AUSTRALIA
Broken Rites

By a Broken Rites researcher (article updated 27 August 2014)

Australia’s Melbourne Catholic archdiocese recruited and trained a priest, Father Jack Gubbels, whose big interest was in “befriending” boys. The Melbourne diocesan authorities soon transferred him “on loan” to far-north Queensland, out of the reach of the Victoria Police. Eventually Gubbels took sick leave and worked as a bus driver in Queensland — until some of his Melbourne victims contacted Broken Rites.

Broken Rites advised these Melbourne victims to contact a unit of detectives in the Victoria Police.

On 18 August 1995, a Victoria Police detective went to Queensland, seeking to interview Father Jack William Gubbels on the Gold Coast about child-sex sex offences that he had allegedly committed in Melbourne. According to the police, Gubbels (then aged 49) refused to co-operate with them. A few hours later that day, Gubbels was found dead in his…