Cunneen Inquiry Reveals Conflicting Accounts of Note-Keeping by Special Issues Committee

ABC News
September 9, 2013

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-09-09/cunneen-inquiry-reveals-conflicting-accounts-of/4946226?section=nsw

[with audio]

Monsignor John Usher has told the special commission of inquiry into child sexual abuse in the Newcastle-Maitland region that he took notes as part of his work with the church's special issues committee set up to handle complaints and allegations about priests. His record keeping has been scrutinised by the Special Commission of Inquiry led by Margaret Cunneen, SC. His method of note-taking differs from that of his colleague Brian Lucas, who admitted during hearings that he took no notes of his meetings with alleged paedophile priests.

ELEANOR HALL: The special inquiry into child sexual abuse in the Newcastle-Hunter region has begun hearing evidence from two witnesses from the Catholic Church.

Father Brian Lucas has been recalled to the commission, and Monsignor John Usher will appear for the first time as the commission investigates the Church's response to allegations of abuse by two priests who've now died.

Today's hearings come just one week before the national Royal Commission begins its public hearings.

The World Today's Emily Bourke has been at the hearings in Sydney this morning and she joins us now. Emily, why is the evidence from these two church figures today so significant?

EMILY BOURKE: Well, Eleanor, Brian Lucas and John Usher had key roles. They were part of the special issues committee set up to handle allegations. And both men were really at the forefront of the Church's response to child sexual abuse allegations in the 1980s and 1990s.

And this pre-dated the protocols towards healing and the Melbourne response - the official processes that the Church set up in the wake of mounting allegations and a need for the Church to really get a handle on how to deal with allegations both within the Church and in a civil sense.

So Brian Lucas had the job of convincing paedophile priests to leave the ministry. He had mixed success, admittedly. He was a trained lawyer and over a period of six years in the 1990s he would hold meetings to, quote, "seduce priests to step down".

And in those meetings he never took notes. And his colleague in this process was John Usher. And he's now the Chancellor of the Archdiocese of Sydney. He was a very prominent member of Centacare and a very well-respected expert in the field of child protection, in the early days of child protection in New South Wales.

He had the job of working with victims of paedophile priests, liaising with victims and their families. His job was to interview victims and at times interview priests and make recommendations to bishops about the suitability of priests staying in the ministry or advising them to stand aside.

ELEANOR HALL: Now Brian Lucas is being recalled. Did his testimony today contradict anything he said earlier?

EMILY BOURKE: Well Brian Lucas hasn't actually spoken as yet. We're expecting to hear from him this afternoon. But John Usher has provided an insight, I suppose, into the thinking of the Church in the 1980s and 1990s. And that went from an attitude or a philosophy that paedophiles, paedophile priests, could undergo therapy and could be cured.

But as the education around this issue became... was improved, it was understood that paedophiles would re-offend and that was the overriding principle here. And in his method of dealing with paedophile priests it came to his attention.

It emerged during the last round of hearings that Brian Lucas never took notes in his meetings with alleged child abusers. And he did this rather specifically. And the difference in method was that John Usher did. He specifically made notes so that he could refer back later on, and it would help formulate his advice to the bishops about whether priests could stay on or whether they should be removed - or indeed, whether there should be some sort of risk mitigation strategy where they would be removed from the ministry and put into, say, a nursing home facility.

ELEANOR HALL: Emily Bourke at that inquiry in Sydney, thank you.