Sydney priest Kevin Lee the first confirmed Australian death…

AUSTRALIA
Courier Mail

Sydney priest Kevin Lee the first confirmed Australian death in Super Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines

PATRICK LION THE DAILY TELEGRAPH NOVEMBER 10, 2013

JUST six weeks ago former western Sydney priest Kevin Lee was celebrating the birth of his daughter Michelle, joking about buying her a Sydney Roosters jersey and enjoying the family life he would never have experienced in his former life as a celibate priest.

But yesterday the priest, who helped blow the whistle on child sex abuse in the Catholic Church and was removed from the Glenmore Park parish last year after admitting to secretly marrying his wife, became the first confirmed Australian death in the wake of Super Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines.

A Melbourne family yesterday also pleaded for details of their traveller daughter last heard from in the Philippines as a regional police commissioner upgraded the disaster death toll estimates from 1000 to at least 10,000 people, mainly in the Leyte province, following Haiyan’s sustained winds of up to 315km/h and 3m-high storm surges.

It is understood Mr Lee, who helped bring about the royal commission into child sexual abuse, drowned after going out into the typhoon during his daily swims.

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