AUSTRALIA
Herald Sun
Rashida Yosufzai
From: AAP
March 15, 2013
A MAN who was allegedly sexually assaulted by a former Catholic priest as a teenager says the priest’s claim he was paid by the church for evidence is “absolute rubbish” and wants the case taken up by the royal commission.
The man, who has asked not to be named, has denied a claim by former Wollongong priest John Gerard Nestor, 50, that he was paid to provide evidence in a 1997 court case alleging he was sexually assaulted by the then-priest at his home in 1991.
Mr Nestor was a priest in the Wollongong diocese in NSW when he was charged with the indecent assault of the then-14-year-old altar boy.
In the 1997 court case – in which Opposition Leader Tony Abbott acted as a character reference – the Wollongong local court was told that on the night of the alleged offence, Mr Nestor had slept alongside the altar boy and his brother.
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