It appears paedophile Clarence Howard-Osborne, Australian Parliament stenographer, trafficked children to PIE members.
Howard-Osborne was a contact point for senior PIE figures and a leading pedophile called John Stamford in Amsterdam.
And the thing that was very disturbing about them was that the Brisbane kids [photographed by Osborne] were appearing in the German magazines …
then we’d find a copy of the same magazine in English … and it was almost like a tourist guide for paedophiles.
“They could come to Brisbane and meet these kids.
And this was all arranged through bloody Clarry.
We discovered that the motto of the paedophile group over there was – ‘sex before eight [years old] before it’s too late’.
“One of the German magazines was named Spartacus and it was the codename of an international underground paedophile network.
It was run by a bloke called John Stamford out of Amsterdam.
He originated from the UK and I think sort of got himself in a bit of strife there and went over to Amsterdam and he was running this network, and Clarry Osborne was part of that.”
The names on the index cards, so dutifully recorded by Osborne, were not only those of the boys he had seduced, but adults – members of the judiciary, the legal profession, politicians, academics, and even police officers – with sexual interests in children.
ELM GUEST HOUSE
10% DISCOUNT TO SPARTACUS CLUB MEMBERS
CLARENCE HOWARD OSBORNE’s photos appeared in Spartacus magazine – Brochures for Elm Guest House in the UK advertised discounts for Spartacus members.
Spartacus was in fact published by former British Catholic priest and paedophile Stamford, who had fled the UK for Amsterdam
Stamford also ran the Spartacus Club, part of the British-registered Spartacus International.
Two secret inquiries were held by the Public Service Board in 1973 into Osborne, and as a result, the chief court reporter was moved to the Hansard bureau at Parliament House
18.15 – Eric Kasir / Neil Kier / Carol Kasir
[CHRIS] I knew who to complain to, how the system worked. Now, when the police, because they thought, they knew that Carol Kasir’s son, Eric, was 10, was living there. They also suspected and their own words ‘that other children might be present’ they approached Richmond Services, told them about the raid. Now procedure dictates that normally you would have got, say, the local field social worker in the local office who would have come in with the police on the raid. Any children present, they would have taken, they would have taken them into care. However, on the day of the raid, the man from Kingston, err from Richmond Council, who, who was on the raid with the police was Neil Kier, the officer in charge of Grafton, who took Eric into care.
[BILL] That’s her son Eric?
[CHRIS] That’s her son Eric. So you can understand why Carol was so angry.
[BILL] So, so, she knew, she knew that all the kids were coming from this children’s home. Then what they done on the night of the raid was took her own child and put her own child in that children’s home.
[CHRIS] Not only that, but with the very guy who had been one of the people supplying the boys, so Carol knew full well what that meant.
21.20 – David Hamilton Grant / Kings & Queens parties / Monday Club / Harvey Proctor / John Stamford / Peter Glencross / John Rowe / Michael Rowe (aka Captain Paul Reinhart)
[BILL] And one thing we never touched on, also, in this video suite, there was also a regular visitor there and his name was David Hamilton Grant. David Hamilton Grant was a child pornographer.
[CHRIS] Yeah.
[BILL] He made child pornography and
[CHRIS] Distributed it.
[BILL] Distributed it
[CHRIS] Yes.
[BILL] and the possibility of snuff movies as well.
[CHRIS] Yeah, but you need to understand where this starts from, and we’re talking about ..if you’re talking about the movies that were made in the video conference facility, but you have to broaden it out and understand the Kings and Queens parties. Now most of the people who attended the Kings and Queens parties were from organisations like The Monday Club.
[BILL] And what was The Monday Club exactly?
[CHRIS] The Monday Club was a right wing Tory party club for extreme right wing views, and people like Harvey Proctor belonged to it. All those sort of people belonged to it. Now one of the people who was involved with Carole Kasir, if you go back to prior to the raid, the evidence we’ve got, and indeed still have is The Monday Club paying for adverts in Capital Gay, which was the main gay newspaper in London.
[BILL] Capital Gay.
[CHRIS] Capital Gay. For the Elm Guest House. They were also paying for adverts to be put in a magazine called Spartacus. Now Spartacus was a magazine run by a man called John Stamford, who operated out of Holland. Stamford ran a European wide vice ring involving children. He was a known paedophile. He was a known maker of very nasty child pornography.
Truthseeker1 @thewakeupcall09
Prince Charles & David Hamilton-Grant ‘The Souvenir Video Guide to Royal London’
David Hamilton-Grant 16 CHILD PORN BRITS BOOTED OFF SUN ISLE The Sun 03-08-88
David Grant (producer)
David Grant (born 1937) sometimes billed as David Hamilton Grant was an Englishporn producer, and suspected child pornographer during the late 1960s and 1970s.
David Hamilton Grant was born Willis Andrew Holt in Uxbridge in 1939. He changed his name by Deed Poll on the 22 January 1982 to David Hamilton Grant.
Originally a photographer, Grant first film was Love Variations (1969) a sex education film that was based on a ‘marriage manual’ Grant had photographed/published a year earlier. Grant’s sex film empire grew in the 1970s, he opened up a number of adult cinemas, the first being ‘The Pigalle’ in 1974,[1] distributed foreign sex films through his “Oppidan” company.
ELM GUEST HOUSE; DAVID HAMILTON GRANT; DENHAM GILBART-SMITH
“In 1984 he was convicted and imprisoned for ‘possession of over 200 copies of an obscene article for publication for gain’ this was in connection with the film ‘Nightmares in a Damaged Brain’ a violent ‘video nastie’ which featured children in sex scenes.
“Upon being released from prison, David Hamilton Grant fled to Cyprus and lived there until he was deported in 1988.
“An article in The Sun around that time described Grant as a “drug dealer” who had “corrupted thousands of children”, during his time in Cyprus.
“It would seem from Mr Grant’s central position in the schematic below that it was not just the children of Cyprus that he corrupted.
“David Hamilton Grant is thought to have died as a result of a contract killing in 1991.
“The ‘family tree’ document appears to show the commercial chain involved in the trafficking and sexual exploitation of children from Richmond care homes.
“Above David Hamilton Grant we can see the ‘Care Home’ part of the chain.
http://aangirfan.blogspot.com/2013/02/elm-guest-house-david-hamilton-grant.html
‘more powerful than the Mafia
like conspiracy. ” One man arrested was too frightened to
testify, declaring that the ring was “more powerful than the
Mafia. “
The most prominent figure in the ring, Colin Peters , was trained at Oxford, and was formerly a senior adviser in the British Foreign Office. Following his Foreign Office work, he prosecuted cases for the British Customs and Excise.
accommodation, money, and a sympathetic ear. Some were plied with drugs, including cocaine, and sexually assaulted while under their influence.”
is important that we should not feel complacent. Positive policing should be continued.”
4: “It should have been more. The damage these people have
done to young lives is very severe.”
their crimes and the emotional and physical damage they did
to their victims , some of whom were only nine years old. “
months in jail).
Informed sources in Britain believe that the Delaney Peters ring and the Moncini-linked networks are connected,
and that both are part of an international pedophile conspiracy.
U. S. law enforcement officials have in their possession tapes of Moncini attempting to procure a young girl, for Satanic-ritual abuse purposes.
Experts on ritual abuse stress that pedophile rings , as horrifying as they are in and of them selves , are actually fronts for, or extensions of, hard-core Satanist cults , for whom the pedophiles provide young boys.
In Britain, however, the Home Office has repeatedly
indicated its opposition to allowing the matter of satanism to
be pursued by police and in the courts.
Should this attitude continue, it will be impossible to crack the command-structure controlling powerful pedophile rings.
Investigative leads
Experts in pedophilia and Satanism report to EIR, that
that the dossiers on previously publicized cases of European
based pedophile rings have never been fully closed, and may
now be reopened. These involve pedophile rings that were
either cracked or exposed in the 1 986-87 period. Three of
them are worth noting:
• On June 1 8, 1987, the head of the Belgian national
office of UNICEF was arrested for involvement in a large
scale child pornography and pedophilia ring. Ring leader
Jozef Verbeeck had used his influential position in UNICEF
to procure children, often from broken homes, some as young
as eight months old, for some 400 wealthy clients across
Europe. The basement of UNICEF in Brussels was used to
store pornographic pictures of children.
• In spring-summer 1987 , Dutch authorities uncovered
one of the worst cases of collective child sex abuse in record
ed history. In a small town called Oode Pekala, during the
Easter holidays , a gang of pedophiles , dressed as clowns,
lured more than 70 children into taking part in pornographic
movies.
• On Aug. 3, 1986, the Sunday Times of London “Insight Team” exposed the activities of a secretive organization called the Spartacus Club, based near Amsterdam in Holland, which sent pedophile literature to 25 ,000 subscribers in Great Britain, and which specialized in procuring boys from the Philippines for pedophile activity. Headed by one John Stamford, the club was part of Spartacus International, which published homosexual literature and the Paedo Alert News, “a magazine about boy love. “
What is new is the location concerning these two people as this was not revealed to me when I made FOI request to Northampton Crown Court PREVIOUSLY but was mentioned during a telephone call today by a source who I will not name yet
https://webbrain.com/brainpage/brain/0FE31538-2121-8495-33A5-86073BE95DE1/thought/2782
Paedophile’s 2,500 victims
A cover-up continues to the present day.
International VIP Paedophile Networks –
Members of the judiciary, the legal fraternity, there were politicians, it was the top end
in Australia and the UK …
According to police who saw the files, Howard-Osborne was also distributing child pornography and had links to PIE – the Paedophile Information Exchange – based in Amsterdam, and with paedophile contacts around the world.
March 18, 2016
QUEENSLAND government stenographer and paedophile Clarence Howard-Osborne gassed himself in his car in the garage of his home in Mount Gravatt, on Brisbane’s southside, in September 1979.
He had accidentally come to the attention of police, and fearing the exposure of his “life’s work” – extensive files on his boy victims – he took his own life.
On searching Howard-Osborne’s house in Eyre St, police soon discovered a monstrous cache of documents, audio recordings and photographs pertaining to more than 2500 young male victims. According to police who saw the files, Howard-Osborne was also distributing child pornography and had links to PIE – the Paedophile Information Exchange – based in Amsterdam, and with paedophile contacts around the world….
…a dark force beneath everything, weakening official inquiries into it, sending files missing, impelling alleged suicides when the truth strayed too close.
He was a world-class stenographer and his name was Clarence Henry Howard-Osborne.
…a leading shorthand writer for the Queensland courts and later state parliament in Australia.
caught photographing boys in bushland near Mount Gravatt.
Items seized from Howard-Osborne’s home.
Osborne was taken by police to Eyre St. There, they discovered thousands of pictures of naked children, hundreds of hours of tape-recorded conversations with boys and a meticulously organised filing cabinet filled with index cards bearing the details of his victims, from their names, ages and addresses, to their physical measurements. It was later estimated that Osborne had been involved with more than 2500 under-aged males over a 20-year period.
Police took Osborne back to headquarters in the city for questioning. They also confiscated three carloads of materials – a fraction of Osborne’s sordid trove of information.
Investigators were initially bewildered by the magnitude of the case
Down at headquarters, police noted that Osborne was remarkably cooperative.
Former Juvenile Aid Bureau officer Dugald William MacMillan said the JAB was not informed of the Osborne case on the day he was brought in by CIB officers and questioned. “They [the original investigating officers] never came near us,” MacMillan recalled. “I was absolutely stunned when I heard this story.
I couldn’t understand why the CIB hadn’t followed it up and they’d let him go.”
Osborne was found dead the day after he was questioned by investigators in September 1979
Incredibly, Osborne and his voluminous files were never thoroughly investigated by police. According to officers who viewed the Osborne material at the time, the names on the index cards, so dutifully recorded by Osborne, were not only those of the boys he had seduced, but adults – members of the judiciary, the legal profession, politicians, academics, and even police officers – with sexual interests in children.
One former officer said the Osborne material was enough “to bring down the [then Queensland] government overnight”.
The officer said when he suggested the Osborne case deserved a thorough investigation, despite the fact that Osborne himself was dead, he was warned off by a senior officer and told to leave the matter alone.
Premier of Queensland Australia – Joh Bjelke-Petersen with Queen Elizabeth at the opening of the Queensland Art Gallery in 1982
MacMillan added: “My understanding is the case went as high up as the premier’s (Joh Bjelke-Petersen’s) office because of who Osborne was.”
By the early 1980s the Osborne case had been all but forgotten, and many of the diminutive stenographer’s secrets were presumed lost with him. Except a retired Queensland police officer with a conscience and a phenomenal memory, who wanted to pursue Osborne at the time – and was warned off by senior officers, and who received a death threat after he pushed the paedophile investigation too far – only to be drummed out of the force, never forgot the case.
And in breaking his silence, he wouldlink Osborne to an international paedophile ring, and the child abuse scandal currently rocking Westminster in the UK.
During the 1970s, Osborne was a familiar face around Parliament House. Political staffers remembered his outgoing personality, and his obsession with holidaying in Thailand. And a trainee shorthand co-worker recalled Osborne’s most peculiar hobby. “He used to take and develop his own photos of the boys he went with,” remembers the co-worker. “He would show these photographs around at work.
I saw hundreds of them. There were even pictures of babies.
Complaints over Osborne’s behaviour were lodged.
Two secret inquiries were held by the Public Service Board in 1973 into Osborne, and as a result, the chief court reporter was moved to the Hansard bureau at Parliament House
In the winter of 1980, almost a year after Osborne had gassed himself at Mount Gravatt, a Juvenile Aid Bureau detective in the city branch headed down to the storeroom to retrieve a fresh police notebook. He could not know that that routine trip for some stationery would change his life.
I recognised names … it was quite obvious there were members of the judiciary, the legal fraternity, there were politicians, it was the top end …
The following year, another young detective was transferred into the JAB. The officer developed a trust and rapport with the newcomer, and they were soon digging through the Osborne files together. “But we both realised we had to do it on the quiet, we had to sneak the stuff out,” he said.
“We found magazines. There were German issue magazines. There were American magazines.
And the thing that was very disturbing about them was that the Brisbane kids [photographed by Osborne] were appearing in the German magazines …
then we’d find a copy of the same magazine in English … and it was almost like a tourist guide for paedophiles.
“They could come to Brisbane and meet these kids. And this was all arranged through bloody Clarry.
We discovered that the motto of the paedophile group over there was – ‘sex before eight [years old] before it’s too late’.
“One of the German magazines was named Spartacus and it was the codename of an international underground paedophile network.
It was run by a bloke called John Stamford out of Amsterdam.
He originated from the UK and I think sort of got himself in a bit of strife there and went over to Amsterdam and he was running this network, and Clarry Osborne was part of that.”
Spartacus was in fact published by former British Catholic priest and paedophile Stamford, who had fled the UK for Amsterdam in the early 1970s after being convicted of sending obscene literature through the post.
Stamford also ran the Spartacus Club, part of the British-registered Spartacus International. The company described itself as “general publishers of trade and business directories, periodicals, newspapers and journals”.
Through the 1970s Stamford also appeared regularly in the press as an advocate for gay rights, and was a leading member of what was known as the Paedophile Information Exchange PIE.
It was founded in 1974 as a pro-paedophile activist group. In addition, PIE had a “contact page”, a bulletin where members placed advertisements. They were required to quote their membership number, general location and their sexual predilections. PIE managed the replies through a private post office
The Paedophile Information Exchange PIE was allegedly given £70,000 by the Home Office between 1977 and 1980 – the equivalent today of about £400,000.
A former Home Office worker revealed that Jim Callaghan’s Labour government and Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative administration, which took over in 1979, may have provided funding for PIE.
The whistleblower said senior civil servant Clifford Hindley, who was head of the Home Office’s voluntary services unit, signed off a three year grant for £35,000 in 1980.
Secret service infiltrated paedophile group to ‘blackmail establishment’
BRITISH security services infiltrated and funded the notorious Paedophile Information Exchange in a covert operation to identify and possibly blackmail establishment figures, a Home Office whistleblower alleges.
The former civil servant has told detectives investigating the activities of paedophiles in national politics that the Metropolitan Police’s Special Branch was orchestrating the child-sex lobbying group in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
The whistleblower, who has spoken exclusively to the Sunday Express, says he was also warned off asking why such a notorious group was being handed government money.
It emerged late last year that PIE was twice gave amounts of £35,000 in Home Office funding between 1977 and 1980, the £70,000 total equivalent to over £400,000 in today’s money.
