AUSTRALIA
Courier Mail

OPPOSITION Leader Tony Abbott vouched in court for the good character of a Catholic priest later struck off the clergy list by the Vatican following a child abuse case.

Fr John Gerard Nestor, who attended Sydney’s St Patrick’s Seminary with Mr Abbott in the 1980s, was a priest in the Wollongong diocese in NSW when he was charged with the indecent assault of a 15-year-old altar boy in 1991.

Fr Nestor, then aged 44, was convicted in Wollongong Local Court on February 18, 1997, and sentenced to 16 months in jail, with the magistrate describing the case as a ”gross breach of trust”.

In court, the priest admitted he had – while dressed in boxer shorts and a singlet – slept on mattresses on a floor in the presbytery with the boy and his younger brother some time between June and September 1991.