AUSTRALIA
The Australian
September 20, 2016
DAN BOX
Crime reporterSydney
@DanBox10
A pedophile Catholic priest allegedly told senior church officials “the full story” of his offending but this was not reported to the police, a royal commission has heard.
The priest, John Farrell, is alleged to have admitted to sexually abusing five boys during the early 1980s while he worked in the northern NSW parish of Armidale, the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Abuse has heard.
Two clerics who met with Farrell to discuss his crimes, Brian Lucas and John Usher, have since said publicly that Farrell made no specific admissions during their 1992 meeting, the commission heard.
Father Lucas is now the Australian director of Catholic Mission, while Father Usher recently stepped down as chancellor of the Archdiocese of Sydney.
Letters detailing a second and third meeting between the priests that year allege “John Usher stated that it was understood only John Farrell, Brian Lucas, John Usher, Wayne Peters and Bishop Manning knew the full extent of the story at this stage,” the commission heard today.
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