AUSTRALIA
Radio Australia
The ABC’s Four Corners program has revealed the church failed to pass on abuse admissions by a priest to police.
Four Corners obtained documents showing a New South Wales priest, from the parishes of Moree and later Parramatta, who is accused of abusing young boys, made clear admissions during a meeting with three senior priests, but they never referred the matter to police.
The program also detailed several cases in which priests were merely moved on when the church was made aware of sexual abuse claims against them.
A professor of law from the University of Sydney says the allegations should have been referred to police immediately, and he suggests those members of the clergy who did not do that could have broken the law.
For legal reasons the accused priest is knows as Father F. He worked in Moree and later in Parramatta, where it is alleged he abused a number of altar boys in the 1980s.
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