AUSTRALIA
ABC – Media Watch
[with video]
A blog written by the publisher of The Hamilton Spectator, that criticised the punishment of a former priest for sexual assault, has hit a nerve with readers.
And that’s something you can’t say about our next story … where the klaxons have been blaring since Anzac Day … when this blog was published in the Hamilton Spectator, a little local paper in South West Victoria.
In the blog, the Spectator’s owner Richard Beks criticised the punishment of a former Catholic priest, Father Leslie Sheahan, for indecently assaulting a nine-year old girl in the 1970s.
Beks argued that slapping a nine-month suspended sentence on top of the priest’s three months behind bars was:
… pointless …83 years of age … and needing a walking frame to get about he’s obviously not going to re-offend …
— The Hamilton Spectator, 25th April, 2015
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