Priest, teacher sex charges from 50 years ago

AUSTRALIA
The Australian

May 10, 2017

VICTORIA LAURIE
ReporterPerth

Decades of alleged abuse at Aboriginal missions and children’s homes in Western Australia could now find their way into the courts, after charges were laid against a former teacher and a Catholic priest who worked at Wandering Mission, in remote forest east of Perth, more than 50 years ago.

The charges are some of the first against Aboriginal mission workers to arise directly from the Royal Commission into Instit­utional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, which received hundreds of submissions from Aboriginal adults alleging abuse as children in WA institutions.

Yesterday a former teacher, who is now 82, was charged by WA Child Abuse Squad detectives with four counts of indecent dealings with a child under 13 years and three counts of unlawful and indece­nt assault on a female.

A Catholic priest who is now 78 was arrested in Melbourne and charged with sexually abusing four girls aged between eight and 15 years at the time.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.