AUSTRALIA
Newcastle Herald
JOANNE MCCARTHY
27 Jul 2016
THEY are Hunter child sex offenders the Catholic Church protected for decades – priest Vince Ryan and Marist Brothers Thomas Butler and Francis Cable.
They are now the focus of a Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse public hearing into Maitland-Newcastle diocese, starting on August 29.
The royal commission formally announced the details of a hearing on Wednesday after the Newcastle Herald reported on Saturday the Hunter would be the focus of back-to-back royal commission hearings – into the Anglican Church from August 2, and then the Catholic Church.
The royal commission will sit in Newcastle four years after the Herald’s Shine the Light campaign for a royal commission, and four years after the suicide of child sex victim John Pirona, whose death became the catalyst for the campaign.
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