Vic Priest Abused Girl during Confession

Sky News
November 24, 2015

http://www.skynews.com.au/news/national/2015/11/25/vic-priest-abused-girl-during-confession.html

A Melbourne priest made a 10-year-old girl sit on his knee and asked her if she loved him while indecently assaulting her during confession, a royal commission will hear.

Father Peter Searson pulled the girl on to his lap and she could feel his erection, counsel assisting the child abuse royal commission Gail Furness SC said.

The girl made a statement to police in 1990 about the 1985 incident at the Holy Family Primary School in Doveton, saying she tried to sit on the very end of Searson's knee but he pulled her closer to him.

'All of this time he kept saying to me 'do you love me' and 'tell me you love me' as well as asking me to give him a kiss on the cheek,' the girl said in the police statement, tendered to the royal commission.

'I knew something was wrong because priests don't normally act this way and I became very scared.'

The woman will give evidence to the commission's inquiry into abuse in the Melbourne archdiocese on Wednesday.

She is expected to say the police officer said there was 'not enough to go by', Ms Furness said, adding the way the police handled the investigation will also be the subject of evidence to the commission.

The Catholic Church received four abuse claims against Searson, who was never convicted of a sex offence.

The royal commission on Tuesday revealed 454 people had made child abuse claims against 188 offenders in the Melbourne archdiocese, 335 of which were against 84 priests.