NEW ZEALAND
Stuff
FLORENCE KERR
June 12 2016
Police only became aware of a woman’s claims she was raped by a Palmerston North Catholic priest who abused her with a knife and a broken bottle when the church learned it had been duped out of the payments it had made to her.
The woman, who has name suppression, appeared at the Morrinsville District Court on Wednesday, June 8, to be sentenced on one charge of obtaining by deception $188,190.17 from the Catholic Church, which paid for various medical operations and psychological tests in relation to the abuse claim.
The woman supplied fake medical reports to the church to support the claim.
The fraud was discovered only when the church queried one of the reports with a health provider.
In 2013, the woman told the Palmerston North Catholic Diocese that a priest had raped her. The alleged rape and sexual abuse were reported to have happened in October 1985.
The complaint was handled in-house by the Palmerston North Catholic Diocese Protocol Committee, which deals with allegations of sexual abuse by clergy.
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