Those details surfaced only after the whistleblower highlighted his concerns to campaigning Labour MP Tom Watson and his revelations have triggered an ongoing Home Office inquiry into why the cash was given to PIE which was abolished in 1985 after a number of prosecutions.
Until now, speculation about the grant has centred on Clifford Hindley, the late Home Office manager who approved the payments. However, the whistleblower told the Sunday Express he thought higher and more sinister powers were at play.
He has given a formal statement to that effect to detectives from Operation Fernbridge, which is looking into allegations of historic sex abuse at the Elm Guest House in south-west London
PIE, now considered one of the most notorious groups of the era, had gained respectability in political circles. Its members are said to have included establishment figures, and disgraced Liberal MP Cyril Smith was a friend of founder member Peter Righton.
In 1981, Tory MP Geoffrey Dickens used Parliamentary privilege to name Sir Peter Hayman, the deputy director of MI6, as a member of PIE and an active paedophile. In 1983 Mr Dickens gave the Home Office a dossier of what he claimed was evidence of a paedophile network of “big, big names, people in positions of power, influence and responsibility”. The Home Office says the dossier no longer exists.
Whistleblower Mr X, whose identity we have agreed to protect, became a very senior figure in local government before retiring a few years ago. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, he was a full-time consultant in the Home Office’s Voluntary Services Unit run by Clifford Hindley.
In 1979 Mr X was asked to examine a funding renewal application for PIE, but he became concerned because the organisation’s goal of seeking to abolish the age of consent “conflicted” with the child protection policies of the Department of Health and Social Security and asked for a meeting with Mr Hindley, his immediate boss.
PIE was being funded at the request of Special Branch which found it politically useful to identify people who were paedophiles. This led me not to pursue my objections. At that time, questioning anything to do with Special Branch, especially within the Home Office, was a ‘no-no’.
“I was under the clear belief that I was being instructed to back off and that his reference to Special Branch was expected to make me to do so.
He asked for a file the Home Office kept on PIE, but his request was refused. However, he was certain then Tory Home Office Minister Tim Raison, who died in 2011, must have signed the 1980 funding application.
Mr X has given a formal written statement to the inquiry set up last year into former Home Office links with PIE but has refused to meet the inquiry in person because he fears “repercussions” under the Official Secrets Act.
Special Branch was an integral part of the intelligence service gathering intelligence on spies and political threats to the state.
As Osborne was sitting down with Wilson at UQ on the other side of the world, PIE was causing a storm in the UK.
Several members were charged with conspiring to corrupt public morals, and details of the outfit emerged during court proceedings. It was described as “sick and a force of evil”.
PIE’s contact point in Australia was Clarence Howard-Osborne
Media coverage of PIE intensified through the late 1970s, as did the group’s attempts to push its message, which included the abolition of the age of consent. And its contact point in Australia was Osborne.
“Clarry had been operating for so long that he virtually became the guru of paedophiles,” the officer said. “All of the paedophiles that we looked at were all in there [in the Osborne files], and that was only scratching the surface. They all came from Osborne’s system.”
In the end, the officer and his partner were on the brink of launching a major sting.
The tension was just unbelievable. We took some of the Osborne files one day and we read them on a hill in Dayboro. We couldn’t get caught with it.
“It got to the point where we actually said to each other, don’t be surprised if they find one of us dead in the Brisbane River … that’s how bad it was getting.”
The officer also found a bullet in the drawer of his desk at the Juvenile Aid Bureau. He took it as a death threat. In the end, his investigation petered out, having met with constant obstructions.
More than three decades later, the impact of PIE continues to play out in Britain via its Independent Inquiry Into Child Sexual Abuse, announced by Home Secretary Theresa May in mid-2014 following the scandal surrounding late entertainer Jimmy Savile and his abuse of hundreds of children.
The Independent Child Sex Abuse Inquiry was established by Home Secretary Theresa will investigate alleged allegations of child abuse by key members of Westminister and Whitehall.
It was set up after investigations in 2012 and 2013 into the Jimmy Savile sexual abuse scandal revealed widespread abuse, including claims of abuse stretching back over decades by prominent media and political figures, and inadequate safeguarding by institutions and organisations responsible for child welfare.
Incredibly, a part of that same massive ring had taken root in Brisbane, Queensland, courtesy of Clarence Osborne.
Equally astonishing is that the extensive Osborne files were never properly investigated, despite the best efforts of a handful of honest officers. The boxes of material sat for years in the JAB storeroom under lock and key.
Their whereabouts are currently unknown.
In Osborne’s wake remain a number of serious questions.
Why did the Queensland police never look into the expansive Osborne material given that his notorious activities were known to some officers prior to his suicide in 1979?
How did the Osborne material, given its global reach, manage to evade the serious scrutiny of various subsequent inquiries, including the Fitzgerald and Kimmins inquiries?
And why hasn’t Australia’s current Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse not examined historic links with government and institutions such as the police?
Elm guest house scandal: Coded advert that gave signal to perverts
The written message “10% Discount to Spartacus Club Members” is understood to have alerted abusers that young boys were available for sex.
AVENGER @REBELTROOP
Why did Leon Brittan refuse to ban PIE?
more on Joh Bjelke-Petersen
Joh Bjelke-Petersen with Queen Elizabeth at the opening of the Queensland Art Gallery in 1982.
Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen, … premier of a” notoriously corrupt government” in Queensland.
Leon Brittan and the 1984 “Cabinet Minister Scandal”
The ‘Cabinet Minister scandal’ ran for exactly one week at the height of the Miners Strike, 21st June-28th June 1984.
It started with a denial in The Times, and ended with libel threats and an MP being gagged by the Speaker of the House of Commons. It was never mentioned again in British newspapers.
If the Thatcher government believed the ‘MI5 smear’ story, then why wasn’t there an inquiry into MI5’s alleged role in the scandal?
The way the Thatcher government dealt with the scandal was similar to the way the Elm Guest House scandal was suppressed in August 1982. That story made the headlines for 10 days before the Attorney General joined forces with Elm Guest House’s lawyers to threaten libel action against any newspapers that dared to print further allegations.
Elm Guest House: The History of a Cover-Up
Clockmaker Keith Harding played vital role in Britain’s biggest child sex ring
MUSIC box collector and clock maker Keith Harding, whose staff restored antiques for royalty, played a vital role in Britain’s biggest child sex ring.
The pervert met regularly with MPs Leon Brittan and Cyril Smith at his world-renowned workshop.
The former Liberal leader Jeremy Thorpe would also drop by along with key members of the vile Paedophile Information Exchange Steven Adrian Smith and Tom O’Carroll.
A PIE list seized in 1984 records Harding, who died from cancer last year aged 82, as member 329 and his address as Hornsey Road, Holloway, north London.
He is understood to have kept hidden a list of more than 1,000 PIE members with prominent names including top politicians from the Thatcher era.
One of his staff, who worked for him between 1980 and 1987, said: “Leon Brittan and Cyril Smith were both regular visitors to the shop.
Usually they would come in via the side door, other times they would ring the bell at the front entrance and come in.
“They’d straight away ask for Keith who would be coming down the stairs.
“Then they would then either go up to his office for a private meeting or they’d go out for several hours.”
Top Tory Leon Brittan ‘photographed entering underage sex den during police investigation’
The former MP for Cleveland and Whitby is said to have been snapped by officers on a 1986 surveillance operation focusing on rent boy orgies
Our sources say it is unclear what happened to the photographs or why the raid was called off.
A friend of the officer on the investigation said: “The rent boys would be driven to flats or garages where large groups of men were waiting.
“These included Brittan and Smith. Pictures were taken as men entered or left buildings where the abuse was taking place.”
Aug 9 1982
Capital Gay, 13th August 1982
Sir Michael Havers
More on Clarence Henry Osborne:
He was a leading shorthand writer for the Queensland courts and later state parliament- a world-class stenographer and his name was Clarence Henry Howard-Osborne.
A book on Osborne, The Man They Called a Monster, was written by criminologist and academic Dr Paul Wilson
Wilson also wrote about a British pedophile outfit called the Paedophile Information Exchange (PIE).
At the time of writing his book, several members of PIE were being prosecuted for various crimes throughout Britain and Europe. Wilson speculated that the charges against PIE were not because crimes had been committed, but because “the very existence of such an organisation … offended both the government’s and the police’s sense of morality”.
In the mid to late 1980s, years after the publication of The Man They Called a Monster, PIE was exposed in the world press as part of a massive international pedophile ring, its tentacles reaching into Westminster.
And Clarence Howard-Osborne, was part of that network.
According to a retired Queensland police officer who viewed Howard-Osborne’s files in the early 1980s, there was evidence that Howard-Osborne was a contact point for senior PIE figures and a leading pedophile called John Stamford in Amsterdam.
Also in the files were innumerable references to a pedophiles involved in local rings.
Paedophilia is a ‘hobby’: Queensland academic advocated to have no age of consent laws
A Queensland criminologist and convicted paedophile once advocated to scrap the age of consent laws for children because he believed they “should have the right to conduct their sexual lives like adults do”.
In the book, Wilson suggested that paedophilia was a “hobby” and claimed abusers went to “great lengths to look after the child” they were preying upon.
Criminologist Paul Wilson in 1996.
By the early 1970s, Wilson was an established commentator and civil libertarian, known too for his sandy hair and his red sports car. He was part of an academic experiment to test if transcendental meditation might have a favourable impact on crime rates. The experiments were to be conducted, of all places, in the tough mining town of Mount Isa in far northwestern Queensland.
Wilson in the early 1990s at the Queensland University of Technology.
It was in the mid-1970s – not long after the offences occurred at Indooroopilly – that Wilson claimed he had a peculiar encounter in his office at the University of Queensland. By his own account, Paul Wilson was paid a visit by a top government shorthand expert, Clarence Howard-Osborne.
Howard-Osborne, in his late 50s, had brought with him documents and a manuscript about his life and philosophies.
Wilson would learn that Howard-Osborne had had relationships with more than 2500 boys over a 20-year period and had carefully documented these encounters.
Howard-Osborne had a filing cabinet filled with index cards detailing the boys’ physical attributes, as well as thousands of photographs of naked children he’d taken himself, and more than 8km of secret recordings.
“Howard- Osborne said that he had come to see me because of my reputation as a civil libertarian and because he was sure I would respect his rights to privacy,” Wilson later wrote.
Howard-Osborne claimed he was afraid he was about to be arrested.
A pornographic film of men having sex that he had bought by mail order from Denmark had been seized by Australian Customs.
His primary worry, however, was that police might confiscate his “research” – the unprecedented and lurid documentation of his sexual activities with children that he had amassed over the years.
Wilson claimed he met Howard-Osborne over the next few months.
By the time of their meetings, some senior police and members of the legal fraternity were fully aware of Howard-Osborne’s behaviour. Some had known for years.
In late 1979, Howard-Osborne had by chance come to the attention of police.
In November 2012, Wilson was accused of sex abuse alleged to have happened in the early 1970s. He is fighting the charge.
On 16 May 2014, Wilson was committed to stand trial on six charges of indecent treatment of girls under the age of 17. Wilson pleaded not guilty to the charges.
High-profile criminologist denies having a full frontal photo taken with a CAT covering his genitals as he faces court charged with four counts of sexually abusing a young girl
- Leading criminologist Paul Wilson on trial over four counts of molestation
- Paul Wilson is accused of molesting a child under 12 (from age 8-11) in the 1970s
- The jury heard the retired criminologist played sexualised hide-and-seek
- He said he has no memory of a photo with a cat covering his genitals
- Mr Wilson said he has a hazy memory of taking a nude photograph
A retired Queensland criminologist accused of molesting a young girl in the 1970s has begun giving evidence at his trial.
Paul Richard Wilson, 74, is fighting four charges of indecently dealing with a child under 12, between March 1973 and November 1976, in Brisbane’s District Court.
The jury has heard allegations he played sexualised hide-and-seek and kept a full-length naked poster of himself in his wardrobe that he showed to his alleged victim.
Professor Paul Wilson
Fulbright Scholar, Wilson would held distinguished academic posts – in the early 2000s he was Dean of Humanities at Bond University on the Gold Coast, as well as that institution’s Chair of Criminology – and Paul Wilson was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) in the Australia Day Honours of 26 January 2003.
Prof Paul Wilson OAM is an Australian author, sociologist and criminologist. He currently holds the Chair of Criminology at Bond University. Prior to this he held academic appointments at the University of Queensland and several American Universities. He also was a Fulbright Scholar. He has authored 24 books on crime and related social issues. He is an occasional columnist for several Australian newspapers. In 2003 he was awarded the Order of Australia Medal for ‘services to education, particularly as a writer and lecturer in the field of criminology and to the community through raising public awareness of social justice issues’.
Paul Richard Wilson (born 1941) PhD, OAM is an Australian author, sociologist and criminologist.
He currently holds the Chair of Criminology at Bond University. Prior to this he held academic appointments at the University of Queensland and several American Universities. He also was a Fulbright Scholar.
He has authored 24 books on crime and related social issues, He is an occasional columnist for several Australian newspapers. In 2003 he was awarded the Order of Australia Medal for ‘services to education, particularly as a writer and lecturer in the field of criminology and to the community through raising public awareness of social justice issues’.
Bibliography
* The Police and the Public in Australia and New Zealand (with D. Chappell), University of Queensland Press, Brisbane (1969)
* The Sexual Dilemma: Abortion, Homosexuality, Prostitution and the Criminal ThresholdUniversity of Queensland Press, Brisbane (1971)
* The Policeman’s Position Today and Tomorrow: An Examination of the Police Force (with J. Western), University of Queensland Press, Brisbane (1972)
* The Australian Criminal Justice System (with D. Chappell), Butterworths, Sydney (1972)
* Australian Social Issues: Perspectives for Social Action, Butterworths, Sydney (1972)
* Immigrants and Politics, Australian National University Press, Canberra (1973)
* Crime and the Community (with J. Brown,) University of Queensland Press, Brisbane (1973)
* Deviance in Australia (with A. Hiller), Cheshire, Melbourne (1975)
* The Helping Professions: A Critical Appraisal (with A. Pemberton and P. Boreham), University of Queensland Press, Brisbane (1976)
* Public Housing for Australia, University of Queensland Press, Brisbane (1976)
* Delinquency in Australia: A Critical Appraisal, University of Queensland Press, Brisbane (1977)
* Of Public Concern, University of Queensland Press, Brisbane (1977)
* The Australian Criminal Justice System (with D. Chappell), revised, Butterworths, Sydney, (1977)
* Planning for Turbulent Environments (with J. Western), University of Queensland Press, Brisbane (1977)
* The Other Side of Rape, University of Queensland Press, Brisbane (1978) ISBN 0 7022 1167 2
* Mental Disorder or Madness (with E. Bates), University of Queensland Press, Brisbane (1979)
* The Two Faces of Deviance (with J. Braithwaite), University of Queensland Press, Brisbane (1979)
* Intimacy , Cassell Collier-Macmillan, Sydney (1979)
* The Man They Called a Monster, Cassell, Sydney (1981)
* Black Death, White Hands, Allen and Unwin, Sydney 1982 (revised editions 1985, 1988).
* Murder of the Innocents: Child Killers and Their Victims, Rigby, Adelaide (1985)
* Street Kids (with J. Arnold), Dove, Melbourn (1986)
February 18th 2016 Hung jury in the case of high profile criminologist Paul Wilson
Professor Paul Wilson OAM is a Research Fellow and Honorary Professor in Criminolgy and Forensic Psychology at Bond University. He has worked in Canadian and American Universites and research institutes, was Dean of Humanities and Social Sciences at two Australian Universities and also Director of Research at the Australian Institute of Criminology. He has co-authored or authored thirty books and hundreds of articles or reports mainly in the areas of miscarriages of justice, violence and violence prevention and most recently, mass crimes of atrocity. He is a practicng forensic psychologist and in August, 2011, will be givng a keynote address to the Australian Psycholgical Society National Conference on Miscarriages of Justice and the role of the forensic psychologist
Experience
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1993–2011Professor and Chair of Criminology, Bond University
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1991–1993Dean and Professor of Social Science, QUT
Education
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1971University Of Queensland, Sociology
Honours
Order of Australia Medal
Paul Wilson & his wife Robyn Lincoln
Queensland criminologist Paul Wilson found guilty on child sex charges
Nov 23 2016
High-profile Queensland criminologist Paul Wilson has been found guilty on four child sex charges dating back to the 1970s.
