AUSTRALIA
Daily Telegraph
JANET FIFE-YEOMANS THE DAILY TELEGRAPH JUNE 17, 2014
A FORMER Catholic Church education boss said he had never met a paedophile — while one of the country’s most notorious child molesters was working under his nose.
John Kelly was director of Catholic education for the Diocese of Lismore when Marist Brother Gregory Sutton, later jailed for 12 years for 67 sex offences, was teaching at the local St Carthage’s Primary School in the 1980s, the child sex abuse royal commission was told yesterday.
Mr Kelly said he was not suspicious about Brother Gregory even after the school’s deputy principal Jan O’Grady spoke to him after Sutton was caught lying about taking an afternoon off.
Ms O’Grady had read an entry in Sutton’s diary: ‘‘Picked up (10-year-old girl). What an afternoon. She is magnificent.’’
Counsel assisting the commission, Simeon Beckett, asked Mr Kelly: ‘‘There was no suspicion in your mind that a criminal offence may have occurred between Brother Gregory and (the girl)?’’
Mr Kelly answered: ‘‘No.’’
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