AUSTRALIA
ABC News
[with video and audio]
By Eliza Harvey
Victims groups say they are horrified by the revelation that one of Australia’s most senior priests deliberately ignored allegations of sexual abuse.
The startling admission came from the former head of the Maitland-Newcastle diocese in New South Wales, retired Bishop Michael Malone.
He has given evidence at the NSW Special Commission of Inquiry into the alleged cover-up of child sexual abuse in the diocese by priests as well as by members of the police force.
The inquiry is looking at whether the church covered up the crimes of two paedophiles, Catholic priests Dennis McAlinden and James Fletcher, who served in the Newcastle-Maitland diocese.
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