FORMER Priest Jailed over Child Sex

7 News
April 19, 2012

http://au.news.yahoo.com/nsw/latest/a/-/newshome/13469543/former-priest-jailed-over-child-sex/

A former Catholic priest has been jailed for at least five years for sexually abusing girls as young as six.

Media reports say the judge presiding over the case described the assaults as "serious, planned and callous".

Brian Spillane, 69, has been convicted of abusing girls in the 1970s and 1980s when he worked in Sydney and country areas of New South Wales.

It is understood that Spillane worked at St Stanislaus' College, Bathurst, where he became close with the family of two boys at the school, later abusing their 11-year-old sister.

Reports tell of how Spillane left Bathurst to become a parish priest in Sydney in 1979 where he is said to have ingratiated himself with a Catholic family and began hearing their daughters' bedtime prayers, abusing the two girls for more than a year.

The court was also told how Spillane wrote love letters and assaulted a 16-year-old student at a western suburbs Catholic school in Sydney.

The judge labelled the assault "predatory and heartless" and one of the letters "maudlin, full of false piety and completely inappropriate".

"The offender used his position as a priest to gain access to the homes in which each of his victims lived. Because of his position as a priest and because of his standing in the community generally, he was very trusted and the parents of each of the victims readily gave him access to their daughters." Judge Michael Finnane told the court.

"This was the conduct of a violent bully and coward, done without regard to the effect it would have on the young girl,"

"It was sexual abuse carried out by a trusted priest, and was a major breach of trust." Finnane reportedly continued.

Spillane denies the abuse and proclaims his innocence. He married in 2004 and left the priesthood.

In July this year Spillane will face the court again for several scheduled trials alleging assaults during his career at St Stanislaus' College in the 1970s and 1980s.

The former priest will be eligible for parole in 2015 under the sentence handed down today.