AUSTRALIA
Broken Rites

A boy complained about being sexually abused by a Catholic priest, but the church merely transferred the priest to a new parish, thus giving him access to more children, a Sydney court has been told. Many years later, one of the victims contacted Broken Rites, which advised him to speak to detectives. Police then charged the priest, Father Robert Flaherty, now retired (aged 72), who eventually pleaded guilty regarding his assaults on two boys, committed in Sydney parishes in the 1970s. On 7 September 2015, a jury found Flaherty guilty of assaulting a third boy. Flaherty will be sentenced soon.

Robert Francis Flaherty (born 14 June 1943) was a priest in the Sydney archdiocese.

Broken Rites first heard of Father Robert Flaherty in 2012, in a phone call from one of Flaherty’s victims. Broken Rites arranged for this victim (“Dwayne”, not his real name) to contact…