Victim of Child Sex Abuse Gives Evidence at Newcastle Inquiry

By Dan Cox
ABC News
July 23, 2013

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-07-23/victim-of-child-sex-abuse-gives-evidence-at-newcastle-inquiry/4838040

A victim of a Hunter Valley paedophile priest says a Catholic bishop told him to "keep the faith" the day his abuser was found guilty.

The man known as AH was abused by Maitland-Newcastle priest James Fletcher and is the first victim to have given evidence at the New South Wales Special Commission of Inquiry's public hearings in Newcastle.

The inquiry is investigating claims the Catholic church covered up the crimes of Fletcher and another priest, Denis McAlinden.

AH said those responsible for the alleged cover-up of child sexual abuse by clergy must be held accountable.

He told the inquiry the day Fletcher was found guilty of abusing him, the bishop at the time Michael Malone rang and asked him to "keep the faith".

He said he still wonders what faith he was talking about.

AH said the breach of trust by the church will affect him forever because he was "an innocent little kid with a big hope for the future".

"They do need to be held accountable," he said.

"It's a prelude to the Royal Commission at the end of the day and that's what needs to happen.

"I want the commission to actually just uncover the truth around the church's inability to handle abuse, the constant moving around of priests."

AH said the church "put more effort into damage control than into caring" for him.

"I thought they'd say yes we know about it," he said.

"I thought that they'd believe me up front.

"I didn't envisage I'd be standing here today, all these years later, with a commission going on."

Fletcher was found guilty in 2004 and spent two years in jail before he died of a stroke.

The barristers and those in the public gallery clapped as AH left the witness box.

The former Maitland-Newcastle vicar general monsignor Allan Hart told the inquiry today he did not know about the police investigation into McAlinden.

Late last week monsignor Hart said it was not his role to tell police about allegations of abuse because the bishop had a committee, which included father Brian Lucas.

Father Lucas is a lawyer as well as the general secretary of the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference, and is scheduled to give evidence at the public hearings tomorrow.

The commission has already heard allegations that father Lucas did nothing after McAlinden confessed to him in 1993.