AUSTRALIA
The Australian
Catholic priest ran cult-like ‘Charlie Brown’ group to sexually abuse young girls, royal commission hears
JANET FIFE-YEOMANS THE DAILY TELEGRAPH DECEMBER 09, 2013
A CATHOLIC priest ran a cult-like group sexually abusing young girls giving them all the surname Brown, as in Charlie Brown from the Peanuts comic strip, the royal commission has been told.
Her voice wavering, one member of the group, Joan Isaacs, said Father Francis Derriman told her he was dying and had to have sex with her first.
He fathered a child with another girl in the group when she was 17.
Ms Isaacs said: “Frank Derriman used the Peanut comic as a platform and used the surname Brown in reference to himself, the other three children and me.”
At the time in 1967 and 1968, Father Derriman was a priest with the Archdiocese of Brisbane and chaplain of Sacred Heart Sandgate in Brisbane, she told the commission.
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