Priest warned police officer to drop investigation or lose job, child abuse hearing told

The Guardian
December 07, 2015

http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2015/dec/07/priest-warned-police-officer-to-drop-investigation-or-lose-job-child-abuse-hearing-told

Senior counsel assisting the commission, Gail Furness, said 140 people had made child sex abuse claims against priests and others in religious orders in the diocese of Ballarat since 1980. Ninety per cent of the claims were against seven priests. Photo by Jeremy Piper

A Victorian priest warned a police officer to drop his investigation into a colleague over child abuse allegations, an inquiry has heard.

Father Peter Taffe told the police officer he would be out of a job if he pursued an investigation into the Mildura parish priest Monsignor John Day, the child abuse royal commission was told.

Senior counsel assisting the commission, Gail Furness SC, said 140 people had made child sex abuse claims against priests and others in religious orders in the diocese of Ballarat since 1980. Ninety per cent of the claims were against seven priests, including 78 against Gerald Francis Ridsdale and 15 against Day.

Furness said a man had told Mildura assistant priest Taffe in January 1972 his son had been abused by Day. She said Taffe’s first words had been: “I thought he was over all this.”

A former Mildura police officer, Denis Ryan, had already been investigating complaints against Day, she said, and would tell the commission Taffe had warned him in December 1971: “Drop the inquiry into Monsignor Day or you’ll be out of a job.”

Ryan wrote to then Ballarat bishop Ronald Mulkearns setting out allegations from seven complainants. The inquiry was told Mulkearns had said he had been assured police were satisfied there was no substance to the charges, and it was impossible to move Day out of Mildura.

“Any such move would be tantamount to a public declaration that I consider him guilty,” he said.

Furness said a couple had met Mulkearns in 1982 to complain about their son being abused by Ridsdale in the Mortlake church and presbytery. Furness said the victim’s mother, Mrs BAI, had told Mulkearns: “These are our kids’ immortal souls being played with by this person and there won’t be any more conversation. Next time we will be going straight to the police.”

Furness said Mulkearns had told another Mortlake victim’s mother: “How am I to take the word of a child over one of my priests?”