AUSTRALIA
Newcastle Herald
By JOANNE McCARTHY Jan. 23, 2015
JOHN Denham is one of Australia’s worst paedophile priests whose crimes were the catalyst for a royal commission.
When we look back and ask how this national tragedy occurred, we need only look at him.
‘‘He is a man who enjoyed the power and status of his priesthood,’’ said Judge Helen Syme when she first sentenced him in 2010.
Defrocked, shackled at times, without his books and offended by the company he keeps, Denham minus the garb of the Catholic Church is now revealed for what he is, and what he was for decades while he was moved around the Hunter and Taree – a sadistic, violent predator of children.
He was first convicted in 2000 when a courageous victim went to police. That man phoned me in June 2006 to ask why no media had ever reported it. I spoke to Denham and included lines about his conviction in a longer article, and it sat on the page like a ticking bomb.
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