AUSTRALIA
Newcastle Herald
JOANNE MCCARTHY
14 Nov 2016
NEWCASTLE District Court Judge Ralph Coolahan slammed the charging of an Anglican priest with child sex offences as a “disgrace”, and described the priest’s alleged victims as “ridiculous”, in a controversial 2001 court case under renewed investigation by NSW Police and the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.
A transcript of the court case under consideration by the royal commission shows the late Judge Coolahan questioned the laying of charges against the priest and told a 2001 Newcastle court hearing: “The fact that someone is brought to trial, 26 years after an alleged offence, is in itself a disgrace.”
Judge Coolahan questioned how old the two alleged victims were, noted that “when people turn 18 the law places upon them enormous responsibilities”, and criticised the 20-year delay between when they turned 18, and when they reported the alleged sexual abuse to police.
“So they’ve waited 20 years since they attained their majority? Well that’s just ridiculous. It is truly ridiculous,” Judge Coolahan told the court.
He criticised the handling of the case by the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions, describing aspects of it as a “disgrace”, a “complete disgrace”, and a “farce”.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.