The 75-year-old was convicted on four counts of indecent treatment of a child under the age of 12.
Luminaries provided him with character references – 16 in all.
Revealed: Paedophile criminologist Paul Wilson wanted age of consent scrapped and defended child abusers saying they ‘look after’ their victims
- Paul Wilson convicted of playing blindfolded sex games with a young girl
- The abuse took place in his Brisbane home between 1973 and 1976
- In 1981 Wilson published a book defending paedophiles and child abuse
- Argued against an age of consent and said children ‘should have the right to conduct their sexual lives like adults do’
- Called child abuse a ‘hobby’ and said abusers ‘look after’ their victims
He was once one of the country’s most well-regarded criminologists – but following his conviction this week Paul Wilson will now go down in history as a child abuser.
While his guilty verdict shocked many in court on Wednesday, it has emerged that Wilson has a sordid history of defending paedophiles and promoting ‘man-boy love’.
In 1981, Wilson published a book defending the activities of a follow paedophile as merely a ‘hobby’, suggesting that abusers ‘go to great lengths to look after the child’ they attack, and arguing that the age of consent should be abolished.
The book was called The Man They Called a Monster and was based on the life of Clarence Howard-Osborne, a government official and serial child abuser.
Over the course of two decades Howard-Osborne preyed on young boys, photographing and filming the encounters as well as keeping a detailed filing cabinet full of ‘data’ he collected.
He wrote: ‘Clarence Osborne and his fellow paedophiles are just part of a long tradition of folk devils created by a vengeful society and a sensationalist press.’
In his view, there was nothing wrong with having sex with children, provided no ‘violence, force, fraud or pressure’ was used.
In a section dealing with the ‘rights’ of children, he added: ‘It is only logical that children should have the right to conduct their sexual lives with no more restrictions than adults do.’
In the same section he argued for the abolition of any age of consent, and ‘all legislation relating to the age of consent in the field of sexuality specifically.’
Bond Uni has been in the news recently with criminologist lecturer Professor Paul Wilson facing court on child abuse charges. Former student Fiona Barnett says the rot at the University goes deep.
Trapped inside Australia’s vast child abuse network (Part 2)
Bravehearts Child Abuse Agency tries to erase their relations with Convicted Pedophile Bond University lecturer Paul Wilson
November 26, 2016
On Wednesday 23 November 2016, my former Bond University forensic psychology lecturer Professor Paul Wilson, was convicted of 4 counts of child sexual abuse. The following day, he was sentenced to 18 months prison. I have it on good authority that such a long line of female victims are waiting to testify against Wilson regarding their own historical child abuse experiences, Wilson should spend the rest of his life in prison – or court.
The media refer to Wilson as a ‘now-retired’ academic, psychologist and criminologist. This is misleading, since Wilson was head of Criminology at Bond University right up until police started investigating him. People like Wilson simply don’t retire from academia. Some of my Bond University lecturers are much older than Wilson who was Dean of Humanities at Bond for 10 years.
I got to know Paul Wilson while taking a forensic psychology class he shared with Katarina Fritzon in 2006. That same year, I assisted Fritzon and Wilson with their textbook, ‘Forensic psychology and criminology: an Australasian perspective’ and was mentioned in that book. At that time, I knew nothing about Paul Wilson’s pro-pedophilia articles and books, and blindly trusted that Bond University was an ethical institution. As it turns out, Paul Wilson is not an exception, and Bond University is a pedophile haven.
Wilson is part of a Queensland based VIP child abuse network. Back in the early 1980’s, when lecturing at the University of Queensland, Wilson organised a pro-pedophilia conference to be held at UQ until public outcry forced the university to cancel the event. Also while a UQ lecturer, Wilson ‘accidentally’ showed a class of psychology students the end of a kiddie porn snuff film. One student in that class was the daughter of a Queensland police commissioner; other student witnesses are now practising psychologists.
Until now, Paul Wilson has evaded arrest and conviction due to his VIP pedophile network connections which included Queensland Police Commissioner Terry Lewis who had a dirt file on Wilson which featured in the Kimmin’s Report and found its way into the Fitzgerald Inquiry. The existence of the snuff film that Wilson did indeed show at UQ was whitewashed by the Fitzgerald Inquiry.
This pedophile did not only commit numerous crimes against children, but he also brazenly promoted pro-pedophilia doctrine and anti-victim thinking within academia and the Australian media that he regularly addressed.
I personally experienced the pro-pedophilia / anti-victim stance taken by Paul Wilson and the other Bond University criminology, law and forensic psychology lecturers. In fact, I was victimised, placed under excessive scrutiny, and finally subjected to a false and vexatious notification by Bond University staff to the psychology registration board because I adhered to mandatory reporting legislation and took a pro-victim / anti-pedophile stance in my classes.
Every connection with Paul Wilson must now be questioned. This includes the fact that Paul Wilson’s wife Robyn Lincoln, who also lectures in criminology at Bond University, sat on Braveheart’s advisory board.
Robyn Lincolnresigned her position on the Bravehearts executive committee immediately following the arrest of her husband Paul Wilson in late 2012. Bravehearts subsequently tried to erase record of their relationship with pedophile Paul Wilson’s wife, including in 2013 revising the Two Strikes article and replacing Robyn Lincoln’s name with Hetty Johnston’s. This is fraudulent.
Bravehearts should be open and transparent about their relationship with the woman who supported her pedophile husband throughout his multiple trials.
Since addressing the national press in Sydney a year ago, I have been inundated with contact and information from hundreds of victims of child abuse and VIP child sex trafficking rings around the globe. I have been entrusted with names, times, places, and connections. I now have a unique and thorough understanding of the nature of child sex trafficking and networks. I know which police, judges, lawyers, universities, government agencies, politicians and child abuse support agencies are engaged in child sex trafficking and its cover-up.
Bravehearts is a fake advocacy agency funded by the government to gather information and silence victims of child trafficking. Hence their close relationship with Bond University and their pedophile protector lecturers.
After Paul Wilson was charged, Terry Goldsworthy replaced Wilson as Bond University’s head of Criminology, and he replaced Robyn Lincoln on Bravehearts’ advisory board.
I was targeted by Bond University after adhering to mandatory reporting laws in the Bond University psychology clinic. I reported fresh allegations of child abuse by a Miami (Gold Coast) DOCS foster parent against a 10 yo child. In response, Bond University psychology lecturers made a false & vexatious notification to the Psychology Board about me. Terry Goldsworthy – whom I have never met – removed my age at the time of my child abuse and reported me to police & AHPRA as an adult perpetrator instead of a child victim of my childhood abuse. In support of this false & vexatious notification, Goldsworthy used his position as a Bond University lecturer & a Gold Coast police officer. Goldsworthy exchanged emails with authorities that referred to me as a criminal ‘suspect’.
Goldsworthy called my child abuse experience “outlandish claims.”
Terry Goldsworthy’s research interests include the role of the Nazi Waffen SS… His first book Valhallah’s Warriors examined the genocidal actions of the German SS in Russia during WW2.
Is Terry Goldsworthy who labels a child abuse victim’s testimony ‘outlandish’ the sort of person suited to being on a child abuse organisation’s advisory board?
via ww
Too many of these exist – they need exposing and closing
Pedophilia Network Exposed in Australia — It Starts at the TOP, Just Like in the USA and UK
A woman has claimed that she was sold for sex by a “VIP pedophile ring” which allegedly included a former Prime Minister of Australia. Fiona Barnett, 45, claimed to media in Sydney that she was trafficked to “pedophile parties” at Parliament House in Canberra aged five, according to the News.com.au site.
She claimed she was abused by an ‘elite’ ring which she says included high-ranking politicians, police and members of the judiciary.
back to Joh Bjelke-Petersen…illegal brothels, ugly sex
...the truth about his administration began to emerge from an inquiry into police corruption.
In late 1986 two journalists independently began investigating the extent of police and political corruption in Queensland and its links to the National Party state government.
Dickie’s reports, alleging the apparent immunity from prosecution enjoyed by a group of illegal brothel operators, began appearing in early 1987
This was too much even for a tame Bjelke-Petersen cabinet. After trying to block the inquiry and dismissing five ministers, he was forced to resign in December 1987.
The inquiry went on to expose crime, corruption and cronyism extending far beyond the police.
Four cabinet ministers were eventually jailed; a fifth died while awaiting trial. The police commissioner, Sir Terence Lewis, got 14 years. The voters threw out the Nationals in favour of Labour, and Sir Joh became the 213th person to be charged
later years…he had become a tourist attraction in his old brick family farmhouse, with its pictures of the Queen and Sir Joh together.
Despite their estrangement, former Queensland police commissioner Terry Lewis and his biographer Matthew Condon have one thing in common: their love for little fish. It’s the meanings behind the metaphor that differ. For Lewis, little fish were the small bribes before “The Joke”, as it was colloquially known, became big business. For Condon, author of the true-crime trilogy Three Crooked Kings, Jacks and Jokers and All Fall Down, they are titbits of new information he regularly receives about old corruption scandals.
Lewis, 88, will die protesting his innocence, but he was self-accused. His obsessive diarising secured his conviction on charges of corruption, the entries partly corroborating the evidence of Jack “The Bagman” Herbert. Recording his memoir was his biggest mistake. His second biggest was engaging Condon in the belief it would clear his name.
Condon instead provided an insight into the Lewis persona, particularly his fascination with power, status and indispensability. His influence has waned but his malice has not. As Condon describes in this book, Lewis, even before he terminated their collaboration, used intimidation to try to manipulate his biographer.
Unlike Condon’s trilogy, Little Fish are Sweet features Lewis as a peripheral character. Condon returns to the era of Frank Bischof, who was commissioner between 1958 and 1969, sponsor of the young Lewis, and patron, along with many corrupt detectives, of the notorious National Hotel.
The place to go for after-hours drinking and illegal prostitution, the National was the subject of a royal commission in 1963-64, chaired by Queensland judge Harry Gibbs, who was later chief justice of the High Court.
A quarter of a century later, another royal commissioner, Tony Fitzgerald, examined Gibbs’s finding that there was “no acceptable evidence that any member of the Police Force was guilty of misconduct or violation of duty in relation to the policing of the hotel”.
Fitzgerald was sympathetic towards Gibbs, stating that “nothing in the terms of reference or structures of the Royal Commission … would have alerted it to the possibility that it confronted an orchestrated ‘cover-up’ based on, and supported by, institutionalised police attitudes and practices”.
Condon, in contrast, argues that Gibbs’s findings amounted to a spectacular failure. He cites a former legal intern who worked for the solicitor-general’s office at the time. Not only did Bischof influence the draft terms of reference, alleges the intern, but Gibbs “was aware he was not getting the full story”. Gibbs effectively had three choices. He could have requested the government expand his terms of reference or he could have resigned. He instead continued with the inquiry, thus compromising himself and emboldening a new generation of corrupt police. What should have been Bischof’s Watergate moment was instead a whitewash.
Establishing who these police protected remains Condon’s interest. There’s no question they included the operators of illegal brothels and casinos, but Condon muses as to whether the network shielded even more insidious criminality. He cites the case of Brisbane man Clarence Howard-Osborne, 61, who took his life in 1979. Described by Condon as one of the “worst serial pedophiles”, Howard-Osborne, by the time of this death, had been involved with more than 2500 under-age males, photographing them naked and meticulously recording their personal details and physical measurements.
Howard-Osborne appeared not to have acted alone. A former Juvenile Aid bureau officer who viewed the seized material discovered names of alleged co-conspirators including judges, lawyers, politicians, academics and police, and links to overseas pedophiles. What should have been a major criminal investigation was terminated during Lewis’s reign, with threats to the officer and his premature retirement on medical grounds.
Having looked far back into the 1950s and beyond, Condon believes a network of teachers and counsellors across various Brisbane schools put Howard-Osborne in contact with his victims. From a purely evidentiary point of view, more research is needed to validate that belief, but it’s not unreasonable speculation. Whatever the case, Condon’s research into several other high-profile Queensland pedophiles of that period reveals the effectiveness of universities and elite schools as their shield and haven.
Joh Bjelke-Petersen conspired to appoint corrupt Terry Lewis as Queensland police commissioner
March 22, 2014
THE notorious Ratpack that ruled Queensland for decades conspired with then premier Joh Bjelke-Petersen to install a bent cop into the top job, sparking the most corrupt period in the state’s history.
1984 – Bjelke-Petersen was knighted and awarded an honorary law degree by the University of Queensland.
January 2, 2015
As the year ended police commissioner Terry Lewis – later jailed for corruption – was criticised over his handling of a child pornography scandal revealed by The Courier-Mail.
David Moore (right) with then Police Commissioner Terry Lewis (left) TV puppet Aggro and TV presenter Fiona MacDonald in the 1980s.
Ex-TV cop “Officer Dave” Moore committed for trial on child porn charge
FORMER national children’s television police identity “Officer Dave” Moore has been committed to stand trial in Brisbane for possessing child pornography.
In Osborne’s wake remain a number of serious questions.
Why did the Queensland police never look into the expansive Osborne material given that his notorious activities were known to some officers prior to his suicide in 1979?
In 1987, the Fitzgerald Inquiry into the Queensland government began, and Hutcheson attended some of the hearings:
- I couldn’t believe that the hypocrisy of these men was finally about to be exposed. It was personal by then. The Hearings seemed like a surreal circus from somewhere in Eastern Europe, lots of large, overweight, ruddy men in big black shoes. And nobody knew anything, ‘No Hear, No See, and No Speak.’ It was about cover ups, ugly sex, bribery
The hidden hand of her majesty
The misconception the monarch has a hands-off role in Australia has been exposed
…publication of a book that sheds fresh light on the notion that Queen Elizabeth II might not only be Queen of the United Kingdom and Queen of Australia, but Queen of NSW and, for that matter, Queen of Queensland.
The return of Joh Bjelke-Petersen – premier who made the Queen sovereign of Queensland
9 July 2012
Some of the decisions by the new Queensland LNP Government have a striking resonance with those of long-time Queensland Premier Joh Bjelke-Petersen
The Newman State Government is showing its monarchist colours with Queensland set to become the first state in Australia to restore the title of Queen’s Counsel.
After nearly two decades of Senior Counsel, the state’s top barristers are expected to soon resume the old title, QC. The title QC dates back to the late 16th century, when Sir Francis Bacon was appointed the first Queen’s Counsel.
When Queensland decided to dump the title in 1994, it was riding the wave of modernism that was sweeping though many Commonwealth and former Commonwealth countries. It was replaced in many places with various permutations of Senior or State Counsel, with no apparent loss of efficiency or purpose. The Bar Council of the Queensland Bar Association has confirmed to the Attorney-General’s office its in-principle support for the proposal to recommence the appointment of QCs, and the matter is expected to go before Cabinet soon. Queensland Bar Association president Roger Traves SC, acknowledged in a letter to members that some might view the move as pro-monarchist.
The Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse will take evidence at The Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre on July 14, 2015 in London, England. The inquiry will ‘investigate whether public bodies and other non-state institutions have taken seriously their duty of care to protect children from sexual abuse in England and Wales’.
Update:
Former student who was ‘oiled up, photographed and sexually abused’ before being caned for ‘telling lies’ says school tried naming building after headmaster who oversaw paedophiles
- John, who is in his 60s, said his housemaster Harry Wippell assaulted him
- He claims then principal Harry Roberts caned him for ‘telling lies’
Principal Harry Roberts oversaw four convicted paedophiles at Churchie after he was hired in 1947.
Housemaster Harry Wippell
Truthseeker1 @thewakeupcall09
Paedophile Kingpin Charles Geerts & John David Stamford (Dutch) De Telegraaf 31-12-93, p37
Elm Guest House – CHE
In 1975, a Conservative Group for Homosexual Equality (CHE) was formed by party members, led by Peter Walter Campbell, a Professor of Politics at Reading University.
Campbell belonged to the Monday Club, a sub-group of ultra-libertarian Conservatives who believe in privatising everything from the prisons to the police. He was a member of the Albany Society which had campaigned for homosexuality to be legalised in 1967, and the very left-wing dominated Campaign for Homosexual Equality. They might have regarded him as an oddity, but he was like many of them in one striking way – he was a paedophile.
The name “Peter Campbell – Monday Club” is found on this list of clients of the Elm Guesthouse, a boy-brothel.
