By Dan Proudman
The Herald
August 21, 2009
http://www.theherald.com.au/news/local/news/general/priest-sex-case-accuser-admits-to-misleading-police/1602090.aspx
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| Peter Brock |
A MAN who has accused Catholic priest Peter Julian Brock of sexually assaulting him as a teenager admitted yesterday he initially identified the wrong presbytery where some of the abuse allegedly occurred.
The man told Newcastle Local Court he had misled police about when the alleged abuse finished because he was concerned they would think he was homosexual if he admitted it continued into his 20s.
The committal hearing also heard how Brock had officiated at the man's wedding years after he was alleged to have abused him.
Brock, 63, is facing 22 child sex offences relating to two boys and alleged to have occurred in the 1970s.
He has not been required to enter a plea.
On Wednesday, the hearing was told Brock abused the boy over several years by luring him into becoming naked while playing card games.
Some of the abuse allegedly occurred in a "counselling room" of a Hunter presbytery.
The court heard yesterday that the alleged victim had, in two statements to police, said that he had been assaulted at a certain Hunter presbytery, but Brock was not based there until years after the abuse was alleged to have first occurred.
In a third statement to police, made almost a year after the first statement, the man changed the location.
Under cross examination yesterday, the man agreed he had deliberately misled police in his first statement when he said the abuse had stopped when he was still a teenager.
He said he was embarrassed that police would think he was homosexual if he told them the sexual activity continued into his 20s.
He told police in a second statement he was abused until he was 24 or 25. On Wednesday he told the court that it continued until his late 20s.
Defence counsel Peter Hamill, SC, asked the man about the discrepancies: "It's your memory that is the problem, not your math, it's a fact that it's your memory that changes."
The man replied: "I know what happened to me, I know as a child and I know he did it."
Mr Hamill also asked the man why he had asked Brock to officiate at his wedding after he had allegedly told his mother he wanted nothing to do with Brock.
"And yet you allowed him to undertake the solemn task of marrying you," Mr Hamill said.
"Yes," the man replied.
"Why did you do that?"
"The minister that my wife knew refused to marry us. I said I happened to know one priest who probably will."
Mr Hamill later asked: "I suggest the explanation to allow Father Brock to marry you was that he never sexually assaulted you."
"Wrong," the man replied.
Mr Hamill also questioned the man about allegations that Brock had taken him to a flat where men sexually abused him while Brock sat on a lounge, masturbated and watched pornography. He had told police the event had occurred before he turned 16.
When Mr Hamill said the man who the alleged victim believed lived in the unit had not moved into the area until "many months after your 16th birthday", the alleged victim replied "I don't know anything about that".
The court also heard from the alleged victim's father.
He was asked about earlier testimony that his son had told him of the abuse when it was occurring and that he had replied: "Are you some kind of poofter or something?"
"I never recall that, I would be amazed if it were true," he said.
The father said the first time he had learned of the abuse allegations was when his son told him about 18 months ago.
The committal hearing before magistrate Elaine Truscott continues today.
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