AUSTRALIA
Broken Rites
By a Broken Rites researcher (article updated 16 April 2014)
The Melbourne Catholic Archdiocese knew that Father Wilfred James Baker was committing crimes against children but it allowed him to continue in the priesthood, thereby inflicting him on more victims. This cover-up was finally exposed by Broken Rites and Baker was jailed. After he finished this jail term, more of his earlier victims came forward. But, in February 2014, Baker he died before the courts could sentence him again.
Broken Rites first heard about Father Baker after Broken Rites launched its Australia-wide telephone hotline in late 1993. Broken Rites advised these callers that victims should contact the Victoria Police sexual offences and child abuse unit. As a result, detectives eventually charged Baker with child-sex crimes.
During Baker’s court proceedings in 1999, the court learned that one of Australia’s most prominent Catholic leaders, Archbishop Frank Little, had ignored complaints about Father Baker’s child-sex crimes.
In the Melbourne County Court on 8 June 1999, Father Wilfred James Baker (then aged 62) was sentenced to four years’ jail, with parole after two years. A Broken Rites researcher was present in court.
What the judge said
In a pre-sentence hearing on 7 June 1999, Judge Russell Lewis told the court that, at the Gladstone Park parish (in Melbourne’s north-west) in 1978, a family complained to the church that Father Billy Baker was misbehaving towards their young son. The judge said Melbourne’s Archbishop Frank Little was made aware of the complaint. Despite this (said the judge) Baker was then transferred from the Gladstone parish to Eltham (in Melbourne’s north-east).
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