AUSTRALIA
The Age
May 3, 2013
Barney Zwartz
The Christian Brothers Catholic order spent more than $1 million defending serial paedophile Robert Best, the order has told the Victorian inquiry into how the churches handled child sexual abuse.
The order also paid $10,000 to a private investigator to spy on a victim of another abuser, Ted Dowlan.
It paid for legal advice to protect Dowlan’s assets from being paid to victims in civil lawsuits, and gave him $125,000 when he left the order.
But the brothers appearing on behalf of the order denied there were cultural problems within it.
It apologised for the “repulsive” and “inexcusable” betrayal by the abusers, and said most of the offenders had themselves been abused earlier.
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