Fr Glenn Humphreys Is Convicted Re a Parish in Western Australia

Broken Rites
August 23, 2014

http://brokenrites.org.au/drupal/node/203

Father Glenn Humphreys, aged 61, a member of the Australia-wide Catholic order of Vincentian Fathers, has been convicted by a jury in Western Australia for sexual abuse committed in that state. Father Humphreys has also ministered in other parts of Australia, including St Stanislaus College in Bathurst NSW. In the W.A. court documents, his current address was given as Marsfield in Sydney.

On 21 August 2014, Father Humphreys was found guilty of sexually abusing a teenage boy on church property in Western Australia 30 years ago. Humphreys was charged with abusing the teenager between 1983 and 1986 while he was assistant priest at a church in Perth.

After six hours of deliberation, a W.A. District Court jury convicted Humphreys of four counts of unlawful and indecent assault.

The court was told Humphreys had assaulted the boy in the church's presbytery and in a bathroom at a nearby primary school.

He admitted having an "inappropriate" sexual relationship with the boy but claimed that their actions were consensual.

Giving evidence, Humphreys said he accepted that he took advantage of a vulnerable young person.

He admitted that he started to feel a sexual attraction to the boy in the second half of 1985, shortly before he took him away for a holiday.

"It didn't dawn on me at the time that there was anything unusual with that," he said.

"It was only a little break from the parish, that's all."

His victim, now aged 45, now lives overseas but came back to Australia to give evidence.

The man told the court that he reported the abuse to police in 2012.

He said the abuse left him confused and shocked, describing some of the incidents as "highly traumatising".

Humphreys moved to Perth in January 1983 after a stint on the staff of a Catholic boys' school (St Stanislaus College) in Bathurst, New Souh Wales. Two men who were allegedly abused by Humphreys at the NSW school in the mid-70s and early 80s also gave evidence during the trial, speaking by video link from NSW. The men testified that Humphreys would put on music, often by his favourite artist Barbra Streisand, before touching them inappropriately. [However, the charges in the W.A. court were confined to incidents that occurred in W.A.; any NSW matters must be handled by a NSW court.]

In 2012, Humphreys sent his Perth victim a letter of apology and asked for his forgiveness.

Prosecutor James Mactaggart said Humphreys blatantly abused his position of trust.

Humphreys is scheduled to appear again in court in October 2014 for sentence proceedings.

Background

Fr Glenn Humphreys (born 6 July 1953) is a member of a Catholic religious order, the Congregation of the Mission (also called the Vincentian Fathers). This order has its headquarters in Sydney, and it also has various other addresses around Australia such as (to name just a few examples):

St STANISLAUS College, Bathurst, New South Wales. ("Rev. G. Humphreys CM" was listed at this address in the 1979 edition of the Directory of Australian Catholic Clergy.)

SYDNEY: Rev. G. Humphreys has been listed at various times at the Vincentian Community in Eastwood, as well as St Anthony's parish in Marsfield and St Vincent's parish in Ashfield.

WESTERN AUSTRALIA: St Vincent's parish in Kwinana, Perth.

From the 1970s to the late 1990s, Reverend Glenn Humphreys spent time at these kinds of Vincentian locations.

From 2002 onwards, Fr Glen Humphreys ministered in the diocese of Townsville in far-north Queensland. In 2002, he was listed as ministering in Kirwan, a suburb of the city of Townsville. After that, he was appointed to the Sacred Heart Cathedral parish in Townsville, where he became the parish administrator, running this parish on behalf of the bishop until 2011.

In mid-2011 the church authorities withdrew Father Humphreys from Townsville. This transfer was reported in the Townsville Bulletin daily newspaper on 23 June 2011. Since then, according to the annual Australian Catholic Directory, Fr Glenn Humphreys, CM, has been based at a Vincentian house in Marsfield, Sydney.