BishopAccountability.org

Retired Priest Faces Abuse Charges

By Louise Hall
The Herald
May 24, 2012

http://www.barossaherald.com.au/news/national/national/general/retired-priest-faces-abuse-charges/2567146.aspx

A RETIRED Catholic priest and a one-time close personal friend of the NSW Attorney-General, Greg Smith, has appeared in court over the alleged sexual abuse of four children in the 1970s and 1980s.

Father Finian Egan, 77, appeared in Ryde Local Court yesterday to face 16 charges of indecent assault and one charge of rape while he was a priest in Sydney and the central coast. He has not entered a plea.

He has been the subject of a police investigation that began in 2010. The charges related to the alleged assaults of an 11-year-old girl and a 16-year-old girl at Carlingford in 1979 and 1987 and a 17-year-old girl and a 14-year-old boy at The Entrance in 1971-72 and 1973.

The court continued his bail.

Mr Smith has come under fire for his alleged links to the case, after a claim he said one of the alleged victims was "just trying to get $1 million from the church". Mr Smith has strongly denied these claims.

The matter was put over to the Downing Centre Local Court on July 18.




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