The place was closed down in 1988 but before she died, Mrs Kasir gave a list of regular clients to a former child protection officer, Mary Moss, who was investigating allegations made by victims. It was stunning, full of famous names from the world of show-business, M15 and politics. It included numerous MPs, and “Peter Campbell – Monday Club”.
It could not refer to anyone else. Other Monday Club members on the list were Conservative MPs Charles Irving, Peter Bottomley and Harvey Proctor.
Not only did Peter Campbell use the boy-brothel, but he advertised it in the newsletter of the Conservative Group for Homosexual Equality, which he edited.
The advertisement mentioned that Elm gave a discount to members of the “Spartacus club” – an infamous pederast network that fixed up paedophiles with victims to molest while on trips abroad.
Researchers for NAPAC (the National Association of People Abused in Childhood) have tracked down a letter Campbell wrote in 1982, at the time of this advertisement, with a handwritten note on it from Peter Campbell to John Rowe, another frequenter of the Elm Guesthouse, saying “I have now inserted the entry about the hotel but can’t find the text about the Dutch adventure – could you please let me have another copy? – Pete”. The Netherlands was the nearest and most popular destination for the boy-molesting holidays organised by Spartacus Club.
Campbell could hop on the train at Reading and be in Paddington in forty-five minutes. From there he could take the Central Line Tube or more likely, on his professorial salary, he could afford to take a taxi to Barnes in Richmond. There he would select whatever bewildered, depressed young boy took his fancy, take him to a bedroom or even into the sauna, perform obscene acts on him, check him back in, and then have a drink in the bar before going on to meet friends at the House of Commons, or home to Reading. He was probably a member of the Spartacus club himself, and despite all of that he went on teaching in a British university. This molester of children was paid to teach teenagers aged from 18 upwards.
Under the leadership of John Major, the CGHE increased in size and strength and by 2010 it had quite simply taken over the party.
Peter Campbell‘s fellow Monday Club members:
ASSOCIATES – JOHN PINNIGER, SIR CHARLES IRVING, DEREK LAUD, HARVEY PROCTOR…
John Pinniger, Lambeth Councillor at the same time as John Bercow and a fellow member of The Monday Club
Other Monday Club members – John Remfrey Pinniger (far left) was a leading activist and political adviser in the right-wing Conservative Monday Club during the early 1980s
Three of the Young Members’ Group at a Club Conference at Chilham Castle, 1980: John R. Pinniger (YMG Chairman), Richard Turnbull, & Gregory Lauder-Frost.
John R Pinniger – former Conservative councillor for Lambeth 1990
He was also a leading activist and political adviser in the right-wing Conservative Monday Club
Pinniger worked closely with the Conservative Member of Parliament Harvey Proctor, who was then Chairman of the Monday Club’s Immigration & Repatriation Committee.
He co-authored papers with Proctor including:
”Immigration, Repatriation, & the Commission for Racial Equality”, by Keith_Harvey_Proctor, M.P., John R. Pinniger, M.A., with a foreword by Sir Ronald Bell, Q.C., M.P., published by the Monday Club, 1981, (P/B).
Pinniger was a director, along with Derek Laud of
LUDGATE LAUD LIMITED
https://companycheck.co.uk/director/904390291/MR-JOHN-REMFREY-PINNIGER/companies
John Pinniger was a “research assistant” to Harvey Proctor MP and to Sir Charles Irving MP and Pinniger worked at Harrod’s menswear shop in between his parliamentary duties.
via Troy@snowfaked
twitter.com/ciabaudo:
Pinniger also worked for Charles Irving who offered steady ‘stream of advice’ to CHE
Truthseeker1 @thewakeupcall09
Peter Tatchell was a leading member of the Gay Liberation Front (GLF) but never knew or met any GLF members that were paedophiles like John David Stamford ?
On 27 August 1971, I arrived in Britain from Australia. The next day, I saw a lampost sticker near Oxford Circus advertising the Gay Liberation Front. My immediate reaction was a feeling of exhilaration. Four days later, I was at my first GLF meeting. Within a month, I was helping to organise many of GLF’s bold, irreverent zaps.
May/June: CHE takes part in two episodes of Jimmy Saville’s Speakeasy, the first with GLF and the second on its own. This is the largest audience CHE has achieved to date, and the phones at the London Office, staffed by volunteers, don’t stop ringing afterwards for twelve hours, despite having two extra lines put in for the occasion.
www.amiable-warriors.uk/timeline.shtml
From Peter Tatchell, human rights campaigner
If you want to understand how we won LGBTI law reform in the UK, read this history of the pioneering Campaign for Homosexual Equality – and remember with pride the CHE campaigners who trailblazed the equal rights we now enjoy.
Truthseeker1 @thewakeupcall09
Harriet Harman, PIE , etc …..
Cassandra Cogno @CassandraCogno
Is this the current CHE membership leaflet with photo of Nettie Pollard & Peter Tatchell from 2011?
“Pollard gave a constant stream of support to paedophiles and promoted their views.”
Photo below: Nettie Pollard (EC Member) with Peter Tatchell at the 2011 Annual Conference:
Nettie Pollard was member number 70 of the Paedophile Information Exchange.
Pensioner backed Paedophile Information Exchange and may hold key to links with left wing groups
Nettie Pollard was a key figure in the London left – a Sunday People investigation reveals her to be a chief apologist for some of PIE’s most chilling demands
Even those who have lived beside her for years have little idea about her life – none of her neighbours has ever been invited inside the home she has lived in alone for almost 30 years.
But 69-year-old Nettie Pollard may hold the key to how the Paedophile Information Exchange infiltrated left wing groups in the 1970s.
She was a key figure in the London left, working for the National Council for Civil Liberties for two decades.
But a Sunday People investigation reveals Pollard to be chief apologist for some of PIE’s most chilling demands.
Our investigation found that throughout her career Pollard gave a constant stream of support to paedophiles and promoted their views. She also:
- Supported PIE’s call to scrap the age of consent.
- Argued against the introduction of a bill to protect children.
- Sat on committees with known paedophiles and PIE members.
- Wrote a twisted essay defending sex between adults and children.
It emerged MP Harriet Harman, husband Jack Dromey and former Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt had been involved with the NCCL when PIE was affiliated to it.
Mrs Harman has subsequently moved to distance herself from Pollard and paedophiles, with a spokesman stating they “did not influence any of the work she did there”.
However one source involved with the London left in the 70s claims – embarrassingly for Mrs Harman – that she and Pollard did work together on occasions within the NCCL .
The source said: “Nettie was a big presence in the movement back in the 1970s and couldn’t be ignored by anyone wanting to get on in the NCCL.”
Our investigation first places Pollard in 1975 working as the Gay and Lesbian Officer for the NCCL.
And that brought her into close contact with the infamous PIE – the child sex group which campaigned to have the age of consent lowered or scrapped.
As well as her role at the NCCL, Pollard was and remains a significant member of the Campaign for Homosexual Equality – a group that defended PIE’s rights at their 1983 conference.
But even after PIE was disbanded in 1984, Pollard made no secret of her sympathy for the organisation’s aims.
In 1993 she contributed a defence of the sexualisation of youngsters to a book called Bad Girls and Dirty Pictures.
Entitled The Small Matter of Children, Pollard’s essay draws on work by knownpaedophiles such as former PIE vice-chair Warren Middleton to build its case.
Pollard argues child sex should be legal if the act is “consensual”.
It also uses language like “willing partners” to describe sex between adults and children.
But by far the most disturbing section is Pollard’s attempt to justify the sexualisation of children.
She writes: “Far from being ‘innocent’ and becoming sexual at puberty, as was once the common belief, it is now indisputable that everyone is sexual, even before birth.”
The research cited was also used in PIE’s bid to reduce the age of consent to just four.
Pollard continued to work for the NCCL until her mysterious departure from the group in 1997.
She was made redundant but reports from Feminists Against Censorship implies murkier reasons behind her exit.
A newsletter from the time reads: “Within the last several months, two of NCCL’s employees have remarked that the organisation’s longest-serving staff member, Nettie Pollard, was the last civil libertarian left on the payroll.”
Challenging the cost-cutting explanation given it added: “Since she is one of the few indispensable staff members, and the most expensive to make redundant, we suspect economy is not the reason.”
Pollard, whose Facebook page currently shows her support for causes including an anti-drones campaign and attacks on the “Big Brother” state, also showcases her taste in music with a link to indie rock band The Donutsh – described by one of their following as sounding “like Johnny Cash biting off Johnny Rotten’s head”.
She refused to answer the door to us when we visited her home.
Feb 2014: Convicted paedophile, Tom O’Carroll told The Guardian he remained a member of the NCCL’s gay rights committee for several years after Harman claimed his organisation was marginalised. NCCL archives in London have also shown how O’Carroll, a former chairman of PIE, asked Nettie Pollard, a staff member at the organisation, about the possibility of amendments to the 1978 child protection bill.
link
Is Peter Tatchell A Paedophile Or Simply Misunderstood?
Peter Tatchell was born in Melbourne Australia on 25th January 1952, he moved to London in 1971 to avoid conscription. In 1978 Tatchell joined the Labour Party and moved to Bermondsey, South East London. Tatchell ran as the Bermondsey Labour Party candidate in the 1983 General Election. Despite Bermondsey being a Labour stronghold he lost to Liberal candidate Simon Hughes. In February 2000 he left the Labour Party for unknown reasons. In 2004 he joined the Green Party and was chosen to be their candidate for Oxford East in the 2010 General Election, however for some reason he withdrew his candidacy in 2009.
Comrade Tatchell
Peter Tatchell (the UK’s most prominent homosexual activist and a favourite of the BBC)has done more than demand the abolition of the age of consent, he has broken the law on the age of consent in Britain at least once.
Peter Tatchell is a regular on the BBC. The BBC have refused to state whether he appears as a human rights activist, homosexual campaigner or paedophilie apologist.
Peter Tatchell is a regular on the BBC. The BBC have refused to state whether he appears as a human rights activist, homosexual campaigner or paedophile apologist. They have also refused to state how much they have paid him for appearances.
As a gay 18-year-old Australian anti-Vietnam war draft-dodger, he came to the UK in 1971 and lived with a 16-year-old boy in London. The homosexual age of consent in England at the time was 21. Later he campaigned for lowering it to 16, and now he wants it lowered again to 14. What will he want after that?
When the age of consent for homosexuals was lowered to 16 an Outrage (Tatchell’s organization) banner said “16 is just a start” – it didn’t state what the end goal was.
Mr Tatchell criticises the age of consent laws. Here is a quotation from his own website:
“Nevertheless, like any minimum age, it is arbitrary and fails to acknowledge that different people mature sexually at different ages. A few are ready for sex at 12; others not until they’re 20. Having a single, inflexible age of consent doesn’t take into account these differences. It dogmatically imposes a limit, regardless of individual circumstances“.
Peter Tatchell wrote the chapter “Questioning Ages of Majority and Ages of Consent” for a book openly advocating paedophilia and finding ways “to make paedophilia acceptable“.
This book, published in 1986 and called The Betrayal of Youth (B.O.Y.), was edited by Warren Middleton, then vice-chairperson of the Paedophile Information Exchange, Britain’s number one paedophile advocacy group.
Commenters on the book:
Peter Tatchell
Ken Plummer, Emeritus Professor of Sociology, University of Essex
Jeffrey Weeks
Jeffrey Weeks & Peter Tatchell
Academia and Paedophilia 1: The Case of Jeffrey Weeks and Indifference to Boy-Rape
Ken Plummer
‘Paedophilia is natural and normal for males’
How some university academics make the case for paedophiles at summer conferences
Ken Plummer is emeritus professor of sociology at Essex University, where he has an office and teaches courses, the most recent scheduled for last month. “The isolation, secrecy, guilt and anguish of many paedophiles,” he wrote in Perspectives on Paedophilia, “are not intrinsic to the phenomen[on] but are derived from the extreme social repression placed on minorities …
“Paedophiles are told they are the seducers and rapists of children; they know their experiences are often loving and tender ones. They are told that children are pure and innocent, devoid of sexuality; they know both from their own experiences of childhood and from the children they meet that this is not the case.”
As recently as 2012, Prof Plummer published on his personal blog a chapter he wrote in another book, Male Intergenerational Intimacy, in 1991. “As homosexuality has become slightly less open to sustained moral panic, the new pariah of ‘child molester’ has become the latest folk devil,” he wrote. “Many adult paedophiles say that boys actively seek out sex partners … ‘childhood’ itself is not a biological given but an historically produced social object.”
Prof Plummer confirmed to The Sunday Telegraph that he had been a member of PIE in order to “facilitate” his research
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/10948796/Paedophilia-is-natural-and-normal-for-males.html
Peter Tatchell awarded Albert Medal 2016
Royal Society of Arts Leadership
The RSA’s Patron is currently HM Elizabeth II, the RSA’s President is HRH The Princess Royal (who replaced her father, HRH The Duke of Edinburgh in 2011), its Chairman is Vikki Heywood,[4] and its Chief Executive is Matthew Taylor.
Puffing Billy paedophile Robert Whitehead: the secret he took to the grave
December 31 2016
When Victorian railway sex predator Robert Whitehead died in jail last year, he took a big secret with him.
That secret was the identity of a small but powerful group of Victorian men who, according to his victims, ran what amounted to a protection racket for Whitehead, and whose influence allowed him to abuse train-loving boys, whenever he wanted, for at least three decades.
Probe into claims Puffing Billy paedophile Robert Whitehead had high-level protection
June 28 2017
Claims that Puffing Billy sex predator Robert Whitehead was enabled and protected by a cabal of powerful men are to be investigated by the state Ombudsman.
Justice took a long-time to catch up to Whitehead, who died in 2015 at the age of 84. His death came months into a lengthy prison sentence after he pleaded guilty to 24 charges involving six boys and ranging from sexual penetration and indecent assault to false imprisonment.
Robert Whitehead, pictured in 2015, died months into a lengthy prison sentence after he pleaded guilty to 24 sex crime charges.
The offences occurred from the 1960s to 1980s.
Sex crimes detectives believe Whitehead may have had many more victims, and Fairfax Media understands there is at least one new accuser who is considering reporting Whitehead’s alleged abuse of him during the 1990s.
Wayne Clarke, one of Whitehead’s victims. Photo: Simon O’Dwyer
Three of Whitehead’s victims spoke out last year about their belief that a small group of police, politicians and railway officials shielded their abuser from scrutiny. Whitehead was the subject of numerous complaints to police and railway officials over the years, but it appears action was not taken.
One victim who still works for the Victorian railways said Whitehead told him it would be futile to report him, because he “had protection”.
The victim also said Whitehead had enough influence within the Transport Department to have a job offer to become a train driver rescinded.
“I’ll never forget Whitehead standing on the stairwell above me saying: ‘I told you that you should’ve bent over for me.’ ”
It can also be revealed that the Puffing Billy Preservation Society may face legal action over the failure of its previous leadership to protect boys under its care by not acting on complaints against Whitehead.
Law firm Ryan Carlisle Thomas is acting for several of Whitehead’s victims and is investigating all potential entitlements to compensation.
The Ombudsman’s investigation will go as far back as 1959, the year Whitehead served his first prison term, for abducting and molesting a boy scout.
Despite the serious conviction, Whitehead was given his job back on the Victorian government railways after his release from Pentridge Prison thanks to the intervention of Bolte government minister Sir Murray Porter, who lobbied railway chiefs as a favour for Whitehead’s father, who was his friend.
Whitehead grasped his second chance, rising to become a controller at Melbourne’s Spencer Street Station. He also became a prominent figure at the Puffing Billy tourist railway and other volunteer rail services.
He used his government and volunteer railway positions to befriend boys, several of whom he went on to sexually abuse. Farifax has previously revealed how at least one boy was sadistically abused and imprisoned at a dis-used railway building Whitehead leased from the government at Taradale, near Bendigo.
A letter from Deputy Ombudsman Megan Philpot to Wayne Clarke, one of Whitehead’s victims, reveals the investigation will examine how Whitehead got his job back with the Victorian railways after his first conviction.
The investigation will also examine how Whitehead was able to lease state-owned property at Taradale and at Brighton beach in Melbourne’s south-east. His role as secretary of the Puffing Billy Preservation Society will also come under scrutiny.
Importantly, the investigation will delve into how the Victorian railways department, the Puffing Billy Preservation Society and other volunteer railway groups responded to complaints about him.
