Calls for Royal Commission of Inquiry into church sex abuse

NEW ZEALAND
New Zealand Herald

The Government is being asked to investigate alleged abuse within the Catholic Church, to give closure to survivors before they die.

Peter Hercock, a former chaplin at Sacred Heart College in Lower Hutt, has admitted two charges of rape, one of attempted rape and four of indecently assaulting a girl aged between 12 and 16.

He was last month sentenced to six years and seven months in jail, four decades after his offending began.

One of his victims, Ann-Marie Shelley, 60, is calling on the Government to set up a Royal Commission of Inquiry into sexual abuse in the New Zealand Catholic Church.

It follows a Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sex Abuse in Australia, which has looked into child sex abuse reported in the Victorian city of Ballarat.

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