AUSTRALIA
Broken Rites

By a Broken Rites Australia researcher (updated 1 August 2014)

On 1 July 2014 an Australian jury convicted a Melbourne priest (Father James Henry Scannell, 88) on a charge of buggery, committed against a 12-year-old boy more than 40 years ago. After the assault, the priest required the boy to take part in Confession and ordered him not to tell anybody about the assault, the court was told. The victim (now in his fifties) finally reported this crime to the police after learning that his aunt’s funeral in 2010 was to be conducted by this priest. As well as working in this parish, Father Scannell was a “chaplain” for many years for vulnerable people at the Kew Mental Hospital and Children’s Cottages in Melbourne.

In the Melbourne County Court on 1 August 2014, Judge David Parsons began pre-sentence proceedings for Scannell. The judge heard submissons by…