AUSTRALIA
Newcastle Herald
IT would be hard to imagine a more damning statement from an insurance company to a church – we refuse to cover you because you allowed a paedophile teacher into your schools.
But that’s what Maitland-Newcastle diocese did in 1974 when it employed a teacher who can only be referred to as GKI. And when parents complained about him in the 1980s the principal and the Catholic Education Office failed to act.
And when one of the teacher’s victims tried to sue the diocese in 2005 he was “fiercely resisted” in court, despite the diocese 15 years earlier conceding – to itself – that victims would have a “pretty good case” against it.
Once again the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse has exposed the ugly reality behind the Catholic Church’s global tragedy of abuse. In a series of documents released on Monday, communities around Australia can see how much the church knew.
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