AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald
November 4, 2013
Paul Bibby
Court Reporter
A prominent Catholic priest who worked at dioceses across the state during a 40-year career has been found guilty of repeatedly sexually abusing young girls over the course of three decades.
A jury on Monday found Father Finian Egan, 71, guilty of seven counts of indecent assault and one count of rape in relation to attacks on girls aged 10 to 17 in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s.
He was found not guilty on one count of indecent assault.
Among the attacks committed by Egan, who worked as a priest and youth worker in multiple dioceses in Sydney and on the central coast, was the indecent assault of a 10-year-old girl at St Martha’s Institution For Disadvantaged Girls at Leichhardt.
“Father Egan pulled me onto his knee, he put his hands up my dress, pulled down my underwear and put his hands into my vagina,” the victim said of the incident, which allegedly occurred in the church’s sacristy.
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