Ryan. But the diocese knew -- and it realized that the Ryan cover-up was about to become public. Mrs Watson says Bishop Connors offered to arrange "counselling" for her. She says: "The church still does not get it."

Later, Mrs Watson received a letter from Bishop Connors, dated 20 March 2006, apologising on behalf of the Ballarat diocese for the harm done by Father Paul David Ryan.

But Mrs Watson can neither forgive nor forget. The church, she says, knew that Ryan was a danger when it ordained him in 1976.

Mrs Watson said she believed that her son was one of many unknown victims of sexual abuse by the clergy.

She said: "Hopefully, Peter's tragedy will encourage other victims of sexual abuse to find the courage to come forward and speak up against pedophile priests and cover-ups by the Catholic Church."

Two families meet

At the Warrnambool court hearing, Mrs Helen Watson met the family of one of the Penshurst victims (“Drew”) for the first time.

"It was overwhelming. I take my hat off to the whole family" Ms Watson said. "It was a hugely emotional experience. I realise now that victims are not alone. Here is a young lad who took a huge risk living in a small country community."

Ms Watson said she had drawn a lot of strength from Drew’s family.

"I'm in awe of how they handled it. Hopefully other people can come forward," she said. "It means there is some gratification in Peter's life, that people don't get away scot- free."

Final words from a grieving mother

At the courthouse, Mrs Watson hoped to make a statement to Paul David Ryan as he was being escorted to jail but this was not possible. Mrs Watson later showed Broken Rites a copy of what she wanted to tell Ryan:

“I do not want you to speak to me, as nothing you say will right the wrong you have done to my son Peter; nothing could ease the pain that I have endured; nothing could bring my son back to life; and, last but not least, nothing you say could change my opinion of you.

“You are an evil predator who used your position of power and trust in the Catholic Church to force young males into submission with your atrocious acts.

“You are a disgrace to yourself, you profession and your family, especially your mother.

“The one decent thing you can do now is to confess your crimes of sexual abuse against Peter to the authorities and serve the appropriate sentence. . .”

Mrs Watson later posted this statement to Ryan in prison.

[Broken Rites protects the privacy of victims — that is why we usually change the names of victims in the reports of our cases on this website. However, Mrs Helen Watson has already gone public about the church's abuse of her son Peter, and therefore Broken Rites is publishing Mrs Watson's name.]

Ryan jailed again in 2019

On 19 March 2019, Paul David Ryan appeared again in the Melbourne County Court, following an investigation conducted by the Sano Taskforce, which is a part of the sex-crimes investigation unit of the Victoria Police in Spencer Street, Docklands, Melbourne.

Ryan pleaded guilty regarding three additional victims: the indecent assault of a child under the age of 16 in Warrnambool in 1981; the oral sexual penetration of a teenager at a school camp in 1985; and an indecent act with a child under the age of 16 in Ararat in 1992.

At a pre-sentence-hearing on 19 July 2019, the Warrnambool victim submitted a victim-impact statement telling the judge how Ryan's crimes have affected this victim's life.

The victim said he was raised a Catholic and trusted members of the clergy, but that trust was abused by Ryan.

The victim said that, when he considered joining the priesthood, he told Bishop Ronald Mulkearns about being abused by Ryan but evidenly (the victim said) the bishop did nothing about it.

The victim stated: "It has been well documented that a boy from Ararat (a Ryan abuse victim) killed himself after this. If I had gone to the police, instead of Bishop Mulkearns, that boy may still be alive. I apologise to him and to his family. I let you down and I will carry that anguish forever."

The judge remanded Ryan in custody to await the sentencing.

On 29 July 2019, the judge sentenced Ryan to 26 months jail. With time already served, Ryan would be eligible for release after 13 months.

Possible action in the U.S.

On 4 May 2021, media in the United States reported that Paul David Ryan has been indicted in the US state of Virginia on charges of sexual assault against a teenager at a ski resort in 1979.

Ryan had been sent to America to receive “treatment” after Melbourne Catholic authorities became concerned about his sexual activity with other seminarians when he was training to be a priest in Melbourne in the 1970s. While in the US, he had been assigned to work in Virginia Beach as an ordained priest at Star of the Sea Parish and its affiliated school of the same name.

According to charges filed by Virginia Attorney-General Mark Herring, Ryan took the victim on a ski trip to Massanutten Resort in Rockingham County, Virginia “under the pretense of a church-sanctioned outing”. Ryan had arranged for the two of them to stay at a house together at the resort, where it is alleged that he sexually assaulted the victim twice.

The latest US charges against Ryan emerged from an ongoing investigation by the Virginia’s Attorney-General and its state police into whether criminal sexual abuse of children may have occurred in Virginia’s Catholic dioceses.

“Our investigation with Virginia State Police into potential clergy abuse in the Commonwealth remains ongoing and I want to encourage anyone who may have more information about this case or any other instances of abuse to please reach out to us as soon as possible,” said Attorney-General Herring said in a statement on 4 May 2021.

“I understand that coming forward with this kind of experience can be difficult or scary, but I pledge to you that, no matter how long ago the incident occurred, we will take it seriously and ensure that you get the support and help that you need and deserve.”

The Attorney-General’s office has said it would seek to extradite Ryan. Several accusers in Virginia have come forward against the former priest, now aged 72. Ryan also spent time at Catholic University in Washington DC; a parish in Dayton, Ohio; and outposts for sexually troubled priests in New Mexico and Maryland.

FOOTNOTE: Broken Rites has also researched Father Ronald Pickering who helped to recruit Paul David Ryan to the priesthood. Pickering's victims, also, became suicidal. To see a Broken Rites article about Pickering, click HERE.

• By a Broken Rites researcher, article updated 24 May 2021

In the Sydney District Court on 14 May 2021, a former Marist Brother, Kevin Joseph Jewell, now aged 82, was sentenced to jail for indecently assaulting boys when he was a teacher in Sydney Catholic schools in the 1960s. In those years, each new Marist Brother would adopt a "religious" first-name; and Jewell was known to his pupils as Brother "Dacian"

In court, Jewell pleaded guilty to committing indecent assaults against eight of his former pupils in the 1960s.

The judge sentenced Jewell to seven years jail, with release possible after four years.

Kevin Jewell's date of birth is given in official documents as 15 November 1938