Suspected paedophile priest dismissed two decades after first complaints

By Mark Colvin
ABC - PM
September 15, 2016

http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2016/s4539493.htm?site=sydney

MARK COLVIN: A warning: the following story on the Royal Commission into Child Sexual Abuse includes details some may find disturbing.

The inquiry has heard how a priest, long suspected of molesting children, was not forced out until two decades after the first complaints emerged.

The priest was John Joseph Farrell, who worked in regional New South Wales and Parramatta.

Brendan Trembath reports.

BRENDAN TREMBATH: In 2003 the Catholic Church in New South Wales started the formal process to remove a suspected paedophile from the priesthood.

Bishop Luc Matthys received a report warning that John Joseph Farrell was accountable to no-one and posed a serious risk to children.

LUC MATTHYS: I think I immediately started a process to laicise him: he must leave the priesthood.

GAIL FURNESS: And you did that in order for him not to be able to call himself a priest and, by being a priest, have access to children? Is that right?

LUC MATTHYS: Well, yes.

BRENDAN TREMBATH: Bishop Matthys was being questioned counsel assisting the Royal Commission into Child Sexual Abuse, Gail Furness SC.

She was not surprised to hear that dismissing a priest was a slow process.

LUC MATTHYS: In those days you couldn't get a laicisation done without the cooperation and knowledge of the person.

So it took me a while to convince him that he needs to come and talk to me. He has to tell his story. And I listened to that and I wrote it all down and he came back the next day and signed it: this was a correct record of our conversation and of his story.

BRENDAN TREMBATH: The first complaints against Father Farrell emerged in 1984.

There were claims of improper conduct with six or seven boys in Moree in northern New South Wales.

The commission heard he was sent to a psychologist for treatment in relation to sexual misconduct with children. After one session, Farrell declared himself a new man.

In 1987 he was charged with 11 child sexual offences but the charges were later dismissed.

The church moved him to Tamworth and then to Parramatta. Farrell was not allowed to work with children, but still remained a priest.

He was finally forced out of the priesthood in 2005.

GAIL FURNESS: But in the period between getting this report and Farrell being laicised, did you put any measures in place in order to ensure that he was in some way accountable to the Church and to minimise the risk that he posed to minors?

LUC MATTHYS: Nothing comes to mind. I think he was quite well aware that he wasn't to go to schools and all that sort of thing.

GAIL FURNESS: So you didn't yourself, on your initiative following receipt of this document, put anything particularly in place?

LUC MATTHYS: No. I think, I'm not sure whether that was already in place but, you know, he was told not to go to schools.

BRENDAN TREMBATH: This is the commission's final hearing relating to how Catholic institutions responded to allegations of child sexual abuse.

There have been some tense times for past and present church officials in the witness box.

Earlier, Ms Furness questioned Bishop Bede Heather about a police raid on his office in 1994. The police were investigating claims of child sexual abuse in his diocese.

The Bishop declined to say if he destroyed documents after his office was searched.

GAIL FURNESS: It's more than possible, isn't it? It's likely?

BEDE HEATHER: I'd leave it for the Commission to decide.

GAIL FURNESS: I understand that. You've said that. I'd still like you to answer my question.

BRENDAN TREMBATH: The public hearing resumes on Monday.

MARK COLVIN: Brendan Trembath.