AUSTRALIA
The Australian
MICHAEL MCKENNA THE AUSTRALIAN FEBRUARY 13, 2014
THE former head of the Catholic body handling child abuse allegations has conceded church officials had no right to launch investigations into complaints against clergy before going to police.
Bishop William Morris, the former co-chairman of the National Committee for Professional Standards, said the church’s decades-long practice under its “Towards Healing’’ protocols to test allegations internally had often hurt the victims and damaged the prospects of a thorough investigation.
Ahead of his appearance before the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, Bishop Morris said the church officials did not have the skills to investigate the allegations and that victims should have automatically been referred to police.
Bishop Morris will next week give evidence into the church’s mishandling of abuse allegations against a pedophile teacher at a Toowoomba primary school in 2007.
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