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	Cleric's Visits to Von Einem By Nigel Hunt The Advertiser [Australia] June 18, 2006 http://www.theadvertiser.news.com.au/common/story_page/ 0,5936,19503156%255E2682,00.html A CLERIC alleged to have abused street kids has been regularly visiting convicted sex killer Bevan Spencer von Einem in prison, it has been revealed. The elderly man was also a known associate of notorious pedophile Robert Brandenburg and is linked to the prominent legal identity who is now the subject of a police investigation over allegations of sexual misconduct with under-age males. The clergyman's alleged activities and his links to other pedophiles have been detailed at length to the Mullighan inquiry into the abuse of state wards and to the Sunday Mail by former street kids allegedly abused by the group of men. One former street kid - who was allegedly abused by the clergyman - has revealed the visits to von Einem at Yatala Labour Prison, which were continuing until last year. The former street kid, who asked to be identified as David, has told the Sunday Mail he saw the clergyman visit von Einem on numerous occasions. David was serving a prison sentence at the time and was in the same accommodation wing as von Einem, who is serving a 24-year sentence for the sex killing of teenager Richard Kelvin in 1983. "I used to see (Mr X) come in," David said. "He used to visit him . . . basically every time von Einem didn't have another visit booked, (Mr X) would see Bevan. "If Bevan had another visit booked he would see a person by the name of (Mr Y). He (von Einem) even rings him. Bevan rings him regularly and they have contact that way as well. "He told me with his own mouth. I had actually said to him that (Mr X) had molested me." David said the last time he saw the clergyman with von Einem was in the middle of last year. He was unaware if the visits continued after that because he was shifted to another prison before being released from custody recently. David said that at one stage in 1998, he was punished at Yatala after abusing the clergyman and threatening "to bash him". "I don't know whether he recognised me or not. He obviously denied what I was saying, but that was as far as it went," he said. "After that, I just used to call him a pedophile if he came into the unit, but not in a way it would draw attention from the screws." David said he was "13 or 14" when he was abused by the clergyman. At the time he was living in a boys' home, where he was already being abused by Brandenburg, who subsequently committed suicide in June, 1999, after being charged by police with numerous sex offences. He said Brandenburg took him to a city location, after he had run away from the boys' home. "He took me to (the city location) and said if you need somewhere to stay or anything like that, just come here and you can stay here," he said. "That's how I initially had contact with him." In his evidence to the Mullighan inquiry, David gives a horrific account of how he was raped inside St Peter's Cathedral by another clergyman. He was taken to St Peter's by Brandenburg, who yelled at the clergyman following the incident, which left David with serious injuries. "I could hear what they were saying. He was yelling at the other bloke, you know. Bob was yelling at him," David says in his evidence, a transcript of which he has given to the Sunday Mail. A Correctional Services spokesman said the clergyman who visited von Einem had never been a prison chaplain or visited Yatala as a "priest or chaplain". "All people visiting prisoners as friends are monitored and observed by staff," the spokesman said. He would not comment when asked if the visits would be stopped, but said the "situation was being closely monitored".
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