MELBOURNE (AUSTRALIA)
International Business Times
December 5, 2017
By Ewan Palmer
– Report finds former Melbourne archbishop Thomas Francis Little “ignored” allegations against Father Peter Searson.
– Archbishop moved Searson from parish after string of sexual assault allegations against priest.
– Searson found to have pointed gun at children and killed bird with screwdriver in front of them.
The former Melbourne Catholic Archbishop has been heavily criticised for failing to act on allegations of rape, sexual misconduct and animal torture against priests in order to protect the Church from scandal, an inquiry has found.
Archbishop Thomas Francis Little, who headed the Archdiocese from 1974 to 1996, was found to have dismissed or ignored serious allegations against a number of priests, even moving some alleged abusers to other parishes where they continued to offend.
A report from the child sex abuse royal commission focussed on the allegations against one priest in particular, Father Peter Searson, in relation to his conduct in the parishes of Doveton and Sunbury.
Among the allegations that Archbishop Little ignored were that Searson had raped a woman in 1974, made a “sexual advance” to a child in the confessional, sexually assaulted several boys and girls, conducted sex education classes with students in his bedroom and heard how some parishioners would not allow their children to be alone with him.
As well as other concerns raised to Little about Searson’s “unpleasant, strange, aggressive and violent” behaviour, there were also two instances in which he was said to have tortured animals in front of children, including stabbing a bird to death with a screwdriver, pointing a gun at some children and showing a dead body to some altar boys.
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