AUSTRALIA
Broken Rites
Article posted 3 May 2012
In New South Wales on 2 May 2012, a Catholic priest was convicted on multiple child sex offences after a five-week trial.
A jury found the priest guilty of all 23 counts of indecent or sexual assault against boys as young as eight years old. The incidents occurred in the 1980s and early 1990s.
For legal reasons, the priest’s name cannot be published at this stage but the court will allow publication of the name in due course. (This kind of temporary suppression-order frequently happens, for good reason, in criminal proceedings.)
The jury of seven men and five women heard evidence of how the priest told an eight-year-old victim to look at a “Sacred Heart of Jesus” image on the wall and “Just look up at Jesus” while he committed oral sex on the boy.
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.