AUSTRALIA
Broken Rites
By a Broken Rites researcher, article updated 19 August 2016
Catholic priest David Anthony O’Hearn, 55, has been in jail in New South Wales for the past four years, and now he is about to learn how many more years he must remain behind bars. In jury trials during the past four years, he has been found guilty of 44 child-sex offences against six victims. For legal reasons, those trials could not be reported in the media until the final jury completed its work in May 2016. He is scheduled to be sentenced on Monday 22 August 2016 at 10.30am by Judge Richard Cogswell in Sydney’s Downing Centre District Court (the court list still refers to David O’Hearn by his initials, “DO”). This article includes some Broken Rites research about O’Hearn.
A series of separate juries (in the Sydney District Court) from 2012 to 2016 found O’Hearn guilty of offences against six young boys, including sexual intercourse, indecent assault and inciting a minor to commit an indecent act.
The offences occurred in the Maitland-Newcastle diocese, north of Sydney, while O’Hearn ministered in various parishes in the 1980s and 1990s. Victims ranged from nine to 13.
During the series of jury trials, the NSW District Court imposed an order prohibiting the media from publishing O’Hearn’s name until the final jury would finish its work. The trials were delayed somewhat when O’Hearn launched appeal proceedings.
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