Fairfax has previously revealed how police could not find a record of Whitehead’s 1959 conviction in their archives.
Victoria Police has investigated why no record of Whitehead’s first offence could be found and determined that his record had been removed from its main criminal registry in error.
Cassandra Cogno @CassandraCogno
Maria James murder:
- Stabbed 68 times in her Melbourne home
- Hands bound in what police described as a ‘frenzied attack’
- Youngest son abused by two local priests
- One priest seen covered in blood on day of murder
- Police cleared suspects using wrong D
Trace: Police admit DNA bungle wrongly cleared paedophile priest as suspect in cold case murder
Father Bongiorno was ruled out of involvement in Maria James’ murder as a result of a DNA mix-upPolice have admitted they used an incorrect DNA sample to rule out a paedophile priest in the brutal killing of Melbourne cold case murder victim Maria James.
The ABC understands a bloodied pillow case, used to establish a DNA profile for the suspected killer of the Thornbury single mother, came from an unrelated crime scene.
Local priest Father Anthony Bongiorno, as well as multiple other suspects in Maria James’ 1980 murder, were cleared as a result of DNA testing against that incorrect sample.
Her two sons, Mark and Adam James, have now formally applied to the Victorian coroner to set aside the original finding and reopen the 37-year-old case.
Maria James was stabbed 68 times in her home out the back of her Thornbury bookshop in what police described as a “bizarre” and “frenzied” killing.
The ABC’s Trace podcast has been reinvestigating the murder for over a year, and recently became aware that an incorrect DNA sample had been used to rule out persons of interest in the case.
On presenting that information to authorities, the ABC was issued a statement by Victoria Police stating it had discovered “an error in the handling of an exhibit”.
“The exhibit in question had been forensically tested and used to eliminate suspects. A recent review by the homicide squad however has shown that the exhibit was in fact unrelated to the Maria James case,” the statement said.
“A small number of persons of interest who had previously been eliminated will now be re-assessed in accordance with normal investigation procedures.
“Victoria Police would like to stress that this was an isolated human error, and not the result of any flaws in the forensic testing process.”
‘I’m devastated by this information’
For nearly four decades, police have failed to identify Maria James’ killer.
In 2013, it was revealed Father Bongiorno sexually abused her 11-year-old son Adam, who has cerebral palsy and Tourette syndrome, in the weeks prior to her murder.
Now 48, Adam said he told his mum of the abuse and believed she planned to confront the priest.
Father Bongiorno died in 2002.
Trace also revealed a local electrician working at the nearby St Mary’s church said he saw Father Bongiorno with blood on his face, arm and hands on the afternoon of the murder.
The electrician, Allan Hircoe, said he took the information to Victoria Police, but was told it was not pertinent to the Maria James case.
“They just told me that the DNA [they] found at the scene is not [Bongiorno’s],” Mr Hircoe said.
“They had the DNA of [Maria James] and other DNA, and they said it’s not his.”
Police visited Maria’s eldest son Mark James on Tuesday night to inform him of their error.
Mark James said he was “shaken up” by the DNA bungle and found it difficult to accept.
“I’m devastated by this information,” he told Trace.
“They mentioned I think nine suspects that need to be retested, based on this error, and Father Bongiorno was among them.
“They apologised to me for what’s happened, and they apologised for previously being told that Father Bongiorno had been eliminated, whereas now they can confirm Bongiorno has not been eliminated through any type of DNA testing.
“I acknowledge human error is a fact of life, but it seems a bit odd that somehow this pillowcase got put into mum’s evidence lot.”
Family calls on police to reopen investigation
In light of the new information, police are hoping the killer’s DNA exists on other exhibits from the Thornbury crime scene.
Mark James said he believed police should reinvestigate Father Bongiorno as a key suspect.
He also called for an investigation into Father Thomas O’Keeffe, who was parish priest at St Mary’s Thornbury, and once abused Adam James on the same day as Father Bongiorno.
Survivors who had been abused by Father O’Keeffe in other parishes around Melbourne prior to him moving to St Mary’s told Trace he was a terrifying and violent “psychopath”.
Father O’Keeffe died in 1984, but it is understood police could access familial DNA that would establish a DNA profile for him.
This could then be compared against any newly created DNA profile of the killer.
Victoria Police said they were committed to achieving justice for the family of Maria James, but would not comment further on the case.
“My brother was sexually assaulted by both Bongiorno and O’Keeffe right before my mum was killed,” Mark James said.
“My mum found out about it. She had contact with the church, where that contact indicated she was going to complain, and within a matter of a day or two, she’s murdered under very mysterious circumstances.
“I think this merits reopening.”
Father Anthony Bongiorno (right) was seen covered in blood on the day of Maria James’ murder.
Witness saw paedophile priest covered in blood near cold case murder victim Maria James’ house
A priest who sexually abused the son of cold case murder victim Maria James was seen covered in blood on the day of her murder, metres from the crime scene.
The priest — identified as Father Anthony Bongiorno — had blood on his face and arm as he ran into St Mary’s Parish Thornbury, roughly 50 metres from the Melbourne bookshop and home where Maria was stabbed 68 times in 1980.
Prestigious boys’ schools face multimillion-dollar lawsuits as lawyer claims children were sexually abused on an ‘outrageous’ scale
- Lawyer claimed some of Sydney’s top schools face huge sexual abuse lawsuits
- Jason Parkinson, who has 1,500 cases, said the abuse was on ‘outrageous scale’
- He said it was ‘cruel’ that parents worked hard to send children to the schools
- Mr Parkinson added that treating victims was likely to cost taxpayers ‘a fortune’
A handful of Sydney’s most prestigious schools reportedly face multimillion-dollar lawsuits from hundreds of people for historic claims of having been sexually abused as children.
Lawyer Jason Parkinson told the Daily Telegraph that top schools like Trinity Grammar, Knox Grammar and St Patrick’s College, Goulburn, were among the schools facing a series of legal claims.
He also claimed acclaimed schools such as Newington College and De La Salle colleges in Revesby Heights and Marrickville were among those facing huge lawsuits.
A handful of Sydney’s most prestigious schools reportedly face multimillion-dollar lawsuits from hundreds of people for historic claims of having been sexually abused as children. Pictured, Trinity Grammar School
Mr Parkinson said the abuse took place on ‘an outrageous scale’ and said the deluge of lawsuits was similar to that seen when asbestos was found to be harmful.
‘There has not been a common thread of criminality or negligence that has affected more Australians than child abuse and it is more egregious than asbestos because these institutions’ reason for being was caring for children,’ he said.
Lawyer Jason Parkinson claimed that schools like Trinity Grammar, Knox Grammar (pictured) and St Patrick’s College, Goulburn, were among the schools facing a series of the historic allegations
The lawyer also claimed that private schools were more likely to cover up abuse as it is not mandatory for them to report it, whereas it is in state schools.
Mr Parkinson, who says he has 1,500 sex abuse cases on his books, said many o the boys who were abused are now seeing psychologists and psychiatrists – costing ‘a fortune’ to the taxpayer.
Trinity Grammar knew about abuse and protected teacher, victim says
“I’ve never been more disgusted with something than that letter,” John*, who cannot be named for legal reasons, said.
“The vision of Howell was enough to make me sick, but what the school was saying about him; it was a lie and the school knew it was a lie and it protected him.
“The school has broken faith with every parent, with every child.”
Christopher Howell pictured in the 1977 Trinity school magazine.
Christopher Howell was a teacher at the exclusive Melbourne private school for more than 40 years. He took his own life in January 2016, three days before his first court appearance on one count of indecently assaulting a student in the 1960s. He had retired in 2009 as the acting head of the senior school and was still involved with the school, but withdrew when he was charged in November 2015.
On the day of the January 29 court appearance, Trinity headmaster Michael Davies and his deputy Rohan Brown sent a letter to the school community in tribute.
“To many, including those penning this letter, Chris Howell was, is and always will be the best educator we have known. He was a hero to many who worked with him and alongside him,” it read.
The letter caused deep divides within the Anglican school. Several former students who contacted Fairfax Media said they made complaints to the headmaster and both the president and treasurer of the Old Boys board resigned in disgust. They claimed the heads tried to ban the board from debating the handling of the complaint and subsequent letter.
“There can be no winners out of this horrid situation, not least the victim(s) of sexual abuse who may have had to experience the displeasure of reading the Headmaster’s letter,” former treasurer Thomas Hudson wrote in his resignation letter obtained by Fairfax Media.
The first time John was aware of the letter was when he read it in the paper on Monday having left the school in 1975 following the alleged abuse.
“I felt on Monday exactly as I felt after it had happened. I felt dishonoured. I felt ill,” he said.
“Everything came back to me. Everything.”
John said he was sexually assaulted twice by the teacher when he was 15 and a boarder at Trinity. John claimed Mr Howell tried to force his penis into his mouth inside the tent John was sleeping in during a bushwalking trip at Tonimbuk, east of Melbourne, in 1973.
He said he was also assaulted in a storeroom on school grounds about two weeks later.
John said he disclosed the abuse to his father and mother in 1974.
“I remember his [his father’s] words. He said ‘Son, we love you, we believe you and we’ll make this right’,” he said.
John claimed he was with his parents when they reported it to boarding master and priest Leslie Wiggins, who was later convicted of indecently assaulting boys in Rosebud. After being told the claims were “nonsense”, John said he and his family reported to the headmaster John Leppitt.
John said Mr Leppitt told his parents: “You need to discipline your child and you need to consider whether or not to keep him in the school.”
On their way out of the school, John said they ran into Mr Howell in the corridor. He said his father grabbed Mr Howell by the throat, punched him and said “If you touch him again, I’ll kill you”. John said the sixth form master in a nearby classroom witnessed the tail-end of the altercation.
John contacted Trinity again following Monday’s report and spoke to headmaster Dr Davies, he said.
Dr Davies said in a statement to Fairfax Media that the safety and wellbeing of current and former students was of utmost important.
“If someone makes us aware of an allegation against a former teacher, we immediately offer counselling and support and encourage that person to contact police. Any allegation is treated seriously and with immediacy. Where allegations have been made, we have co-operated fully and openly with the police,” he said.
“If abuse was reported in prior years and not acted upon then that is in total contravention of policies and procedures which are now strictly adhered to in the school.
“The safety and wellbeing of our boys and old boys is our highest priority and we continue to encourage anyone who is upset, has grievances or concerns to contact the school or the relevant authorities.”
John has joined two other men in legal action launched by Rightside Legal seeking compensation against the school and Mr Howell’s estate.
Another alleged victim has contacted the law firm.
“I’m so angry. But I’m doing this because I have to,” John said, encouraging others to come forward.
Another former employee of the school is facing a County Court trial in May. Mark Watson, who cared for boarders, is accused of abusing boys between 1975 and 1978.
* Not his real name.
Cassandra Cogno
Brisbane Grammar, St Paul’s had history of sex abuse, commission finds
February 15, 2017
Two prestigious Queensland schools have been revealed as sites of significant historical child sexual abuse, with “no systems, policies or procedures” in place to deal with allegations made against two staff with a long history of alleged child sexual abuse.
The Royal Commission released it’s findings into two Brisbane schools, including Brisbane Grammar School, an affluent boarding school for boys, and St Paul’s School, a coeducational private school operated by the Anglican Church, this morning.
It comes after a number of former students from both schools gave evidence to the Royal Commission, claiming they were sexually abused by Mr Kevin Lynch and Gregory Robert Knight while they were teachers between 1973 and 1997.
Mr Kevin Lynch worked as a teacher and then counsellor at Brisbane Grammar school, in Spring Hill, and St Pauls School, in Bald Hills.
He was found to have “sexually abuse a large number of students” during his time at Brisbane Grammar.
A number of senior staff at Brisbane Grammar were made aware of complaints against Mr Lynch but the headmaster, Doctor Maxwell Howell “did not report the matter to the police of the board of trustees”.
“In doing so he failed in his obligations to protect the safety and well being of the students,” the Royal Commission found.
“We find that during Dr Howell’s period as headmaster there was a culture at Brisbane Grammar where boys who made allegations of sexual abuse were not believed and allegations were not acted upon”.
Mr Lynch left Brisbane Grammar and took up a position as a counsellor at St Pauls’ Anglican School in 1989, where he continued sexually abusing students.
He was charged with 9 counts of abuse committed against one St Paul’s student in 1997 and committed suicide the following day.
The report found both schools had failed, in several cases, to investigate sexual abuse allegations and take measure to ensure the students under their care were kept safe.
Gregory Robert Knight worked as a teacher at St Paul’s between 1981 and 1984 and had previously worked at Willunga High School in South Australia and Brisbane Boys’ College in Queensland.
Inquiries uncovered that Knight had sexually abused a number of boys during his time in South Australia but, instead of being referred to the police, he was allowed to resign which meant “he maintained his registration as a teacher in South Australia”.
Allegations of sexual abuse continued during Mr Knight’s subsequent employment at Brisbane Boys College, in Brisbane’s western suburbs, and St Pauls’ Anglican School, where complaints were made that he had sexually abused a number of students in his capacity as a teacher.
The Royal Commission found that, following these complaints, St Pauls’ headmaster Gilbert Case accepted Knight’s resignation and gave him a favourable reference.
He then went on to teach at Dripstone High School in the Northern Territory, where another student alleged he had sexually abuses them and he was eventually charged with a number of offences.
He was sentenced to 8 years imprisonment.
The report pointed to a number of systemic failures in both Brisbane Grammar and St Pauls that “did not encourage or facilitate the reporting by students or staff of any instances or suspected instances of child sexual abuse”.
The hearing continues.
Religious institutions were 59% of reported abuse (37% Catholic). 70% abused were male. Abuse began @ average age 10
Elite Qld schools failed to act on abuse
February 15, 2017
Two prestigious Queensland schools failed to protect students from sexual abuse, doing nothing about complaints from victims who were not believed, a royal commission has found.
The culture at Brisbane Grammar School for 24 years under former headmaster Dr Maxwell Howell meant boys who alleged abuse were not believed, the commission said on Wednesday.
After counsellor Kevin Lynch moved on to the Anglican St Paul’s School where he again sexually abused students during counselling sessions, two boys who went to headmaster Gilbert Case were labelled liars.
Mr Case’s inaction when told Lynch and teacher Gregory Robert Knight had sexually abused children meant he did not achieve his most fundamental obligation to keep students safe, the commission said.
It said Mr Case, who was headmaster at St Paul’s from 1979-2000, was put in charge of all Anglican schools in Brisbane despite former archbishop and governor-general Peter Hollingworth and diocese general manager Bernard Yorke, knowing about allegations he took no action when told of abuse by Lynch.
Brisbane Grammar missed opportunities to discover Lynch’s abuse because it failed to keep adequate records of students’ attendance at counselling sessions and their absence from classes, the commission said.
A number of complaints about Lynch were made to senior Brisbane Grammar staff, most significantly to its 1965-1989 headmaster Dr Howell, who died in 2011.
The commission said Dr Howell did not investigate a 1981 complaint or report it to police or the school’s board of trustees, failing in his obligation to protect students.
“We find that during Dr Howell’s period as headmaster there was a culture at Brisbane Grammar where boys who made allegations of sexual abuse were not believed and allegations were not acted upon.”
St Paul’s also took no action to deal with complaints about Lynch sexually abusing students, the commission’s report said.
The commission rejected Mr Case’s evidence that two students did not tell him they had been abused by Lynch, who committed suicide a day after being charged in 1997 with sex offences against another St Paul’s pupil.
“Mr Case told the students they were lying and threatened to punish them if they persisted with the allegations,” it said.
There were allegations during Knight’s three years teaching music at St Paul’s that he sexually abused a number of students.
The school’s only action was that Mr Case accepted Knight’s resignation in October 1984, giving him a favourable reference, the commission said.
Knight was accused of sexually abusing students at a South Australian school before joining St Paul’s and afterwards at a Northern Territory school, where he tried to resign but was immediately sacked and reported to police.
Dr Hollingworth’s successor as archbishop Phillip Aspinall reached a negotiated settlement for Mr Case to leave his position as executive director of the Anglican Schools Commission, a role that required him to ensure the schools had proper child protection policies.
Current Anglican Schools Commission executive director Sherril Molloy said measures were now in place to better protect children, including trained student protection officers in each school.
Brisbane Grammar repeated its unreserved apology and said it has learnt from its past failures.
