Courage Puts Shame "Squarely Where It Belongs"

By Catherine Armitage
Sydney Morning Herald
July 24, 2013

http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/courage-puts-shame-squarely-where-it-belongs-20130724-2qi8m.html

Sexual abuse victim known as AH leaves Newcastle Supreme Court on Tuesday. Photo: Darren Pateman

He has moved on with his life but even nine years after the court case, the man who endured years of “dreadful” abuse as a boy by a Catholic priest in the Hunter Valley could not keep the incredulity from his voice.

On that day in 2004 when Father James Fletcher was found guilty of all charges of sexually abusing him, Fletcher's bishop, Michael Malone – “his” bishop, his father's boss - rang his home and asked his father to put him on the phone.

“I still remember, he told me that Fletcher would never work in the diocese again and he asked me to keep my faith. To this day I wonder what faith he was talking about,” the man known as AH told the silent courtroom at the NSW government inquiry into alleged church and police cover-ups of child sexual abuse by priests in the Maitland-Newcastle diocese.

Tormented by shame, he brought applause

Sexual abuse victim AH as a boy

AH told of how he was “an innocent little kid with a big hope for the future” when Fletcher stole the promise from his life. He remembered other things in gut-wrenching detail. The priest’s number plate – JPF004 - ”will always be in my head”. He remembered how during the trial, clergy visited and supported Fletcher but none went near him and his family, they “didn’t want to look at us”. It was a feeling of two sides, he said, “completely opposite”.

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He had expected that once he found the courage to come forward, the church would do the right thing and “not let me down”, but that “wasn’t to be”. The inquiry has heard evidence that Bishop Malone drove from Newcastle to Branxton and tipped off Fletcher about the police investigation on the same day he learnt of it from AH’s father in 2002. Bishop Malone said he did it because he hoped to trigger a confession from Fletcher and avoid a long trial. That it gave Fletcher a chance to destroy evidence had not occurred to him, the bishop testified.

“If there was going to be an arrest I think it was so unfair he was tipped off,” AH said. It made the investigating officer Peter Fox’s job a lot harder as people closed ranks. His parents were “dropped by church people”. His father was eventually let go by the diocese.

AH, now in his late 30s with children of his own, ran through a list of what-ifs. If the church had dealt with Fletcher years before instead of moving him around, “would he have got to me?” He spoke of how he had lost his business, split with his first partner and separated several times from his current one. He now lives far away from family and friends to get away from the memories. The shame, anger and embarrassment left him feeling that as an adult he was “just stuffing up my life”, until he realised that was typical for victims of abuse.

His name has been suppressed for legal reasons but he gave permission for his photograph to be published. As AH went to leave the witness stand, Commissioner Margaret Cunneen, SC, called him back. “You must always remember no shame attaches to you”, she said. His courage had placed all the shame “squarely where it belongs”.

The room wept and clapped as he made his way past the bar table, the media seats and through the public gallery. Outside the court, there was a queue to hug him.

James Fletcher died in jail in 2006.