Victim Comes Forward over Priest's Sex Abuse

Radio Australia
July 24, 2012

http://www.radioaustralia.net.au/international/2012-07-24/victim-comes-forward-over-priests-sex-abuse/985874

[with video]

An alleged victim has gone to authorities over an apparent cover-up by the Catholic Church over abuse by a paedophile priest known as Father F.

The Church told a Four Corners report it could not act on the allegations as it did not know the identity of any of Father F's victims.

There has never been a successful prosecution, mainly because victims have not been willing to go to police.

But 7.30 can reveal that an alleged victim has gone to authorities.

For 30 years, Mark Boughton has struggled with the memories of what Father F did to him as an 11-year-old altar boy.

Last year, for the first time, Mr Boughton told his partner Belinda Hall about what happened to him in the NSW town of Moree, 30 years ago, when he was in fifth and sixth class at the local Catholic primary school.

The Boughtons were a religious family and welcomed Father F into their home.

"It's a very strange feeling. You can't explain it, it's like something eating you," he said.

"After dinner he'd say would you like to stay at the presbytery and because you'd have a six o'clock mass in the morning, didn't have a car or a licence, that'll help out mum and dad won't have to get up early, save a lot of inconvenience.

"I woke up to realise he was ... being a bigger man, it was sort of a bear hug and pulled me in close and I could feel he was naked.

"He made me lay there and he actually put his penis between my legs. He put his leg over my leg so I couldn't move.

"I went away on a trip to Guyra to an altar boys camp. He tried to in the car ... he made me perform oral sex on him.

"I don't know why I thought it would stop. It didn't."

His partner, Belinda, says she always suspected something had happened to Mark before he told her.

She says his revelation to her was heartbreaking.

"I always felt that Mark couldn't give himself completely. Emotionally, I felt there was something that wasn't right. Something was missing," she said.

"One of Mark's sisters thought something might have happened to him, and that's when I decided to confront Mark and ask him.

"I just feel heartbroken for him. What happened to him is just so very wrong. Nobody should ever take advantage of him like that."

Altar boy's suicide

Mr Boughton was not Father F's only victim. At least three other Moree altar boys, or their families, have detailed abuse by the priest.

Father F was finally expelled from the Church in 2005. He lives today in Armidale, near some of his victims and their families.

He has never faced trial, despite admitting to senior priests that he molested at least five boys.

One of them was Mark's friend and neighbour, Damian Jurd. In the mid-eighties, Damian's father came and asked Mr Boughton if he too had been abused.

"[Damien] asked me, 'did he do anything to me?' and worse luck I said 'no', because I felt ashamed and guilty and didn't want anyone to know," Mr Boughton said.

"But knowing what I know now, I wish I could have. Might have been different, I just don't know."

Damian Jurd killed himself in 2001.

And it is for Damian, rather than himself, that Mark Boughton has finally gone to police.

"I'm coming to realise that [I'm an innocent victim]. It takes time to get over it. Hopefully one day we can have justice done, for the people who can't have justice," he said.

Mark Boughton hopes his actions will help other abuse victims.

It has taken three decades, but today he went to his local police station to report what happened to him all those years ago.