AUSTRALIA
The Sun Daily
Posted on 19 April 2012
SYDNEY (April 19, 2012): An Australian court jailed a former Catholic priest for at least five years on Thursday for sexually abusing girls as young as eight in what the judge called “a major breach of trust”.
Brian Spillane, 69, was convicted of nine charges of indecent assault relating to abuses during the 1970s and 1980s, when he was a priest in both Sydney and rural areas of New South Wales state.
Jailing Spillane, Judge Michael Finnane said he had used his position to gain the trust of the families of young girls and access to their homes.
He called each assault “serious, planned and callous” and described Spillane as a “violent bully and coward”.
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