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	Church Claims on Sex Case Undermined Sydney Morning Herald September 26, 2011 http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-national/church-claims-on-sex-case-undermined-20110926-1kt46.html The Catholic Church has again denied a cover-up of sex abuse at a school for disabled children in Adelaide, despite new material uncovered by an ABC investigation. The Four Corners program to air tonight said the church was given legal advice not to mention sex abuse charges when it sacked a bus driver at the St Ann's Special School in 1991. The former principal of St Ann's has also told the program that he received instructions to maintain confidentiality on the issue when Brian Perkins was dismissed. Perkins worked as a paid and later volunteer driver at the school from 1986 to 1991 and was charged with sex offences when police uncovered pornographic photos of children in his possession. He was granted granted bail and fled to Queensland, stalling the case, with nothing more happening until 2001 when a group of parents discovered the abuse and demanded answers. Perkins was subsequently extradited to Adelaide and in September 2003 was jailed for 10 years and six months with a non-parole period of six years. He pleaded guilty to five offences involving unlawful sexual conduct with three students from St Ann's, even though the abuse involved 36 intellectually disabled students. Perkins died in jail in 2009. The Catholic Church also conducted an investigation into the abuse which found it failed to conduct a background check on Perkins, who had previous sex offences, and that the church and its agencies had also failed to properly exercise their duties in other areas. Archbishop Philip Wilson said he was satisfied there was no deliberate cover-up of the abuse. "It shows clearly that we made terrible errors of judgment and we need to make sure they can never happen again," he said in 2004 when the findings were released. "People made wrong decisions, they did not see or respect the urgency and seriousness of the matter and failed to carry out proper processes to protect the children and the needs of the families involved." But Four Corners said it had now uncovered documents that appeared to undermine those claims. The program said the documents showed that the church was advised by lawyers to quarantine the then-archbishop - Leonard Faulkner - from knowledge of the abuse allegations. The documents also supported claims from the principal at the time that he received instructions to maintain confidentiality and revealed that lawyers called for a severance letter to Perkins to be neutral. Four Corners said the draft letter told the driver that there would be no need for him to attend the school premises, but made no mention of why his services were no longer needed. It also said his contribution as a volunteer bus driver for disabled students had been appreciated. Responding to the latest information Archbishop Wilson said he did not believe the letters indicated there was a cover-up. "I don't think there was any intent to cover it up," he told Four Corners. "I think that people were offering legal advice about these matters in the context in which they did; that is a context that no longer applies now."
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