AUSTRALIA
7 News
KARLIS SALNA
June 26, 2014
The former canonical advocate for a priest accused of molesting boys once called a church investigation into the alleged abuse a “witch hunt” and a “charade”, but now says he was later shocked by the evidence.
Father John Nestor was charged and convicted of indecently assaulting a 15-year-old altar boy in Wollongong in 1996 but was later acquitted on appeal.
Further allegations later surfaced, prompting attempts to have Father Nestor removed from the ministry and setting in train a church investigation under canon law.
The Royal Commission into Child Sexual Abuse, at a hearing in Sydney on Thursday, heard that even before the criminal charges and church investigation, other members of Wollongong’s Catholic Diocese had become aware of Father Nestor’s activities.
Father Mark O’Keefe told the commission that, when he was an assistant priest at Nowra in November 1988, he had become aware of Father Nestor running summer camps for boys.
He heard that boys on one of the camps, which included lessons on “manliness”, had to run naked from a bus to a water hole and back, and that there were group shower sessions.
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