AUSTRALIA
Sky News
A paedophile school bus driver was extradited to Adelaide in 2002 only after pressure was put on police by the city’s Catholic Archbishop Philip Wilson, a royal commission has heard.
The Adelaide Archdiocese even offered to fund the extradition, after a top police officer, because of budgetary constraints, rejected a 1998 application to extradite Brian Perkins from Queensland.
Perkins sexually abused intellectually disabled boys between 1986 and 1991.
In 2002 Detective Sergeant Leonid Mosheev was told there was a direction from the Police Commissioner to bring Perkins back, he testified to the commission on Wednesday.
This came about because of pressure from the Archbishop Wilson who had visited the police commissioner, he said.
Beliefs about problems associated with evidence from an intellectually disabled boy were also part of the reason for the decision not to pursue the extradition, Det Sgt Mosheev said.
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