AUSTRALIA
ABC News
[with video]
Posted May 01, 2012
Following a series of 7.30 stories on the Church’s response to complaints of sexual abuse, a Sydney priest with connections to the NSW Attorney General has handed himself in to police to face charges of abuse dating from the 1970s and ’80s.
Tim Palmer
Source: 7.30 | Duration: 6min
Transcript
CHRIS UHLMANN, PRESENTER: A Sydney priest who is a close associate of the NSW Attorney General has been arrested and charged with sexually abusing three girls and a boy over 15 years in the 1970s and 80s. The police investigation of Father Finian Egan followed allegations raised in a series of stories on this program. They examined the Church’s response to the initial complaints, and the lengthy holdup in the criminal investigation, during which NSW Attorney General Greg Smith apparently dismissed one of the alleged victims as “money hungry”. Tim Palmer reports.
TIM PALMER, REPORTER: After decades, this was a defining moment for two of the women who have alleged Father Finian Egan turned their lives upside down by sexually assaulting them as children.
KELLIE ROCHE, ABUSE VICTIM: It’s a relief. For me it’s like… it’s finally… it’s something’s happening. Something legal is starting.
TIM PALMER: It was the Catholic Church that first investigated a series of allegations against Finian Egan made by Nikki Wells and Kellie Roche, who claimed he’d attacked them when they were at school or a fellowship at a north-west Sydney church.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.