BishopAccountability.org

Priest caught with pants down: inquiry

By David Chambers
Chronicle Daily
December 8, 2015

http://chronicledaily.com/2015/12/08/priest-caught-with-pants-down-inquiry/


Further claims about Cardinal George Pell's knowledge of child sex abuse by priests are expected to be aired at a royal commission. "When you look at it with the abuse of justice, the aiding and abetting, conspiring... for a religious belief that's got nothing to do with the teaching of Christ, it's only the teaching of the priests".

"We say to the victims of Monsignor Day Victoria Police made mistakes in the past".

"The reason I went to him was because I wasn't being heard at school", he said.

"I think what part of today is about [is] trying to say sorry, to try and make sure we go forward and make sure we don't do these things in the future".

Outside court, current police Commissioner Graham Ashton said he accepted the evidence given by both men and he would be making an apology to Mr Ryan.

Giving evidence after Mr Ryan, former chief commissioner Mick Miller told the hearing his immediate predecessor, Reg Jackson, was the key player in the police cover-up of the abuse.

Miller said Ryan should be compensated for what he went through and his premature resignation.

"The driving force behind his crusade was the desire to achieve justice for all victims of a hypocritical paedophile priest". "I wonder how many kids would have been saved if Victoria Police had gone on with the inquiry into Day". Those children were being mentally and physically destroyed by day and the police protected him. "Bishop Mulkearns also protected him". During first day at work there he runs into Day at presbytery.

Police tried to force Mr Ryan to transfer to another station in 1972, and he ultimately resigned from the force. The girl alleged Day had touched her breasts while was washing his auto and later revealed she'd been molested a number of times.

When Mr Ryan asked the responsible sergeant why Day had not been charged, he responded: "You don't charge a priest or you'd be like a bastard on Father's Day, or words to that effect".

Inspector Irwin attempted to relocate Mr Ryan to Melbourne. Mr Ryan said he refused as he was fearful police would not continue investigation and more children would be abused by Day.

More than four decades after former Mildura police officer Denis Ryan was stopped from investigating allegations of child sexual abuse by a Catholic priest, Victoria Police has admitted a conspiracy to cover up the crimes went right to the top.

"There was an empty sherry bottle on the floor of the vehicle", Mr Ryan said. "Lying on the front bench of this vehicle, with his head in the lap of the driver and his feet on the lap of the other prostitute, was a figure with his trousers down around his ankles and his genitals showing, wearing a priest's collar".

"(He) explained that the Catholics looked after the Catholics and the Masons looked after the Masons, and short of murder you just didn't charge a priest", Mr Ryan said on Tuesday.

Mr Ryan said he wrote to Ballarat Bishop Ronald Mulkearns about Monsignor Day, and was threatened outside Mildura Police Station by Mildura parish priest Father Peter Taffe.

BWF told the inquiry the quickly conversation became heated.

"I was angry about the situation and frightened and nervous and anxious about it", he said.

Under intense cross-examination by Cardinal Pell's lawyer Sam Duggan questioned the validity of BWF's claims telling the inquiry that Cardinal Pell did not live in the presbytery in question when the alleged incident occurred.

"That is wrong", BWF said.

Mr Duggan produced a police statement from BWG detailing the incident and accused BWF of having no knowledge of it until 1993. "He'd been (sexually) abused at the back of the classroom on another incident".

 




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