AUSTRALIA
The Age
April 17, 2014
Steve Butcher
A childhood victim of an elderly pedophile former Anglican priest has faced his tormentor in a Melbourne courtroom and offered him “my complete forgiveness” for sexual abuse committed almost 40 years ago.
“I want to be free of this burden,” the man said of making his pardon in a victim impact statement he read to the County Court, which also spoke of not knowing “what love is”.
“I will never be who I was meant to be,” he said of the “torment” that led to prostitution and drugs and the past that “lurked in the back of my mind”.
It was not the only act of mercy bestowed on William Richard Dowel, 88, as a judge also spared him a prison cell because his age and ill-health would probably cause his death behind bars.
Dowel was the reverend at St Philip’s West Heidelberg when he assaulted three boys aged 12 to 16 between 1973 and 1977 at the vicarage, his residence.
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