Child Abuse Inquiry: Retired Bishop Brian Heenan Kept Paedophile Priest in Parish, Royal Commission Hears
By William Rollo and Marlina Whop
The retired Rockhampton bishop allowed a priest to stay on at a parish even though he knew he was a paedophile, the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse has heard. Bishop Brian Heenan also admitted at one point he tried to protect the reputation of the Catholic Church rather than consider the victims of sexual abuse. Bishop Heenan was cross-examined over the Church's responses to the abuse allegations at St Joseph's Orphanage at Neerkol, west of Rockhampton, from the 1940s to the 1970s. He allowed one of the main offenders, Father Reg Durham, to continue working for the Catholic Church for three years despite a woman alleging in 1994 he sexually abused her since she was a child. Father Durham was the administrator for the parish of Neerkol and had resided in the presbytery. It took Bishop Heenan three years to restrict Father Durham's contact with children and in 1999 he gave him a character a reference. "He had a unique gift with youth," the reference read. During the cross examination, counsel assisting Sophie David asked: "Do you accept that placed other children at risk of further sexual abuse?" Bishop Heenan replied" "I do". St Joseph's Neerkol Orphanage in Rockhampton in central Queensland,
The Commission, which began hearings on Tuesday in the central Queensland city, was told that for more than three decades, children at the orphanage were raped, molested and beaten. The Sisters of Mercy ran the Neerkol orphanage for half a century before it closed in the late 1970s. Bishop Heenan had no training in how to deal with sexual abuse allegations, and when the woman who initially raised allegations wrote a book in 1994, he did not read it, the Commission was told. In 1996, amid widespread reports about a history of horrific abuse at the orphanage, Bishop Heenan described the allegations as "scurrilous". It is a comment he later apologised for. When asked by Counsel Assisting Sophie David whether the defensive measure was to protect the church, Bishop Heenan replied: "Yes, I would have to agree." In 1997 Father Durham was charged with 40 sexual offences against five former residents of the orphanage and pleaded guilty to six counts of indecently dealing with a child. The inquiry has heard the Sisters of Mercy who ran the orphanage not only overlooked the abuse but were complicit in it being carried out during a period stretching from the 1940s to the1970s. One witness says she was raped when she was 14 by a worker at the orphanage in 1965, another was sexually abused by a priest and forced to drink her own urine to stay hydrated. Call for national compensation scheme Care Leavers Australia Network spokeswoman Leonie Sheedy said she had not understood why the Federal Government had not introduced a national independent compensation scheme. "Why do we expect this cohort of Australian citizens, who suffered heinous crimes, to go back to back to the past abusive organisations," she said. "We can find money for overseas Third World countries - and we should - but we can't seem to find the moral compass to help our own Australian citizens - charity should begin at home." Ms Sheedy said child abuse was a national issue and should not be dealt with by a state government. "Children who are abused by the state government, in state government-run homes, shouldn't be required to go back to the state government to get justice and redress," she said. "We want the Federal Government to establish the national independent redress, and if they have to introduce new legislation in order to take the power away from the states, then so be it."
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