AUSTRALIA
Newcastle Herald
JOANNE MCCARTHY
May 20, 2016.
CATHOLIC priest David O’Hearn is in custody awaiting sentence after being found guilty of more than 40 child sex offences against six victims after a fight that has gone all the way to the High Court.
A jury on Friday found him not guilty of three offences against one boy, after separate juries in 2015 and earlier this year found him guilty of 44 offences against six other boys, including sexual intercourse, indecent assault and inciting a minor to commit an indecent act.
The offences occurred in the Hunter while O’Hearn worked as a trainee priest and priest in parishes including Cessnock, Muswellbrook and Windale in the 1980s and 1990s. Victims ranged from nine to 13.
In a statement released late today Maitland-Newcastle Bishop Bill Wright expressed “great shame that another member of the clergy has been guilty of crimes of this kind”.
Judge Richard Cogswell lifted an order on Friday preventing O’Hearn from being named as trials ran in Sydney over a number of years. In 2011 O’Hearn sought leave to appeal to the High Court to have trials involving six victims heard separately. He was first stood down in May, 2008.
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