AUSTRALIA
Courier Mail
COURT REPORTER TESSA AKERMAN ADELAIDENOW JUNE 06, 2013
MONSIGNOR Ian Dempsey says Senator Nick Xenophon would apologise for accusing him of sex crimes if he was a man of integrity – but Mr Xenophon says it is the Catholic Church who should be sorry.
The Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions will not pursue Monsignor Dempsey over alleged sex abuse against now-Bishop John Hepworth in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
It said there was insufficient evidence to convict him.
At the time the allegations were raised, Independent Senator Nick Xenophon named Monsignor Dempsey in Federal Parliament.
Today, Monsignor Dempsey told adelaidenow it was a “great joy” to have the matter cleared.
“It’s a humiliating thing to have one’s name so rubbed in the mud and your reputation, especially when it’s done nationally as Senator Xenophon did, and that’s been difficult to cope with,” he said.
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