Church Didn't Suggest Police Complaint: Alleged Abuse Victim, CBC News [Canada], March 20, 2007

Church Didn't Suggest Police Complaint: Alleged Abuse Victim

CBC News [Canada]
March 20, 2007

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/newfoundland-labrador/story/2007/03/20/priest-assault.html

A Newfoundland woman who says she was sexually abused by a priest for eight years is disputing the Roman Catholic Church's claim that she didn't want to go to the police when she came forward with the allegations in 2001.

The woman, who cannot be named because of a publication ban, told CBC News the church only offered her options within the church community, such as counselling with a nun and the opportunity to speak with a lawyer retained by the church.

"You know that in the back of their minds, the last thing that they want is for this to be public knowledge," she said. "Their number one priority is to protect themselves and the image of the church."

Officials did not tell her that she could or should go to the police, she told CBC News in an interview.

Rev. Wayne Dohey, 44, has been charged with one count of sexual assault and one count of sexual exploitation in connection with the woman's complaint. When he appeared in provincial court in St. John's on March 9, he was released on his own recognizance.

He has not entered a plea, and is scheduled to appear in court again in Grand Bank on May 2.

At the time of Dohey's court appearance, St. John's Archbishop Brendan O'Brien defended the way the church handled the case back in 2001, saying the woman, who was then 18, didn't want to go to the police.

"The person who made the complaint was an adult at the time and, you know, it's up to them to report it. If it involved a child, then we would report it," O'Brien said.

The complainant, who is from the Burin Peninsula, said she went to the police on her own in 2006, 10 years after the abuse allegedly began when she was 14.

O'Brien told CBC News the church has handled Dohey's case carefully and appropriately.

"I think we have done what we could have at the time; we offered her counselling," he said. "Anything that we thought would be helpful, we did that."

Dohey was offered counselling as well and was later assigned to Bell Island in Conception Bay. In the fall of 2006, he began work with churches in the Placentia area.

O'Brien said churches in both places were told about the sexual abuse complaint.

More than two weeks ago, RCMP officers on the Burin Peninsula on the south coast of Newfoundland arrested Dohey in Placentia.

The RCMP said the case involved "sexual misconduct with a young person between 1996 and 2000." The woman told CBC News that the alleged relationship continued up until two years ago, however.

O'Brien has said that Dohey had been suspended from pastoral duties and placed on administrative duties, pending the outcome of the charges against him.