AUSTRALIA
9 News
AAP
Retired Rockhampton Bishop Brian Heenan placed children at risk of abuse by a pedophile priest because of his inadequate response to complaints, a royal commission has found.
The sex abuse royal commission examined St Joseph’s Orphanage Neerkol, near Rockhampton, which was operated by the Sisters of Mercy between 1940 and 1975.
The commission has found the sadistic punishments dished out by some nuns were “cruel and excessive” and against regulations.
In April last year, 13 men and women – now aged from their 50s to 80s – recalled to a Rockhampton court the abuse they endured, including public floggings and having their genitals beaten.
Allegations of sexual abuse first emerged in the 1990s.
In a report released on Thursday, commissioners Justice Jennifer Coate, Professor Helen Milroy and Andrew Murray found Bishop Heenan failed to provide an adequate response to a complaint of sexual abuse at the hands of the disgraced former member of his clergy, Reginald Durham, in 1996.
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