Cranbrook headmaster Nicholas Sampson wrote ‘misleading’ letters after sexual abuse allegations raised #caroyalcomm
J Holland @Giantkiller173
The question is this…***POLICE OPERATION SANO***was a task force looking into historical peados and Boris Johnson and Mackay were close mates when Boris taught at Geelong grammar….has Boris been questioned about the knowlegde he must have had about his best mate
Former Geelong Grammar doctor David Brian Mackey charged with 21 sex and assault offences
GEELONG Grammar’s resident doctor of more than 30 years allegedly assaulted girls and males over two decades during his tenure at the Corio campus.
Former prefect and long-term school general practitioner Dr David Brian Mackey appeared at Geelong Magistrates’ Courts on Friday facing 21 charges of assault, including 15 charges of indecent and unlawful assault of a girl, four charges of indecent assault of a male and two charges of indecent assault of a person. All alleged cases of abuse occurred in Corio between 1968 to 1989.
The victims names and ages have been suppressed but a letter from Geelong Grammar to former pupils states the complainants are past students of the school.
Dr Mackey was charged by detectives on October 25 last year following investigations into alleged abuse at Geelong Grammar School by detectives from the state’s historic sex abuse task force Sano.
Nine alleged victims are expected to form a group of up to 16 witnesses, including four former nurses and a paediatric doctor, who will give evidence at a four-day committal hearing scheduled for August.
One alleged victim will give evidence via video link from New South Wales while Magistrate John Lesser ordered a separate witness room be made available for other victims to give evidence from if they wish. Mr Lesser said it was important for all witnesses that the committal hearing was heard “in one go”.
Court documents viewed by the Geelong Advertiser allege Dr Mackie first committed the alleged abuse on January 1, 1958 — with many of the charges relating to alleged abuse over extended periods. Two charges allege Dr Mackey unlawfully assaulted a girl between January 1, 1977 and August 25, 1978.
A Geelong Grammar student from 1945, Dr Mackey was made head boy in 1952 and captained the school’s football team. He returned as the school’s resident doctor in 1964 after completing a medical degree at Melbourne University and working at The Alfred hospital and interstate. Dr Mackey held the senior position until 1993 and was fundamental in establishing the school’s Kennedy Medical Centre in 1969, replacing the closed Sanatorium.
Dr Mackey lived at the school’s Corio campus with his wife and four children during his tenure. After leaving Geelong Grammar School he worked as a general practitioner specialising in adolescent health. Dr Mackey is understood to have volunteered at Queenscliff’s Cottage by the Sea and was listed as a financial donor in the organisation’s 2014 annual report.
In the letter, current Geelong Grammar Principal Stephen Meek said: “Dr Mackey was charged with 21 offences from a number of complainants who are past students at the school”.
“The school cannot comment further as this matter is now before the court”.
Five former staff members at Geelong Grammar — Graham Leslie Dennis, John Hamilton Buckley, Stefan Van Vuuren, Philippe Trutmann and John Fitzroy Clive Harvey (known as Jonathon Harvey) — have been convicts of child sex offences.
Mr Meek said the community should have “full confidence in the school’s current medical practices and procedures”.
“Students have been able to choose male or female consulting doctors from local medical practices for many years, overseen by a senior medical officer and supported by a professional and dedicated team of nurses at our Kennedy and Timbertop medical centre,” Mr Meek said.
Mr Meek said the school, which was largely condemned for its failure to protect students by The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sex Abuse commissioners, had a zero tolerance of child abuse.
“As I said during the The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sex Abuse, the school deeply regrets the wrongful conduct by some of its former staff and I assure you that the current school leadership will continue to address these matters and support those affected,” Mr Meek said.
Mr Meek has urged anyone who needs support to contact its independent survivor liaison co-ordinator.
Dr Mackey, whose legal team has been granted permission to cross examine all witnesses, will appear at Geelong Magistrates’ Court on August 6.
In a statement issued in August 2015, the current principal of Geelong Grammar, Stephen Meek, said the school “absolutely condemns any form of abuse… that has occurred at the school in the past”. “I greatly regret that not all of our students received the care and support to which they were entitled”, he added,[21] whereas he had told school council meetings in 2007 that litigation regarding Trutmann’s (41) victims had been settled for about $350,000, his report described it as “Overall, this has been a very satisfactory financial outcome for the school”.[22]
List of perpetrators
- Jonathon Harvey[23]
- Philippe Trutmann[22]
- John Hamilton Buckley[24]
- The Revd John Davison (deceased)[25]
- Graham Leslie Dennis[26]
- Stefan Van Vurren[26]
- The Revd Norman Smith (deceased)[26]
- Max Guzelian (deceased)[26]
- Andrew MacCulloch (deceased)[26]
- “BIM”[26]
Prince Charles (1963) and Boris Johnson (1983) both at Geelong.
http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/books/boris-johnson-and-the-right-to-write-20130815-2ryy9.html
Peter Bottomley (his name is on the Elm Guest House list) also at Geelong
Before university (approx 1962) Bottomley worked around Australia including three weeks teaching at Geelong Grammar School and unloading trucks in Melbourne docks.
https://www.revolvy.com/main/index.php?s=Peter%20Bottomley
14 Feb 2017
Headmaster: response ‘just not good enough’
Former Geelong Grammar headmaster Nicholas Sampson faces questions about how the school dealt with allegations of sexual misconduct by former teacher Jonathon Harvey
The headmaster of one Sydney’s most expensive private schools, Cranbrook, wrote “misleading” letters about a teacher accused of child sexual abuse at his former school and failed to report the allegations to a higher authority, a royal commission has found.
Nicholas Sampson, then the headmaster of Victoria’s Geelong Grammar, paid teacher Jonathan Harvey to retire early in 2004 to avoid any formal complaints of child sex abuse being made against him.
Harvey was later found guilty of sexually abusing a 16-year-old boy known as BLF by repeatedly plying him with alcohol, fondling his genitals and forcing him into a threesome with another man in the 1970s.
Mr Sampson told the commission he was alerted to allegations against Harvey by the victim’s brother, BLW, and conducted a “fairly cursory” investigation before asking Mr Harvey to retire early.
The commissioners found Mr Sampson should have notified the Victorian Institute of Teaching about the allegations and that he “should have made a documentary record of the reason [Harvey left the school]”.
Instead, Mr Sampson wrote letters to Harvey thanking him for his “outstanding service”, praising him as a “wonderful teacher, an outstanding housemaster, a fine and thoughtful colleague and a tremendous and committed schoolmaster”.
A second letter from Mr Sampson to Harvey confirmed an extra year of pay following his retirement “due to the exceptional service [he] offered”.
The commission dismissed Mr Sampson’s defence that the letters were for personal use: “The letters were plainly kept amongst the school’s formal records in relation to Harvey,” it found
“We also reject the submission that the letters were not misleading. No other records were produced which recorded the real reason for Harvey’s departure from the school, and no explanation was given as to why such documents were not produced.”
Mr Sampson, who became the headmaster of Cranbrook in 2012, an Anglican, $35,000-a-year school in Bellevue Hill, told the commission he was acting in the best interests of the victim, BLF, who did not want his identity revealed.
“We accept that Mr Sampson attempted to act in the best interests of BLF by securing Harvey’s resignation without disclosing his identity,” the Commission found. “It is clear, however, that he should have notified the Victorian Institute of Teaching.”
Royal Commission: Vatican has no test for paedophiles
In a separate sitting on Tuesday, the Commission also heard there was no requirement for the Catholic clergy to be screened for sexual attraction to children but that the Vatican does have a detailed assessment procedure for homosexuality.
The Catholic Church’s central authority spent 13 years developing a protocol on homosexual tendencies among potential priests but has stayed “silent” on the issue of paedophiles, the commission heard.
The commission is examining factors behind abuse claims in the Catholic church, with data showing seven per cent of priests were alleged offenders between 1950-2010.
“As I understand it, the Vatican is specific that you must test for homosexual tendencies but the Vatican is silent in that same way on testing for children,” Commissioner Andrew Murray said.
Sister Lydia Allen, who assesses candidates for the Seminary of the Good Shepherd in Homebush, said the Vatican was working on such a document.
“I have asked them if they have any documents on this situation of child abuse and they don’t yet … it’s part of a project they are going to work on,” she said.
“They do not have . . . anything that says, ‘You must assess for that’.
“However, I think it would be an unspoken rule. I don’t think it needs to be stated explicitly because it’s so obvious.”
David Leary, an academic and Franciscan friar, told the inquiry the assessment process was flawed.
“The first test for a candidate for either religious life or the seminary or for the priesthood is not a question about whether or not they’re homosexual,” he said.
“It’s about whether or not they are compassionate and that’s the thing that needs to be tested.”
Dr Leary said the Catholic church was “highly resistant” to understanding how its structures may have led to child sexual abuse.
“I don’t think we understand the psychology that underpins … child sexual abuse,” he said. “It’s really clear in every other jurisdiction except the church.”
Peter Thompson, rector of Vianney College in Wagga Wagga, told the commission it would be impossible to effectively screen every candidate for the priesthood.
“No one can infallibly predict that someone is not going to offend,” he said.
The hearing, before Justice Peter McClellan, continues.
2004
Marlborough College, educator of royalty – the school in Wiltshire where Princess Eugenie is a pupil.
Former pupils include the poets John Betjeman and Siegfried Sassoon, the actor James Mason, the traitor Anthony Blunt, and songwriters Nick Drake and Chris de Burgh
Ghislaine Maxwell is alleged to have supplied a number of under-aged girls for Jeffrey Epstein‘s sexual abuse and sex-trafficking scheme, according to US court documents.
The 53-year-old was educated at Marlborough College and Balliol College, Oxford.
http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/prince-andrew-sex-slave-scandal-who-ghislaine-maxwell-1481707
FBI RECORDS ON JEFFREY EPSTEIN
College rocked by new sex scandal
TEACHER Andrew Richards has left Marlborough College after police launched an inquiry into his alleged possession of computer porn.
This week both police and the £22,000-a-year public school, where Princess Eugenie is a pupil, have confirmed that a teacher is being questioned over material found on his computer.
Neither the school or police would name the teacher but the Gazette has established that the man arrested was the housemaster of C3 House.
Sources within the police force and the school confirmed that it had been Richards who was arrested.
The maths teacher was arrested in his home at the school after police carried out an undercover operation two weeks ago and seized his computer. They took action after receiving information that Richards had downloaded obscene images on his computer, which is still being examined by a specialist team of officers.
After news of the arrest began to circulate in the town this week the school issued a statement saying: “Marlborough College can confirm that following the discovery of inappropriate material on a computer, one of our masters has left the school with immediate effect.
“There is no suggestion of improper behaviour with any pupil in the school.
“The College brought the matter to the attention of the relevant authorities, with whom we have been working closely.
“We understand that the police are carrying out an investigation into
this matter and therefore it would not be right for us to comment
further.”
The master of the public school, Nicholas Sampson, said he was unable to make any further comment.
Wiltshire police put out a statement saying: “On Saturday, April 30 as a result of information received from Marlborough College a male member of staff was arrested and interviewed at Salisbury police station.
“The man was subsequently bailed without being charged to return to Salisbury police station on a date in June.
“Inquiries are being completed to establish if any offences have been committed.”
Marlborough College, one of the top five public schools in the UK, has been rocked by several sex scandals in recent years.
In 2003 the school’s swimming pool manager, Mark Davies, was arrested after allegedly indecent pictures were found on his computer. Davies, brother of the Olympic swimmer Sharron Davies, was cautioned but not charged.
In 2002 there was another scandal when students sitting an exam saw pornographic pictures projected onto a screen. Teacher Richard Jowett, who had been invigilating, had been looking at pictures of naked women on his computer unaware that it was sending the images to an overhead screen in full view of pupils.
http://www.wiltshiretimes.co.uk/news/7248830.College_rocked_by_new_sex_scandal/
Geelong Grammar took no steps to protect students after abuse reports, says inquiry
14 Feb 2017
Royal commission releases report into prestigious Victorian private school criticising headmaster who went on to Eton College
The prestigious Geelong Grammar School’s long-time headmaster took no steps to bring in measures to protect students from a teacher alleged to have sexually abused pupils, a royal commission has found.
Geelong Grammar’s 1980-94 headmaster, John Lewis, allowed Jonathan Harvey to remain at the school despite knowing about allegations against him, the child sex abuse royal commission said.
It said by 1991, Lewis – who became headmaster of England’s elite Eton College after leaving Geelong Grammar – knew about allegations Harvey sexually abused students in 1982 and 1985 as well as allegations of inappropriate conduct with students.
“Despite this knowledge, Mr Lewis allowed Harvey to remain in a position where he had unsupervised access to students,” its report said. “Mr Lewis did not take any steps to prepare policies or procedures to protect the safety and welfare of the students at Geelong Grammar.”
Geelong Grammar’s 2001-04 headmaster Nicholas Sampson, now headmaster of Sydney’s Cranbrook School, organised for Harvey to be paid his entire 2005 salary to retire a year early after a staff member complained his brother had been abused by the teacher in the 1970s.
Sampson attempted to act in the victim’s best interests by securing Harvey’s resignation without disclosing the former student’s identity, but should have notified the Victorian Institute of Teaching, the commission found.
Sampson thanked the maths teacher for his outstanding service and did not record in writing the real reasons for Harvey’s departure, despite verbally informing others at the school about the allegations.
The commission said he should have made a documentary record of the reasons, but accepted Sampson’s evidence that he would now approach a similar situation very differently.
The royal commission also criticised Geelong Grammar for not investigating a boarder’s 1989 complaint that he was sexually abused, before expelling the 14-year-old for speaking out.
No member of staff notified police of the allegations, the commission said. Lewis should have ensured the allegation was investigated, it said.
The commission also found the school’s Highton campus master Robert John Bugg was involved in the boarder’s dismissal for discussing the sexual assault with other students.
Bugg must have believed the likely perpetrator was probably a staff member, it said. “In removing BIW from the school and not investigating the complaint, Mr Bugg failed to protect BIW’s interests and the interests of other students at Highton.”
Live-in boarding house assistant Philippe Trutmann was convicted for abusing BIW and 40 other Geelong Grammar students.
The commission found the school put its own financial interests before those of a student seeking compensation after being sexually abused by a teacher by not disclosing that it knew the teacher may have been jailed for pedophilia.
‘A tsunami of survivors’: Law firms swamped by historical child abuse victims
2 Apr 2017
Australian legal firms are experiencing unprecedented demand from people who have suffered alleged child sexual abuse in institutions such as churches, schools and youth groups.
The demand has been spurred on by revelations from the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse and legal reforms which allow survivors to make a claim for damages regardless of when the abuse allegedly occurred.
Shine Lawyers received 61 inquiries about historical child sexual abuse in 2012, prior to the commencement of the royal commission in 2013. Last year the firm received 730 inquiries, an increase of more than 1000 per cent.
Law firm Maurice Blackburn has also experienced a surge in people exploring their legal options, with hundreds of new inquiries.
Shine Lawyers abuse law principal Lisa Flynn said the commission had created widespread public awareness about the devastating impact of abuse.
“It is an extraordinary increase which is largely due to the spotlight cast by the royal commission,” she said.
“The royal commission’s work over the past four years has really encouraged people to come forward and seek assistance. It’s been a tsunami of survivors coming forward.”
The commission held its final public hearing last week and will hand down its final report in December.
Ms Flynn said that while the long-running inquiry is wrapping up, it has left a strong legacy for survivors.
“Survivors have seen the bravery of others in coming forward and that’s given them the encouragement they need to come forward themselves,” she said.
“We know from people who have told their stories, it’s such a powerful way of seeking validation and justice.”
A number of states, including NSW, have scrapped the statute of limitations for civil action by child sexual abuse survivors, many of whom take decades to disclose.
Maurice Blackburn institutional abuse specialist Danielle De Paoli??? said the reform had allowed more survivors to come forward and seek justice.
“We expect this to continue, particularly given many states have now acted to ensure that archaic statutes of limitations have been removed to allow long overdue access to justice for abuse survivors,” she said.
Ms De Paoli said many defendants unnecessarily delayed redress for people who had been abused in an institution.
“Unfortunately too many organisations, including Scouts NSW and organisations of the Anglican and Catholic Churches, still continue to do the wrong thing by survivors, in spite of the significant evidence uncovered by the royal commission,” she said.
