AUSTRALIA
Newcastle Herald
By JASON GORDON July 2, 2013
A SENIOR police officer has told an inquiry that paedophile priest Denis McAlinden boasted of beating child sex abuse charges a decade before he was confronted with new ones.
Detective Inspector Mark Watters was the first witness called before the Special Commission of Inquiry’s second stage of hearings in Newcastle yesterday.
Inspector Watters told of his efforts to find the wanted priest and have him extradited back to the Hunter to face charges of sexually abusing children as young as four.
He told the inquiry that in 2005 he located McAlinden in Western Australia through information that had come to him via an employee of the Maitland-Newcastle Catholic diocese.
He was told by Western Australia police that McAlinden had advanced cancer and only had a short time to live.
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