‘this Scourge Must End Once and for All’, Says Priest’s Victim

By Samantha Hutchinson
The Australian
February 7, 2017

https://goo.gl/1FTREB

Peter Gogarty is anxious. A survivor of sexual abuse, he has been heartened as successive members of the clergy have been exposed and sent to jail for abusing children in their care, but now he wants lasting reform.

“I just need to know that what happens next fixes the problem for good,” he told The Australian.

“The last thing we need is an experience when people share these horrendous stories and then everyone says they’ve learned their lesson, they’ve done a bad thing and just move on. That just won’t work for me.”

The Newcastle-based advocate for survivors of sexual abuse spoke to The Australian yesterday as a royal commission hearing in Newcastle heard that 7 per cent of all Catholic priests and brothers in Australia over the past six decades were involved in abusing children.