AUSTRALIA
Newcastle Herald

IAN KIRKWOOD
11 Aug 2016

A PRIEST who tried to burn six travel bags full of male homosexual pornography eventually smashed the tapes to pieces, filling three wheelie bins in the process, the Royal Commission has heard.

This account of a hoard of pornography kept by disgraced paedophile priest Peter Rushton was given by a former police officer who is now the Newcastle Anglican diocese’s director of professional standards, Michael Elliott.

After a day spent explaining – and then defending – the way he’d investigated child sexual abuse cases in the diocese since being appointed in early 2009, Mr Elliott told of the pornography hoard just before the commission rose at 4.30pm on Thursday.

Mr Elliott said priest David Simpson had told him Rushton had contacted him saying he had a large amount of pornography he needed to get rid of. In previous evidence the…