AUSTRALIA
The Guardian (UK)
Helen Davidson
theguardian.com, Wednesday 11 December 2013
A retired bishop of Brisbane has told the royal commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse that it “didn’t cross [his] mind” to question a priest who had allegedly told a teenage girl to “look for someone your own age” when she reported that another priest had sexually abused her.
Bishop John Gerry, the former representative for the Brisbane archdiocese in Towards Healing facilitation meetings with victims of sexual abuse by clergy, was giving evidence in the public hearing examination of Towards Healing’s dealings with Joan Isaacs, a victim of sexual abuse at the hands of priest Frank Derriman in the 1960s when she was 15 and 16.
The commission had heard on Monday that Isaacs and her mother went to Father Martin Doyle, then parish priest of Zillmere, in 1968 and showed him a letter Derriman had written to her. Isaacs said in her statement that Doyle’s response, which included a suggestion that “it is time for you to look for someone your own age”, made her feel “really ashamed”.
Derriman was transferred to another parish shortly after Isaacs met with Doyle. Derriman maintained a relationship with another victim, who subsequently bore his child, according to Isaacs.
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