Ballarat’s children: cops shielded Catholic monster, by Peter Hoysted, John Ferguson, Australian (October 17, 2016)

The extent of Victoria Police complicity in covering-up child abuse by clergy in the scandal-plagued diocese of Ballarat has been detailed by former senior members of the force who shunned the influence of the so-called Catholic Mafia.

An investigation by The Australian has confirmed extensive evidence of the force actively shielding wrongdoing and perverting the course of justice by forcing the transfer of a notorious clergyman rather than prosecuting him.

The details of how the late Monsignor John Day abused hundreds of children in the 1960s and 70s but was protected by the force — and the church — are outlined in a new podcast examining the rarely-discussed fact that police worked with the church hierarchy to protect offenders like him.

The podcast’s author, Peter Hoysted, co-wrote the book Unholy Trinity with former Mildura detective Denis Ryan. The book isthe definitive account of police complicity with the church in the northwestern Victorian city of Mildura in the 1960s and early ’70s.

Often police took it upon themselves to intervene before it caused the Catholic Church embarrassment.

Former Victoria Police chief commissioner Mick Miller outlines in The Australian’s podcast a sophisticated attempt by the force to bury allegations against Day and to nobble Mr Ryan, now aged 84.

Mr Miller, 90, has told The Australian there was a conspiracy, involving officers from then-chief commissioner Reg Jackson down, to interfere in the investigation of Day, who died in 1978 having abused as many as 500 children in the Mildura area, which makes him one of the world’s worst offenders.

Day had a history of sexual brutality, according to his victims, that went well beyond low-level offending.

Mr Miller recalls that in the early 1970s he went to deputy commissioner Bill Crowley to discuss Day’s offending but was told chief commissioner Jackson was overseeing the issue.

Jackson, who had worked as an officer in Mildura, died in 1989 after serving as Victorian police chief from 1971 to 1977.

Mr Miller, who replaced Jackson, told The Australian: “I asked him (the late Crowley) what was doing in Mildura. And he replied, ‘None of your business’. I protested, ‘It is my business, I’m responsible for those country detectives’. “He said, ‘You keep out of it. Reg is going to fix this in his own way’.

“Now that was quite emphatic ... it was evident from that point on that whatever course the investigators in Mildura took was always at the behest of the chief commissioner.’’

While Mr Miller went on to become one of the force’s most respected chief commissioners, serving between 1977 and 87 and campaigning against abuse, Mr Ryan’s career as a detective was killed by the scandal.

Mr Ryan quit in anger after having amassed statements from a dozen of Day’s victims but was headed-off by a police force conspiracy to protect the church.

This was devastating for Mr Ryan but, worse, a disaster for Day’s future victims.

The priest was eventually shifted to the western Victorian dairy town of Timboon, where he continued to offend. Victim Kym Burford, now 71, was blunt about the effect of his abuse by Day, telling The Australian: “They stole my f. king life.’’

Stymied at every turn, Mr Ryan eventually quit the force and was later told by Bishop Peter Connors that Day’s victims were many.

The church had received more than 100 claims against Day under its Towards Healing abuse redress scheme.

“In my day you always multiplied that by three because the complainant was always loath to admit (to) some indecent act,’’ said Mr Ryan, who still lives in Mildura.

“The sex squad in Melbourne said you’d multiply it by five, so you’re looking at well over 500 victims, just in Mildura alone.”

Day’s offending was on a level that defies belief today but matches that of another notorious offender in the diocese, the defrocked priest Gerald Ridsdale.

While there is no evidence police actively protected Ridsdale, it was widely known across the diocese that he was assaulting children, also in the hundreds and that it is reasonable to question why the offending wasn’t detected earlier.

The diocese of Ballarat today has 51 parishes, covering the western third of Victoria and extending from the Murray River to the Southern Ocean. It is Australia’s most scandal-plagued Catholic diocese, with thousands of sex abuse victims, mainly from the 1960s, 70s and 80s.

It also was the diocese from which Cardinal George Pell’s career was launched. The fallout from what he knew and when is still cascading through the church, all the way to the Vatican. Cardinal Pell categorically denies any involvement with child sexual abuse.