AUSTRALIA
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Mr. Will Callinan, a school principal in the Newcastle-Maitland Catholic diocese, has told the NSW enquiry that he did not challenge an “untruth” by Bishop Malone, because he feared he would lose his job. The threat of unemployment appears to come up now and again in the context of the enquiry, especially from the father of a victim.
Malone, the enquiry has earlier heard, claimed to have notified Cullinan about a local abusive priest, which Cullinan disputes. Cullinan said that Bishop Michael Malone had known, in June 2002 that Father James Fletcher was the subject of child sex abuse investigations, but that the bishop did not tell him about the allegations until March 2003, just before charges were laid. He said he had heard a rumour from someone he could not remember in early June 2002 that Fletcher was being investigated.
The Cullinan and Malone accounts vary greatly. So greatly, that it was reported that cross-examination of Cullinan by Malone’s lawyer, Simon Harben, was described as “robust”.
For example, Cullinan said he was “in disbelief” when Bishop Malone referred to a conversation Malone claimed to have had with him concerning Fletcher, in June 2002. Cullinan said that Malone did not inform him of anything about Fletcher until almost a year later, in a telephone conversation. Cullinan told the enquiry that “He never had a conversation with me (on June 20, 2002) or sought advice (from me) whether Father Fletcher should stay in the parish.”
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