Hundreds Call for Abuse Royal Commission

SBS
September 17, 2012

www.sbs.com.au/news/article/1693301/Hundreds-call-for-abuse-royal-commission

Almost 400 people have gathered at a public forum in Newcastle to support calls for a royal commission into sexual abuse in the Catholic Church.

Hundreds of people have gathered in Newcastle to call for a royal commission into sexual abuse within the Catholic Church.

Almost 400 people attended the public forum at the Newcastle Panthers club on Sunday, in which people shared their experiences of abuse within the Catholic Church and other organisations.

"We filled the auditorium. We couldn't have fitted any more," NSW Greens MP David Shoebridge told AAP.

He said there was a unanimous call for a royal commission to investigate cases of abuse and look at offences which were covered up.

Mr Shoebridge said a royal commission was necessary as it would tackle the "systemic failures" within the church, and other organisations, in a way criminal or civil proceedings could not.

"What we have seen is the failure of the existing legal system, both criminal and civil, to bring the hierarchies to account to tell the true story," he said.

"That can only happen with a royal commission and their powers of compulsion."

Joining the voices at the forum was Tracey Pirona, whose husband John took his own life in July.

The former NSW Fire Brigades officer was sexually assaulted by a Hunter priest when aged 11, but Mr Pirona did not tell his wife or family members until 2008.

"That man alone changed the path of John's life at such a very young age and teachers and principals knew of what was happening to these children," she told the forum.

She later told the ABC that if John had been given some validation he may have been able to cope a little better.

Detective Chief Inspector Peter Fox, who has investigated clergy abuse in the Hunter for about two decades, also supported the call for a royal commission.

Mr Shoebridge said the Catholic Bishop of the Diocese of Maitland-Newcastle Bill Wright was invited to the event, but declined to attend.

Another forum was expected to be held in Sydney in October, Mr Shoebridge said.