AUSTRALIA
Broken Rites
By a Broken Rites researcher (article updated 27 August 2014)
On half a dozen occasions during 2013 and 2014, a Queensland magistrate granted an adjournment to a retired Catholic priest, Father Dermot Casey, who had been charged with sexual offences against ten children. The defence lawyers kept producing medical certificates saying that the priest (aged 78 in 2014) was not well enough to come to court. Now Father Casey has died, thus defeating his victims. .
Dermot Casey was charged with 57 counts of indecent treatment of ten children (including girls and boys), allegedly committed between 1977 and 1988. He was also charged with one count of common assault.
The prosecution file included statements from former school pupils, including some from Beenleigh (a Brisbane suburb) and some from Salisbury (south of Brisbane).
The prosecution alleged that some of the incidents occurred during visits to Queensland’s south coast.
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