An Ex-bishop Is Ordered to Give Evidence in Court about an Ex-priest

Broken Rites
December 12, 2014

http://brokenrites.org.au/drupal/node/344

A retired Australian Catholic bishop, Most Reverend Ronald Mulkearns, has been ordered by a court to give evidence in a case against a former priest, Robert Claffey. This order was made by the Geelong Magistrates Court in Victoria on 12 December 2014 when ex-priest Claffey (now aged 70), was charged with multiple incidents of indecent assault against seven children.

Bishop Mulkearns (born in 1930) was the head of the Catholic Church throughout the western half of the state of Victoria (with his cathedral in the city of Ballarat), from 1971 to 1997. Father Robert Claffey worked in west Victorian parishes under Bishop Mulkearns in the 1970s and 1980s.

The court was told that one of the alleged assaults involved Father Claffey going to a boy’s house and indecently assaulting him during the 1980s. Detective Sergeant Tim Kennedy, from the Sano Taskforce in the Victoria Police, told the court that the boy allegedly reported the assault to his father, who then allegedly reported it to Bishop Mulkearns. Claffey was then moved from his parish at Wendouree (in Ballarat) to another parish [in a different part of the diocese], Sergeant Kennedy said.

The court was told that ex-Bishop Mulkearns had initially agreed to give a statement to police in the investigation against ex-priest Claffey, but his lawyers later told police that he was not feeling healthy enough to give accurate evidence, having suffered a stroke some years earlier. Ex-Bishop Mulkearns then failed to attend a medical assessment that was organised to determine whether he was indeed too ill to take the witness stand, the court was told.

Magistrate Ron Saines said he was satisfied that Fr Mulkearns had refused to provide a statement. He granted the prosecution’s application to have him undergo compulsory questioning in court.

Robert Claffey was not required to attend this December 2014 hearing, as he was represented in court by a lawyer. His lawyer, Michael Vines, applied to adjourn his client’s case until 2015 because another alleged victim had come forward.

“There’s the possibility, it would seem, of further charges,” Mr Vines said.

The case was adjourned until February 2015. The official number of the case in the court filing system is E13191098.

Robert Claffey is currently on bail.

Background

Father Bob Claffey belonged to the Ballarat diocese, which covers the whole of western Victoria. He ministered in the 1970s at Terang (St Thomas's parish), Warrnambool (St Joseph's) and Apollo Bay (Our Lady Star of the Sea parish). During the 1980s, he was in charge of the Wendouree parish (Our Lady Help of Christians), situated in the city of Ballarat, with a junior priest as his assistant. However, Father Claffey was listed in the 1990 Australian Catholic directory as being "on leave" (this directory is a listing of all the current priests in Australia, at the time of publication).

In 1991-2 (according to the annual directory) Father Claffey was sent as an assistant priest to Portland (All Saints parish). About August 1992, when he was aged about 49, Claffey was no longer at the Portland parish. He was listed in the annual Australian directory in 1994 as being "on leave". Eventually he ceased being included in the list of Australian priests in the annual directory.