Back from Rome, Priest on Child-sex Charges

By Dan Oakes
Sunbury & Macedon Ranges Weekly
April 23, 2013

http://www.macedonrangesweekly.com.au/story/1448717/back-from-rome-priest-on-child-sex-charges/?cs=1466

THE former principal of a Catholic school in Sunbury has been charged with child-sex offences stretching back almost 40 years after police negotiated the man’s return from Rome with the Catholic Church.

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Police have hailed the arrest of Father Julian Fox as ‘‘a breakthrough in co-operation between the Victoria Police and the Catholic Church’’.

The 67-year-old went to the police crime command headquarters at St Kilda Road and was charged with 10 offences, including buggery, indecent assault and common-law assault, allegedly committed in Sunbury and Ferntree Gully between 1976 and 1985.

Police said they had been negotiating with the Church since July over the priest’s return. He has been bailed to appear in the Melbourne Magistrates Court on Friday.

Father Fox was moved by the Salesians to Fiji in 1999 after allegations of sexual abuse were made against him by former students of the school.

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He was then moved to the order’s headquarters in Rome, but was banned from having contact with children.

Several priests connected to the former Salesian College at the Rupertswood property, in Sunbury, have been questioned by detectives over historical child-sex offences.

Frank Klep, 69, the former principal at Rupertswood has been charged with six counts of indecent assault between 1974 and 1984.

Former Rupertswood vice-principal David Rapson, 59, is due to stand trial at the County Court this year charged with abusing five boys at the school between 1973 and 1990.