Mebourne Priest Terry Pidoto Is Charged in Court

Broken Rites
May 2, 2014

http://brokenrites.org.au/drupal/node/289

Terrence Melville Pidoto, aged 69, who has had a long career as a Catholic priest in parishes around Melbourne, was charged in the Melbourne Magistrates Court on 1 May 2014 with multiple child-sex offences.

The court conducted a brief administrative procedure during which the prosecutor filed the charges in court.

Terrence Pidoto, who currently resides near Ararat in western Victoria, appeared in court via a video link.

According to court documents, the charges against Pidoto comprise 15 counts of indecent assault, allegedly committed against eight young males.

At this hearing, Pidoto was not required to indicate how he intends to plead.

The magistrate scheduled the case for another brief procedural mention at an early date. After that, the Pidoto case will be listed in mid-2014 for a "committal mention", at which he can indicate his choice of plea. The kind of plea would then determine what type of court procedure would eventually be needed. The total legal process could continue for many months.

Terry Pidoto, born in 1944, was ordained as a priest for the Melbourne Catholic archdiocese in 1971. This diocese covers the Melbourne metropolitan area, plus some nearby country towns.

The police investigation is being conduced by Senior Detective David Rae, from a unit of detectives called the "Sano Taskforce" in the Victoria Police sexual crime squad, Flinders Street, Melbourne. This unit was established in 2012 when a Victorian Parliamentary Inquiry began examining the processes by which religious and other non-government organisations respond to the criminal abuse of children within those organisations. The purpose of the parliamentary committee was to prepare a report for the Victorian Parliament about these issues in general.