INVERELL (AUSTRALIA)
Inverell Times
August 1, 2019
By Andrew Thomson
.
The Catholic church has demanded a clergy sex abuse victim, who was raped as a nine-year-old in a confessional box, provide a copy of the church’s own rules in Latin.
A south-west victim of notorious pedophile priest Gerald Ridsdale is pursuing civil damages through the Victorian Supreme Court from Bishop of Ballarat Paul Bird, on behalf of the diocese.
In May, Supreme Court Justice Michael McDonald asked the church’s legal team for an explanation in relation to the church denying knowledge of Ridsdale’s pedophile activities with a view to determining if costs should be awarded to the victim.
That led to the church sacking its legal team and calling in the lawyers who acted for now jailed Arch Bishop George Pell.
The victim’s lawyers have been asking the church hand over archive documents.
Under 1917 Canon Law which applied at the time of the offending, the church was required to keep an archive of all important documents, including sex assault allegations against clergy members, and a record of who had seen the documents and what documents had been destroyed.
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