Hollingworth case ‘pushed’ cleric to act

By Mark Schliebs
Australian
April 2, 2014

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/in-depth/hollingworth-case-pushed-cleric-to-act/story-fngburq5-1226872855550#

THE Catholic Archbishop of Adelaide wrote to police in 2002 about decade-old child sexual abuse because allegations that Peter Hollingworth mishandled a separate case were made a couple of months earlier, corruption investigators believed.

In a 2002 report into why a pedophile investigation was shut down that was tendered to a royal commission, investigators from South Australia Police’s Anti-Corruption Branch included thoughts on why Archbishop Philip Wilson wrote to police about the abuse of intellectually disabled children by a school-bus driver.

They linked Archbishop Wilson’s February 2002 letter to the allegation that Dr Hollingworth — who was governor-general at that time — did not take appropriate action as the Anglican archbishop of Brisbane against a pedophile priest.

Archbishop Wilson’s letter to then commissioner Mal Hyde raised concerns the bus driver, Brian Perkins, had not been brought from Queensland to face justice despite parents being informed of the case at the St Ann’s Special School in 1991.