AUSTRALIA
ABC – AM
Tony Eastley reported this story on Friday, July 6, 2012
TONY EASTLEY: After an ABC Four Corners program was aired on Monday the Catholic Church has reopened inquiries into what has been seen as a botched investigation into allegations of sexual abuse of boys by a priest in the 1980s.
The priest, known as Father F, was accused of sexually abusing altar boys in Moree and Parramatta in New South Wales. One of the priest’s alleged victims, Damien Jurd, later committed suicide.
Three senior priests investigated the claims, but no evidence was forwarded to police despite the fact Father F made admissions of serious criminal behaviour in a 1992 meeting with the three officials.
One of those officials was Father Brian Lucas who’s now the general secretary of the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference.
Father Brian Lucas, thanks for joining us on AM. What happened at that meeting in 1992 at St Mary’s Cathedral in Sydney when you, John Usher and Wayne Peters met with now known as Father F?
BRIAN LUCAS: I think to understand the context of that meeting we have to understand that Father F, as we are calling him, had been charged with respect to an offence involving Damien Jurd and that case had been dismissed.
Following that he was then working in the Parramatta diocese and there other rumours and innuendo and there was a still a fair bit of notoriety around the Armidale area with respect to the dismissal of that court case.
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