Priest in court in western Sydney re an altar boy

Broken Rites
October 22, 2014

http://brokenrites.org.au/drupal/node/282

A retired senior Catholic priest from western Sydney, Father Richard Cattell, has been undergoing preliminary court procedures (charged with child-sex offences) and now he is about to appear before Judge H. Syme in Sydney's Penrith District Court for the final steps in the justice process. On the District Court schedule, Father Cattell is listed as case number 201400062169.

Father Cattell retired from parish work in the mid-1990s. He later lived privately at Port Macquarie on the New South Wales mid-north coast and, recently, on the Gold Coast in Queensland. On 28 February 2014, New South Wales detectives travelled to Tweed Heads, on the New South Wales side of the Queensland border, and interviewed Richard Cattell at Tweed Heads police station about one former altar boy who has alleged that he was sexually abused while Cattell was based at parishes in western Sydney in the 1980s.

Cattell was taken on 24 March 2014 to Tweed Heads Local Court, to enable the matter to be officially filed in New South Wales.

Richard St John Cattell, aged 73, was charged with indecent acts against this boy.

During 2014 the case then began going through its next steps at the magistrate level in Local Courts in western Sydney.

As from late October 2014, the Cattell case will proceed to a higher court, the Penrith District Court, where it is listed to have it "first mention" with a judge (Judge Syme). A "first mention" hearing is an opportunity for the District Court to confirm what the charges are and for the accused person to confirm the kind of plea he is lodging.  The judge will then fix a date to begin the final stages of the justice process.

Police allege that, at the time of the alleged incidents, 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]. 

The former altar boy from St Marys now lives on the New South Wales north coast, and he made his police statement at the detectives' office in the Manning/Great Lakes Local Area Police Command, where the matter is being handled by Detective Peter Shedden, who is based at Taree.

Other alleged victims, also, have contacted the NSW Police regarding alleged abuse by Cattlell and these allegations are still being investigated by detectives at other police stations.

Father Richard St John Cattell was ordained in 1964 for the Sydney archdiocese. His early parishes included Concord West and Lakemba. His parishes in the 1970s included Liverpool, Castle Hill and East Gosford. In 1982, he was listed as being in charge of St Matthew's parish, Windsor.

For the remainder of the 1980s, until 1994, Father Richard Cattell was listed as the parish priest in charge of the "Our Lady of the Rosary" parish in 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.

In the early 1990s (until 1994), Father Richard Cattell was the Vicar-General of the Parramatta diocese, helping to administer this diocese for Bishop Bede Heather.