Figures released by the royal commission show the Catholic church paid $280 million in compensation to victims of alleged child sexual abuse between 1980-2015 and Anglican church dioceses have payments of just over $34 million in response to complaints over the same period.
The Federal government has announced a national redress scheme to compensate survivors to run for 10 years from 2018.
Feb 20 2017
Extraordinary legacy and hero to many; school knew of abuse allegation when it sent a tribute letter
The heads of a Melbourne private school knew a former teacher had been charged with abusing a student when they wrote a letter paying tribute to his “extraordinary legacy”.
The letter, branded by lawyers as “stupid and insensitive”, prompted two Old Boys to seek legal action against Trinity Grammar.
It’s the second abuse claim to rock the exclusive school, with another former employee set to go to trial over 41 historical sex offences against five boys.
The latest scandal involves respected former teacher Christopher Howell, who was charged by police in November 2015 with the indecent assault of a student in the late 1960s.
Mr Howell, who had taught at the school for 43 years, took his own life days before his court appearance last January.
In a letter to the school community after his death, the school’s heads paid tribute to his “extraordinary legacy”.
“To many, including those penning this letter, Chris Howell was, is and always will be the best educator we have known. He was a hero to many who worked with him and alongside him,” the letter, by headmaster Michael Davies and deputy headmaster Rohan Brown, stated.
“Chris was admired by so many; he always worked in the best interests of the boys and tirelessly in the service of others.”
The letter prompted three men, including one who sparked the criminal court case, to seek legal representation.
Two have subsequently issued civil claims in the Victorian Supreme Court against the school and Mr Howell’s estate.
“Stupid and insensitive is the only way to describe the headmaster’s letter,” Rightside Legal partner Michael Magazanik said.
“Our clients were appalled. Each of them had spoken with the school about what had happened to them.”
One of the men reported being sexually abused in the boarding house, where Mr Howell had been a resident master, and another said he was repeatedly sexually assaulted on a bushwalking trip in Victoria’s mountains. The boys were about 14 and 16 at the time.
The school was aware of the criminal charge against the former teacher at the time of the letter after his death.
In November 2015, Dr Davies said the Anglican school fully supported police in their investigations.
“The allegation has been brought by an Old Boy of Trinity who attended the school in the late 1960s,” he reportedly wrote in a letter to parents.
“He was made an offer of counselling and ongoing support and was referred to the police.”
He said the former teacher, who was still involved with the school, withdrew from all activities following the charge.
He encouraged all other pupils who felt “aggrieved” to come forward.
“Our greatest concern is for our students and, as ever, we prioritise their well being and that of our Old Boys.”
It is believed other former students had also contacted police following Mr Howell’s death.
Fairfax Media made repeated attempts to contact the school for a response.
A long-term colleague of Mr Howell’s said the allegations have rocked the school community.
“It has torn apart the community and we know, from our Old Boys particularly, they are devastated. So many of them have great memories of Chris, clearly there are some who don’t,” they said.
“I don’t know how you can defend something like this when the person is no longer here.”
Mr Howell was the acting head of the senior school at the time of his retirement in 2009.
Mark Watson, another former employee, has been listed to face a County Court trial in May. Mr Watson, who cared for boarding school students, is accused of abusing boys between 1975 and 1978.
Two of the alleged victims, aged 12 and 13, were Trinity students.
Law firm Maurice Blackburn is handling the compensation claims of at least one of the alleged victims.
An admission that the Sydney Catholic archdiocese provides financial support for convicted paedophile priests has drawn outrage from sex abuse survivors at a royal commission.
Sydney Archbishop Anthony Fisher told the inquiry the church supports convicted Catholic clergy living in the community.
“That would include assistance with housing and some other kinds of assistance,” he told the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.
“I am so angry at what they have done, I don’t want to give them anything further by way of help, but throwing them back on their family or community … others would say that’s just the church washing its hand again of responsibility.
“It’s a situation of damned if we do and damned if we don’t.”
Archbishop Fisher, along with archbishops from Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth, faced their second day of questioning at the inquiry into Catholic church authorities.
He told the commission the church could not confidently monitor convicted paedophile priests in the community.
“I can’t pretend we have remotely sufficient supervision for me to be assured they are not misbehaving again, that they are no risk,” he said.
“People can be very deceptive and clever in not letting on what they are up to.”
Archbishop Fisher’s comments drew the ire of Catholic church sex abuse survivors, many of whom say they have not been compensated fairly.
The inquiry has previously heard a recent reassessment of claims relating to the Christian Brothers order found almost 170 people were underpaid $14 million.
Outside the hearing, survivor advocate Gabrielle Short questioned how the church could justify financially supporting convicted priests when many survivors lived in poverty.
Advocate Mark Fabbro described the church’s internal complaints handling schemes, Towards Healing and the Melbourne Response, as “failures” that have not adequately compensated victims.
“It’s clear they are still in the mode of protecting the church at all costs,” he said.
“The priority seems to lie with putting the interests of the church before the interests of the victims.”
Melbourne Archbishop Denis Hart told the inquiry the future of the Melbourne Response was under consideration ahead of the introduction of a national redress scheme next year.
“I’d have to take advice on the pros and cons with that but I’d certainly be prepared to look at it,” he said.
The inquiry heard the archbishops would directly inform Pope Francis of the concerns raised at the royal commission, which has spent the past three weeks examining factors that led to a high proportion of child sexual abuse in the Catholic church.
Archbishop of Brisbane Mark Coleridge said the Vatican was too far removed from victims.
“One of the difficulties that the Holy See faces is that at times these are people who have never been at the coalface,” he said.
“They have never sat down with victims. They haven’t heard the stories. They haven’t listened to the pain. As long as that continues there will be fumbling … from the Holy See.”
The five archbishops indicated support for a new national regulator, Catholic Professional Standards Ltd, which will set, enforce and audit new benchmarks.
Archbishop Fisher told the inquiry the body would lead to greater transparency and accountability within the church.
“Clearly what we don’t want is any risk of returning to era of cover-ups and excuses and avoiding scrutiny,” he said.
The hearing, before Justice Peter McClellan, has adjourned.
Cardinal Pell (pictured) was previously the Archbishop in both Sydney and Melbourne and is now serving at the Vatican
The alleged abuse was said to have taken place in the back room of Melbourne’s St Patrick’s Cathedral in the late 1990s, with the choirboy then asking to leave the choir, the book alleges.
Cardinal George Pell accused of sexually abusing two choirboys, book claims
Vatican’s financial chief, who has always denied wrongdoing, faces fresh allegations of abuse, relating to his time as archbishop of Melbourne
Cardinal George Pell, Australia’s most senior Catholic, is accused of abusing two boys at St Patrick’s Cathedral in Melbourne in the 1990s
New allegations of child abuse are being levelled against Cardinal George Pell, the Vatican’s financial chief and the most senior figure in the Australian Catholic church.
Fairfax Media has reported claims contained in a new book, Cardinal: The Rise and Fall of George Pell, that he sexually abused two choirboys at St Patrick’s cathedral after becoming archbishop of Melbourne in the 1990s.
The author Louise Milligan first flagged these claims on the ABC’s 7.30 Report in July last year. But according to Fairfax Milligan’s book, to be released on Monday, contains details of the accusations that have not been made public before.
After the 7.30 Report Pell accused the ABC of conducting a “scandalous smear campaign.”
Cardinal Pell’s office issued a statement on Saturday saying the cardinal had “not been notified by the Victorian Office of Public Prosecutions or Victoria police of the status of their investigations, which have been underway since at least February 2016.”
“Cardinal Pell will not seek to interfere in the course of justice by responding to the allegations made by Melbourne University Press (publisher of Milligan’s book) and media outlets today, other than to restate that any allegations of child abuse made against him are completely false,” the statement said.
“He repeats his vehement and consistent denials of any and all such accusations, and stands by all the evidence he has given to the royal commission.”
The boys, students at St Kevin’s College, sang in the cathedral choir and were allegedly abused by the archbishop in a room somewhere in the precincts of the cathedral. They left the choir and the school shortly afterwards.
Milligan claims one of the choirboys died of a drug overdose in 2014. His mother was subsequently told by the second boy that they had been abused by Pell when they were teenagers at the cathedral.
Milligan writes that both spoke to the Sano taskforce established to investigate allegations that emerged during a parliamentary inquiry in Victoria and the later royal commission into child abuse.
Pell has now been accused of abusing boys at three stages of his career: as a seminarian, a priest and as archbishop of Melbourne.
He has denied all these allegations on a number of occasions. No charges have ever been laid against him in relation to them. The cardinal, prefect of the secretariat for the economy at the Vatican, has stated that he willingly co-operated with the detectives of the Victoria police when they interviewed him in Rome in October last year.
Sano has also investigated allegations that as a young priest Pell abused boys in the swimming pool of his hometown Ballarat. Pell also denies these allegations.
Milligan writes that Pell and his defenders have been able to “bat off or gloss over” the swimming pool allegations by casting them as “horseplay or a bit of rough and tumble … The story of [the choirboys] has no such ambiguity. If these allegations are true, they point to utter, sinful hypocrisy.”
Citing ill health, Pell declined to return to Australia to give evidence to the royal commission in person last year and instead gave evidence by videolink from Rome. In February this year the Australian senate called on the cardinal to return home “to assist the Victorian police and office of public prosecutions with their investigation into these matters.”
Pell dismissed the parliamentary resolution as “an interference on the part of the Senate in the due process of the Victoria Police investigation.”
According to reports, the police have now twice sent briefs of evidence concerning Pell to the Victorian office of public prosecutions.
The Guardian is not claiming Cardinal Pell is guilty of any allegations of sex abuse, only that they have been investigated by police.
Operation Sano continues.
The Guardian contacted the Vatican, Pell’s office in Rome and his office in Australia for comment.
May 17 2018
Ballarat in Western Victoria became an epidemic of clerical paedophilia in the late 20th century. The dark tragedy affects thousands of lives to this day. It is widely acknowledged the Catholic Church protected its worst offenders and moved them on to prey on new unsuspecting communities. But how could offending on this scale have failed to draw the attention of local authorities? Who was protecting whom?
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/ballarats-children/news-story/33580594d14a97741e8cf4ded22179ba
Cardinal George Pell ‘to be CHARGED over child sex abuse allegations’ sending shockwaves through the Catholic Church
- Cardinal George Pell will reportedly be summoned to Australia by police
- The summons is believed to be related to a child sex abuse investigation
- Authorities are expected to announce the possible charges this morning
Cardinal George Pell is expected to be charged over child sex abuse allegations.
It is understood Cardinal George Pell will be summonsed to Australia from Rome in relation to a child sex investigation by Victoria police.
The summons will be issued today to the 76-year-old head of finances for the Vatican, according to The Australian.
Authorities are expected to provide additional details on the investigation and possible charges this morning.
It is not clear whether the cardinal will return home from Europe or if he will be extradited to face the charges.
Cardinal George Pell is expected to be charged over child sex abuse allegations (pictured eating in Italy)
Cardinal Pell will be summoned to Australia from Rome in relation to a child sex investigation by Victoria police
Cardinal Pell appeared via video-link for a public hearing of Australia’s national child-abuse Royal Commission in early 2015.
When he was asked to fly to Australia to appear in person, he declined, citing health problems.
The Cardinal was interviewed by three detectives from the taskforce in Rome in October 2016, who updated the evidence.
He has strongly denied the allegations of abuse.
The Office of Public Prosecutions submitted a second brief of evidence on Cardinal Pell to the police last month, according to The Herald Sun.
The summary said charges could be laid against Pell based on the evidence but that it was up to the to decide if they wanted to or not.
The Sano taskforce, which investigates allegations of sexual abuse, has been investigating Cardinal Pell since 2016
Police could be powerless to make Cardinal Pell return to Australia because he is so high up in the Vatican that he has diplomatic immunity.
Cardinal Pell was appointed to the Vatican’s Secretariat of Economy in 2014, the third highest ranked position within the church.
His high ranking grants him diplomatic immunity in Australia, meaning he cannot be forced to attend court or provide information, according to legal experts.
New South Wales state parliament member David Shoebridge told the Newcastle Herald in May that Australia had an extradition treaty with Italy, but it did not include the Vatican.
‘[Australia] hasn’t managed in 44 years to get one in place with the tiny pretend nation-state of the Vatican that exists wholly within Rome,’ he said.
‘This is why George Pell can’t be forced back to face questioning.’
Victoria Police will not comment on reports Cardinal George Pell is to be charged by summons over historic child sex abuse allegations.
A series of letters and documents published on the sex abuse royal commission’s website reveal details of Ridsdale’s abuse and the response from the Catholic Church, including Ballarat bishop Ronald Mulkearns.
Paedophile Gerald Ridsdale (left) arriving to court with George Pell
Ridsdale has been convicted for abusing more than 50 children over three decades, dating back to his ordination in 1961.
After parents complained to then Ballarat Bishop James O’Collins about Ridsdale in 1961, O’Collins told him: “If this thing happens again then you’re off to the Missions” and sent him to Mildura. The royal commission was also told Bishop Mulkearns knew in 1975 that Ridsdale had abused boys — but did not act until 1988.
One of Australia’s most notorious paedophiles, Gerald Ridsdale
Inquiry probes Ridsdale’s relationship with Cardinal George Pell
Ridsdale told the royal commission the fact Cardinal George Pell accompanied him to court on child sex abuse charges in the 1990s was insignificant.
He said he could not recall much about his relationship with the then Father Pell in Ballarat in the 1970s, except he “would’ve met him, because he was Ballarat born-and-bred”.
“I can’t remember him being there … I can’t remember him … I never had much to do with him,” Ridsdale said of Cardinal Pell.
“We needed some people to come along [to court] for support … I don’t see it as having a very big significance.”
Ridsdale said his barrister asked Cardinal Pell to go to court, and he did not ask him himself.
He said, at the time, he did not know if Cardinal Pell knew about the nature of his charges, and he did not know, what Cardinal Pell planned to say.
He said his legal team was “clutching at straws.”
Royal Commission into sex abuse hears of suicide problem in Ballarat
IT has been called a city that has a suicide rate “through the roof” and is marred by a “landscape of death”. And one old class photo illustrates it in black and white.
Ballarat is considered one of the most horrific sites of abuse in Australia after it was revealed
that at one time in the 1970s all the male teachers and the chaplain at the St Alipius primary school were molesting children.
The Royal Commission into Institutional Child Sexual Abuse this week moved to the regional Victorian city for hearings, and is expected to hear from one of Australia’s most vile paedophiles, Father Gerald Ridsdale.
It has also heard from sex abuse victims, who are detailing the crimes that were committed against them — and the lifelong trauma that created.
Philip Nagle was the first witness to give evidence yesterday. From the witness box, he held a black-and-white picture up of his grade-four photo from St Alipius Primary School in 1974, The Age reported.
Paedophile Gerald Ridsdale will be called to give evidence at the Ballarat hearings of the Royal Commission into child abuse.
There were rows of boys in uniform, who should all be aged in their 50s now. Instead, a third of the boys in the image are dead, believed by suicide.
It’s a graphic example of the suicide problem Ballarat has grappled with since the sexual abuse of what is feared to have been hundreds of schoolboys.
The exact number of victims isn’t known. There is no concrete evidence to link the suicides to sexual abuse, although Fairfax has previously detailed secret police reports that count at least 40 suicides by people sexually abused at the hands of Catholic clergy in Victoria.
But some are in no doubt the two are linked.
Peter Blenkiron, was 11 when he was abused at the Brothers’ other school in Ballarat, St
Patrick’s College, estimates there’s been 10 suicides in the regional Victorian city in the past year alone.
He told the ABC: “Ballarat has got this hidden trauma and landscape of death about it. I believe the suicide rate is higher than the road toll and we don’t hear about it. We have to stop that.”
He said the suicide rate was “through the roof” and believed since the abuse by the Christian Brothers an “atomic bomb went off and it’s destroyed so many lives over the years.”
Along with the suicides, there had been a number of other premature deaths linked to substance abuse.
St. Alipius primary school in Ballarat where many boys were molested.
Another victim will give harrowing evidence today of losing three family members to suicide who were abused as children by Catholic clergy in Ballarat.
The victim, who cannot be named, was sexually abused by convicted paedophiles Father Gerald Francis Ridsdale and Brother Robert Charles Best.
His brothers and a cousin committed suicide after being abused.
He is expected to tell his story to the royal commission today, the second day of a three-week hearing in the Victorian regional city devastated by decades of abuse.
