AUSTRALIA
Courier Mail
AAP
THE Catholic church’s Hunter Valley child protection unit was inundated by complaints of sex abuse by priests as soon as it was established in 2005, a NSW inquiry has heard.
“Frankly that took us by surprise,” Helen Keevers, who helped set up the unit and managed it until late 2009, told the special commission of inquiry in Newcastle on Wednesday.
“Immediately we were inundated and were investigating seven clergy and four (of those sexual abuse investigations) resulted in criminal prosecutions.”
Ms Keevers said the seven priests involved were additional to known Hunter Valley pedophile priests Denis McAlinden and James Fletcher.
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