|
Flawed report denies justice to clergy-sex victims
By Judy Courtin
Survivors of clergy sex in Ballarat are unhappy with the unexpected announcement last week by the royal commission that hearings scheduled for November will be held in Melbourne, instead of their home city. This is not the only reason, though, for despondency, hurt and exasperation in the Ballarat survivor community. In 2011 and 2012, The Age published a series of important articles reporting on the premature deaths, including by suicide, of 43 men who allegedly had been sexually assaulted as children by since-convicted Catholic clergy paedophiles, including Gerald Ridsdale and Robert Best.
There were mounting calls at the time, including by this author, for the Victorian coroner to reopen these 43 cases based on new information – the common history of alleged clergy child sexual assault of these men. In July 2012 the coroner, having considered the matter, referred it back to Victoria Police to investigate, and since that time victims and their families have been waiting for the findings of this critical investigation. The Sexual Crimes Squad of Victoria Police completed its report, known as Operation Plangere, in December 2012. It was not made public until May 2015. This incompetently researched and at times inconsistent review assessed the prefatory reports of Detective Sergeant Kevin Carson, of Ballarat police, who had gathered data about the 43 men between 2001 and 2011 while investigating the sexual crimes of Ridsdale and Best. Carson had stated clearly that the information in his reports "would by no means be complete"; they were never intended to amount to a final and comprehensive report. He requested that the coroner reopen and further investigate these cases. Operation Plangere, conducted by a leading senior constable, said that 18 of the 43 cases in Carson's report – about 42 per cent – could not be accurately identified based on the data provided by Carson. It did not, though, carry out the requisite investigations to determine the identification of these people. Instead, it instantly, inappropriately and prematurely dismissed from its review almost half of the cases. The remaining 25 cases, about 58 per cent, were identified with varying levels of certainty. Of these, 16 were categorised as death by suicide. The remaining nine deaths were noted as being due to "natural causes", although the review acknowledged that the "potentially self-inflicted stab wounds" of one man and death due to injuries from a "descent from height" of another, could assert suicide. Ultimately, though, the review dismissed outright about 86 per cent of the cases documented by Carson. Only six matters of clergy sexual assault were considered – four that had been reported to Victoria Police and two that had been documented by the coroner. Of these six cases, it was concluded that only one contributed to the suicide of the victim. This appalling finding was made in light of Operation Plangere's acceptance that alcohol and drug abuse, gambling, depression and mental health issues are associated with people who have suffered child sexual abuse. It also accepted that child sexual assault is a risk factor that "mediates self-harm and accidental overdose". Furthermore, Operation Plangere highlighted the fact that only 4.5 per cent of men who were sexually assaulted as children will ever report their case to the police. These findings of Operation Plangere are flawed, worthless and misleading. Equally concerning is Operation Plangere's recommendation that no further action be taken at that time by Victoria Police and that no submission be made to any other agency. This is hard to fathom, after such glaringly defective investigations. Interestingly, The Australian newspaper (on July 29 this year) described the reporting of 43 premature deaths and suicides as "hysteria, wild exaggerations and slander … [by] … those intent on waging ideological warfare, especially against Christianity and its leaders". The Murdoch press has exploited the fatal shortfalls of Operation Plangere's review. This is a great insult to those dead men and their families, and the countless others who have attempted suicide after clergy sex crimes. Journalists have branded as liars the many brave people who came forward to give evidence to Australia's two public inquiries. Also condemned are Carson and others who have tried to expose decades of clergy child sexual assault crimes and their concealment – which, by the way, have nothing to do with "Christianity and its leaders" and everything to do with criminal conduct. Francis Sullivan, of the Catholic Church's Truth Justice and Healing Council, also uncritically accepts the findings of Operation Plangere and describes Carson's initial reports as "false and misleading claims dressed up as official reports inaccurately amplifying the horrors". Sullivan has attended the royal commission's hearings into the Catholic church and witnessed the gruelling evidence relating to clergy sex crimes and associated premature deaths, suicides and attempted suicides. One witness told the commission that more than a third of his classmates from St Alipius primary Catholic school in Ballarat were dead. Sullivan knows this. Operation Plangere has closed down Carson's important data. Others have shamefully capitalised on this by attacking victims and their families – all in a feeble attempt to support an institution that has blood on its hands. It seems the royal commission must not only re-examine and investigate properly Carson's original reports, it must also look at why Victoria Police has tried to silence and discredit Carson. Judy Courtin is a lawyer and a doctoral researcher at Monash University's law faculty, doing research into sexual assault and the Catholic Church.
|
.
Any original material on these pages is copyright © BishopAccountability.org 2004. Reproduce freely with attribution.