Let Victims Sue Church, Rights Group Leader Chris Wilding Urges Inquiry
By Pia Akerman
THE founder of a leading victims' rights group has called for legislative change to allow lawsuits against the Catholic church and retrospective charges for clergy who helped pedophile priests avoid exposure. Chris Wilding, who began the Broken Rites group, today told a Victorian parliamentary inquiry that compensation and legal change were the priorities for victims. "They have to be able to sue the church," she told the committee which is examining how religious and non-state organisations have handled child sexual abuse claims. "Most victims would want the hierarchy, the clergy to be prosecuted for protecting them (pedophiles), for shielding them, for moving them on for being accessories to a crime. "It's essential that is recognised by our state laws. "I think every bishop - every one from bishop and up who has knowingly moved a criminal to another parish, interstate or overseas should be locked up retrospectively." Ms Wilding said moves to make priests mandatory reporters of abuse claims would not succeed in practice because of a culture of institutional secrecy. "The only way I can see to get around that is to lock the bastards up, is to make the legislation to lock them up," she said. Ms Wilding's comments come ahead of next week's first sitting of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. The hearing, to be held in Melbourne next Wednesday, will include opening statements from counsel assisting the commission but no evidence. The Victorian inquiry, which has not yet heard evidence from the Catholic church, is due to report by the end of September, while the Royal Commission is due to hand down an interim report mid next year ahead of a 2016 deadline.
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