AUSTRALIA
The Australian
DAN BOX From: The Australian July 11, 2013
A FORMER Catholic bishop has admitted his handling of child abuse committed by priests was “bumbling” and inadequate, and that he did not report one such pedophile to police despite believing he could reoffend.
Giving evidence to the NSW special commission of inquiry this morning, Bishop Michael Malone also appeared to contradict his earlier evidence about how much he knew about this priest, Denis McAlinden.
Bishop Malone yesterday told the inquiry he had not read McAlinden’s personnel file and only knew of two local victims of the priest when he took over the Maitland-Newcastle diocese, in NSW, in 1995.
However, today he said he was also aware at the time that McAlinden had previously been prosecuted for child abuse in Western Australia, although he was not convicted.
He also said he had read some documents within McAlinden’s file, including internal church correspondence from decades earlier that said the priest had admitted to abusing children.
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