COP'S Own Sex Abuse Case Delayed: Priest

9 News
November 9, 2012

http://news.ninemsn.com.au/national/2012/11/10/01/04/cop-s-own-sex-abuse-case-delayed-priest

A senior NSW police officer who reported being sexually abused by clergy has been waiting more than a year for police to take action, a former Catholic priest says.

Kevin Lee, who is supporting calls for a royal commission into child sex abuse by the church, says the high-ranking officer has seen his own case delayed by 18 months with no arrests made since he came forward with his allegations.

"If it's hard enough for a police officer to get justice, then how much harder must it be for an average person to get some sort of action?" he told ABC Lateline on Friday.

Father Lee, a former priest at Padre Pio parish in Glenmore Park, said he ended up leaving the church and became a private investigator after church leadership failed to deal with sex abuse cases - and even dismissed his own complaints as hearsay.

He said some of his fellow priests had confessed to him that they were pedophiles yet the church did not take it seriously.

"I saw a system of cover-ups, a system of blind eye-turning and just an ignorance of the fact that it was happening," he told Lateline.

"There's so many (victims) that even the police are bogged down. The police can't possibly deal with the extensive number."

Father Lee made the comments as the state government was criticised for launching a special commission on Friday that will look into allegations of child sex abuse only by Catholic church clergy within NSW's Hunter region.

Father Lee said he knows of abuse cases across NSW that need to be looked at by a royal commission. "It's quite widespread," he said.

He has now written a book about abuse in the church, but said it can't be published yet due to legal restrictions.

The public should realise, however, that not all allegations of sex abuse are historical, with some arrests likely in the near future, he said.

In the case of the police officer, Father Lee said it involves a Catholic school in western Sydney with both the parish priest and bishop aware of the abuse.

"I believe in the church. I just don't believe in the oligarchy, the bureaucrats that run the church," he said.

"I've lost my confidence in them."