AUSTRALIA
ABC – PM
[with audio]
A Victorian parliamentary inquiry is seeking access to the Catholic Church’s own files on hundreds of cases of sexual abuse. The inquiry can compel the church to produce the documents if it doesn’t comply. Today the inquiry heard more shocking allegations about the extent of abuse.
Simon Lauder
Transcript
TIM PALMER: The Victorian parliamentary inquiry into sex abuse by clergy is testing the Catholic Church’s willingness to cooperate, requesting access to the church’s own files on hundreds of abuse cases.
This afternoon the inquiry has heard shocking claims that decades ago two boys died at the hands of paedophiles at orphanages run by a Catholic order in Melbourne.
The man who has made the allegation says there was a group of paedophiles at the St John of God homes who would stop at nothing to get access to the children and to then cover it up.
St John of God says its own investigations led to a multi-million dollar settlement.
Simon Lauder reports from Melbourne.
SIMON LAUDER: Researcher with the child protection group Broken Rites, Dr Wayne Chamley, gave evidence at the Victorian inquiry this afternoon. He made startling allegations against the Hospitaller Order of St John of God, which ran orphanages in Melbourne’s outer east from the 1960s to the 1980s.
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