AUSTRALIA
Courier Mail
Shannon Deery, Herald Sun
October 4, 2016
A REMORSELESS paedophile priest who preyed on children over three decades is likely to die behind bars after being jailed for 18 years and four months.
Robert Claffey has been compared with Australia’s worst paedophile priest, Gerald Ridsdale, who he worked alongside in the Catholic Church’s Ballarat diocese.
Like Ridsdale he was today condemned to spend what is expected to be the rest of his life behind bars with his lawyer saying ill health could make his jail term a death sentence.
Claffey must serve a minimum non parole period of 13 years and four months in jail for the abuse of 12 kids, meaning he will be 86 before becoming eligible for parole.
In total the disgraced priest has now admitted molesting 14 kids during his career, first raping a young girl less than a year after his 1969 ordination.
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