ABUSE Statements Stun Nsw Church Inquiry

9 News
August 1, 2013

http://news.ninemsn.com.au/national/2013/08/01/16/36/abuse-statements-stun-nsw-church-inquiry

A NSW inquiry has been left in stunned silence by a social worker reading statements from two women sexually assaulted 32 years apart by the same Catholic priest.

The letters spoke of the terror, suffering and sadness that still plagued them, in one case, almost 60 years after the abuse by Hunter Valley Catholic priest Denis McAlinden began.

Maureen O'Hearn, the coordinator of the Maitland-Newcastle Catholic diocese child protection unit's healing and support services, read the statements because the women were unable to.

She said the first letter was written by a 68-year-old woman who was abused for years, from 1954, when she was 10.

The second was written by a 38-year-old who was abused from 1986, when she was 11.

The first woman described McAlinden as "an extremely bad tempered, evil man who was a sexual predator of little girls".

The second woman asked why no one stopped McAlinden, what life may have been like had he not got to her and whether he abused any of her friends.

Ms O'Hearn said she personally had dealings with 28 of McAlinden's victims who were assaulted between 1949 and 1986.

The inquiry, by Commissioner Margaret Cunneen in the Newcastle Supreme Court, is examining how church leaders and police handled child sexual abuse allegations against McAlinden and fellow Hunter Valley priest James Fletcher.

McAlinden died in 2005 and Fletcher died in 2006 serving a jail sentence for a pedophile conviction.

Ms O'Hearn said that as the diocese's healing support coordinator during the past five years she still received complaints from victims of both priests who had come forward from parts of NSW, other Australian states and New Zealand.