AUSTRALIA
Sunraysia Daily
By Daniella White – dwhite@sunraysiadaily.com.au Sept. 22, 2015
WHEN the Royal Commission into Child Sex Abuse was announced in 2012, Mildura man Denis Ryan jumped for joy.
For him, it was forty years in the making. A detective based in Melbourne, Mr Ryan transferred to Mildura in 1962 because his doctor said a drier climate would help his son’s asthma.
Within ten years he had uncovered shocking claims of sexual abuse against possibly hundreds of children at the hands of Monsignor John Day.
But in what he describes as one of the greatest criminal conspiracies ever in Victoria, his attempts to bring him to justice were thwarted by the “Catholic Mafia” within the police force, a corrupt court clerk and the church.
“On my second day in Mildura I went to the CIB office and I met senior detective Jim Barritt,” he said.
“When I had applied for the position here … a mate of mine at the time Dinny Barritt, who was a detective sergeant, … said for God’s sake don’t go to Mildura, my brother Jim is there and there’s something wrong with him in the head.
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