The Catholic Church planned to accommodate a priest who was on bail for sex-messaging a 15-year-old girl at a house on the grounds of a primary school.

Sosefo Sateki Raass, later found guilty of indecent communication with a person under 16 and sentenced to 100 hours’ community service, wasn’t told he couldn’t stay at the address until after his victim’s aunt complained to the Ministry of Education.

Church officials proposed the bail address but didn’t tell police or the Auckland District Court it was so close to young children – even though Raass had a bail condition preventing any unsupervised contact with under-16s.

The Auckland Catholic diocese has admitted it didn’t tell the board or principal of the Good Shepherd primary school in Balmoral, central Auckland, of its plans. The Ministry of Education could not alert them as Raass had pre-trial name suppression.

The church says that while Raass used…