Paedophile Gerald Ridsdale (left) arriving to court with George Pell
A major focus of the Ballarat hearing is who was responsible for moving Father Gerald Francis Ridsdale from parish to parish, allowing him to continue to offend, and why.
Ridsdale abused more than 50 children as he was moved between nine Victorian parishes over three decades. He also abused an altar boy in Sydney.
Witness Philip Nagle has told the royal commission a third of his classmates had committed suicide
Then Ballarat Bishop Ronald Mulkearns knew Ridsdale had abused boys, “so he was taken out of there” and again moved to another parish, the commission heard yesterday.
Ridsdale will give evidence from jail via videolink later during the hearing.
—with Australian Associated Press
The photo that has dogged George Pell for years
THE photograph was striking: There was George Pell, then an auxiliary bishop, walking side-by-side into court with Gerald Ridsdale, the man later found to be Australia’s worst paedophile priest.
The decision by Cardinal Pell, now a Vatican cardinal, to support his former housemate that day in 1993 led to an image that has lived on in infamy in Australia for more than two decades, creating an image of a man who appeared to be more concerned with protecting the church than its flock.
And it made him something of a PR scapegoat for all that was wrong with how the Catholic Church handled the clergy sex abuse crisis.
Though Cardinal Pell went on to ascend the ranks of the Catholic Church and become Pope Francis’ chief financial adviser, he would eventually find himself pulled back to Australia.
On Thursday, Australian police charged him with “historic sexual assault offences” making Cardinal Pell the highest-ranking Vatican official to ever be charged in the church’s long-running abuse scandal.
George Pell with Gerald Ridsdale (left) arriving to court in 1993.
Cardinal Pell has vehemently denied the allegations and vowed to return to Australia to clear his name. But he is likely to face a cool reception in his homeland, where he faced years of accusations that the church mishandled cases of clergy abuse when he was archbishop of Melbourne and, later, Sydney.
The towering former Aussie rules player’s abrasive nature has long been off-putting to many, with the father of one clergy abuse victim once accusing him of having a “lack of empathy.”
Cardinal Pell himself acknowledged as much in 2013, saying of his decision to support Ridsdale that day 20 years earlier: “I intended no disrespect to the victims. I understand now that they perceived it — and probably rightly — as such, but I did not at the time.”
Pope Benedict XVI with Cardinal George Pell.
Cardinal Pell has said he set the program up out of compassion, though victims later criticised it as a way to keep them from suing the church.
“His style can be robust and direct; he does not wear his heart on his sleeve,” seven Australian archbishops and bishops wrote in a statement supporting Cardinal Pell in 2015.
“But underneath, he has a big heart for people.”
Cardinal Pell was born in 1941 in Ballarat, a deeply Catholic city in the southern Australian state of Victoria that would eventually become the epicentre of the nation’s clergy abuse crisis.
He was ordained a priest for the Ballarat diocese in 1966, and became an auxiliary bishop of the Melbourne Archdiocese in 1987. In 1996, he was appointed archbishop of Melbourne and was made Sydney archbishop five years later.
Impressive as his career trajectory was, he never managed to shake the Ridsdale controversy.
In many ways, the photograph encapsulated the Catholic Church’s attitude toward sex abuse the world over: Church leaders regularly sided with the priests who stood accused of raping and molesting children, placing the reputation of the church above the safety of the young and the real needs of abuse victims.
And despite what supporters dubbed his pioneering efforts to compensate victims, he was dogged for years by allegations that he should have done more to stop clergy from abusing children in the first place, particularly in Ballarat.
The city was devastated by disclosures of a huge number of church abuse victims, scores of whom killed themselves in an unprecedented cluster of abuse-related suicides.
In 2012, Australia’s government announced a royal commission into how the Catholic Church and other institutions have responded to child sex abuse.
Cardinal Pell testified repeatedly before the commission, and was peppered with questions about current Vatican efforts to address the scandal as well as how he dealt with abuse allegations against other clergy members during his time in Australia.
The cardinal largely deflected any blame, though eventually conceded that he had erred by often believing the priests over victims.
Last year, Cardinal Pell sparked a fresh wave of anger in Australia after saying he was too ill to travel back to his home country to testify — for a third time — before the commission, opting instead to testify via video link from Rome.
A crowd-funding campaign was quickly set up to send abuse victims from Ballarat to Rome so they could watch the testimony in person. Comedian and musician Tim Minchin released a blistering song entitled Come Home (Cardinal Pell), in which he called the cardinal an ethically hypocritical, arrogant coward.
In 2014, Pope Francis named Cardinal Pell prefect of the new economy secretariat, tasked with getting the Vatican’s vast and complicated finances under control. Critics in Australia saw Cardinal Pell’s move as an attempt to leave the church’s troubles behind and avoid dealing with the abuse scandal.
His reception in Rome wasn’t much rosier; Cardinal Pell has been a polarising figure at the Vatican ever since his appointment. Soon after he was named, he drew swift scorn from the mostly Italian-headed Vatican bureaucracy for boasting that he had “found” some 1.4 billion euros “tucked away” in Vatican accounts that didn’t appear on balance sheets. In fact, the money was well known to the secretariat of state.
Cardinal George Pell says he will return to Australia to fight the charges. Picture:
And over the years, he clashed with many other cardinals who resented his attitude suggesting that he was the main force for transparency and reform while others were resistant to change.
Cardinal Pell’s initial mandate was huge, tasked with broad rein to control all economic, administrative, personnel and procurement functions of the Holy See.
But the mandate was subsequently restricted to performing more of an oversight role. In a statement Thursday, the Vatican said Francis greatly appreciated Cardinal Pell’s “honesty” in working in the Curia and was grateful for his collaboration.
Francis was particularly grateful “for his energetic dedication to the reforms in the economic and administrative sector, as well as his active participation” in the pope’s group of nine cardinal advisers, the statement said.
But it was well known that Cardinal Pell and Francis had their differences in both style and substance.
It was Cardinal Pell, for example, who handed Francis a letter signed by 12 fellow cardinals complaining about the procedures surrounding Francis’ landmark synod on the family in 2015. The letter warned that the Catholic Church was at risk of collapse if bishops went too far in accommodating the flock over the contentious issue of letting civilly remarried Catholics receive communion.
In the end, Francis went ahead with the accommodation, albeit obliquely. In a statement Thursday, Sydney Archbishop Anthony Fisher stood by Pell and said the archdiocese would support him with accommodation upon his return.
“The George Pell I know is a man of integrity in his dealings with others, a man of faith and high ideals, a thoroughly decent man,” Fisher said.
Vatican treasurer George Pell faces Australian court
July 26, 2017
One of the most senior figures in the Vatican will plead not guilty to multiple charges of historical sexual assault offenses, his lawyer told an Australian court on Wednesday.
Wednesday’s brief court hearing marked a significant moment in Australia, where Pell is the country’s most senior Catholic.
How George Pell gazumped other bishops to claim credit for tackling child abuse in the church
Broadly speaking, my aim in introducing the Melbourne Response was to make it easier for victims to achieve justice, and to seek financial compensation and counselling, without needing to establish legal liability. I believe that it was the first scheme of its kind implemented anywhere in the world to respond to victims of child sexual abuse. I was, and remain, proud of its establishment and the assistance it has provided to victims since 1996. Statement of Cardinal George Pell, August 2014
It was 1996 and the media was going after the percolating child abuse issue in a big way. The victims were becoming emboldened. It was becoming a dominant narrative: terrible PR for a Church whose mass attendance numbers were already in freefall. It was also potentially costly in terms of compensation payouts. And it was unclear just how many priests Pell as archbishop might lose to criminal prosecutions, but suffice to say they were falling over like dominoes.
Gerald Ridsdale outside court with George Pell in 1993. Photo: Geoff AmptMelbourne had more paedophile priests than any other place in the country. And most of them operated during George Pell’s time in Victoria as priest or bishop. The Cardinal is proud of his record in being the first Australian bishop to respond to the child abuse crisis. He consistently cites it when he is being scrutinised in the media and points out that he was probably the first in the world, let alone here in Australia, to boldly go where no other bishop had dared to tread.In 2016, he said: “When I became Archbishop, I turned the situation right around so that the Melbourne Response procedures were light years ahead of all this obfuscation and prevarication and deception.”
Cardinal George Pell is proud of his record in being the first Australian bishop to respond to the child abuse crisis. Photo: Joe ArmaoYou have to wonder, then, what this religious leader who was so zealously committed to rooting out child abuse was doing in March 1996—just four months before his appointment as archbishop— at the funeral of one Nazareno Fasciale.
Fasciale was parish priest at Yarraville in Melbourne’s inner west. In the preceding December, Fasciale had been charged by Newport detectives with multiple counts of indecent assault and gross indecency against four victims who had been assisted by the newly formed victims’ advocacy group Broken Rites.
The priest had been remanded to appear in court the following February. As the new year arrived, the Newport detectives discovered that there was another file on Fasciale with three further victims in the nearby town of Geelong, and police had planned to apply to the Office of Public Prosecutions to combine the cases.
When the matter came to court in February, a Church solicitor applied for an extension of time, alleging poor health on the part of Fasciale. The date was set for six weeks later. Fasciale was dead within a month. Fasciale’s skirmishes in the criminal justice system right before his death did not deter his priestly colleagues from giving him a glorious requiem mass send-off at St Mary’s in West Melbourne.
Cardinal George Pell talks to the press at the end of the Royal Commission’s public hearing. Photo: Marco Di Lauro[Pell joined] four bishops, along with an extraordinary sixty priests, attending the funeral. The Auxiliary Bishop of Melbourne Peter Connors led the ceremony, referring only obliquely to Fasciale’s crimes.
“The life of our brother Nazareno Fasciale was not without its own fair measure of pain and suffering,” Connors conceded. “He would be the first to confess that he too was a sinner.”
Cardinal: The Rise and Fall of George Pell.Maybe Pell just didn’t know that Fasciale had been charged with indictable offences against little kids. Priests, he would often later chide, don’t gossip. This was not, I might say, my experience, in writing my book
Two years before the funeral, in 1993, when Fasciale resigned for euphemistically titled “ill health and stress” after, handwritten archdiocesan notes attested, being “shocked and repentant” about what he had done to children, Pell was on the Personal Advisory Board which accepted the resignation letter. Pell agreed that of the five members of the board that day, three—Archbishop Little, Monsignor Gerry Cudmore and Monsignor Hilton Deakin—were aware of child abuse complaints against Fasciale.
Pell was most certainly not the first person in the Catholic Church to decide to address the issues, he just got in at the last minute, before the national response was about to be released.
So, was Pell? Did they tell him? “I can’t remember whether they did or they didn’t. It is possible that they did,” Pell much later said. The funeral of Fasciale occurred about three years after the fateful day when Pell accompanied serial paedophile Gerald Ridsdale to court in Warrnambool.
The photograph will haunt Pell to his grave — it is used by the media every time there is a discussion of him and child abuse. On a kind interpretation, Pell was just doing what real Catholics do, walking with a sinner at his darkest hour
But from the Ridsdale victims’ point of view, this “priestly act of solidarity”, as Pell much later called it, is nothing more than a slap in the face to them and their enormous suffering.
The Fasciale business suggests that perhaps Warrnambool didn’t represent a one-off, well-meaning, priestly brain snap, that it represented an attitude.
Whatever he thought in March 1996, by Pell’s account in July, his resolve had hardened against this dreadful paedophile scourge. Launching the Melbourne Response at a press conference Pell apologised unreservedly to victims. It seemed like this was a turning point. The scheme included, a Special Commissioner, a compensation panel which could award the victims up to $50 000, and an independent counselling service known as Carelink.
Victoria Police released a statement welcoming the Melbourne Response, saying it was “a positive step in tackling this very sensitive community issue”. In his much later statement to the Victorian parliamentary Inquiry into the Handling of Child Abuse by Religious and Other Institutions in 2014, Pell wrote that as archbishop, he knew he had to act immediately.
“This was an issue that needed urgent attention and … we needed to do much better in our response,” the Pell statement says. “At that stage no decision had then been taken by the Australian bishops to set up the Towards Healing procedures. This was decided at the November 1996 meeting of the Australian Bishops’ conference. The Towards Healing Protocol was published in December 1997.”
While this is all strictly true, it’s a pretty selective analysis of the facts. In 1996, the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference was working on a scheme called Towards Healing and had been developing it and consulting with stakeholders for three years. The man charged with running it was the Auxiliary Bishop of Sydney, Geoffrey Robinson.
The history of how this took place is significant, because Pell’s immediate refrain whenever he is questioned about his handling of child abuse matters, is that he was, through his Melbourne Response, the first Catholic bishop in Australia, and anywhere in the world, to come up with a comprehensive program to tackle the child abuse question.
Pell was most certainly not the first person in the Catholic Church to decide to address the issues, he just got in at the last minute, before the national response was about to be released.
In the 1980s, the Church’s euphemistically titled “Special Issues Committee” was headed by, of all people, Bishop Ronald Mulkearns from Ballarat, who had covered up the offending of priests in his diocese for decades. However, the committee began to acknowledge the scale of the problem as the realisation dawned on the Church internationally that something must be done.
Robinson said that at first psychiatrists told them they could cure paedophile priests, but that changed as the profession came to terms with the incurable nature of paedophilia. Robinson was appointed to develop a new protocol, which was to become Towards Healing.
One of the questions often asked of the Church is why develop a protocol at all? This was, after all, a criminal justice issue — why not direct the complainants to the police? But Robinson says the majority of complainants he met at that time were not interested in going to the police. So, Robinson set his mind to developing an alternative forum for victims to get some sort of restorative justice, not to mention making sure that none of the accused priests remained in service with access to children.
But turning around the attitudes of his colleagues was a massive effort. He bore the brunt of some of the bishops’ ire.
“One bishop called me a fanatic, another an avenging angel, and yet another accused me of ‘acting like Adolf Hitler in the way you harangued and bullied the bishops’,” Robinson said.
Having said that, of the forty-one bishops present at a vote in April 1996, only five voted against the protocol. As one of the senior people involved with the developmental stages of Towards Healing remembers, getting the protocol drawn up was a tricky business: “It had been going on for three years. Every time we drew up a protocol, Geoff Robinson would rightly insist on taking it to the victims’ groups and understandably, it was never good enough [for them] and we had draft after draft after draft.”
Robinson also had to get diverse dioceses and religious orders, each with their own leaders who had differing views, to come together as one. It was a massive task. “So instead of having this thing in 1994 as we expected, it had dragged on to November 1996.
“George came in as archbishop and because he thought we were taking too long, he decided he would introduce his own protocol,” the person told me.
“Geoff [Robinson] sent out about ten things trying to achieve consensus before we were all due to meet in the November,” recalls Bishop Emeritus of Canberra-Goulburn, Pat Power.
“Then out of the blue, George Pell comes up with his own thing. When he claims that he was the one that gave the lead, he really just broke ranks with everyone. Certainly, the thing of him coming out early was something everyone felt very critical about.”
“The Melbourne bombshell,” Robinson later called it, confirming that Pell had been there for all of the discussions on Towards Healing, all of the motions, but hadn’t said a word against it.
Robinson knew nothing of the Melbourne Response until Pell made it public without telling any of the other bishops. “He later would claim that he was the first person in Australia to have such a protocol, he was ahead of everybody, in other words. I mean, that’s only a very partial truth.”
Bishop Bill Morris, who had joined the Bishops Conference in 1993 as Bishop of Toowoomba, says the other bishops were very disappointed.
“Well, this is George, George will go his own way because George wants to reform the Church according to George Pell,” Morris says.
“It would have been much better for the Church in Australia to act as one to bring in a national approach and I am sure those who were close to George would have said that to him.”
The November 1996 meeting, which included bishops from every diocese in the country, as well as the leaders of all the religious orders such as the Jesuits and the Christian Brothers, was the day that the bishops approved the Towards Healing protocol — a united Church front to make an attempt to address this scourge.
Some who were present were particularly furious at Pell’s lack of consultation with others — especially his failure, as they put it, to hear the opinions of the religious leaders who would be operating in the Melbourne Archdiocese.
One of those was Bill Uren, Provincial of the Jesuit order.
The big meeting was at Kensington in Sydney on 22 November 1996. On the conference floor, Uren’s blood began to boil because when Robinson would mention “the protocol” (Towards Healing), Pell would interrupt and say, “there are two protocols”.
After it happened several times, Uren saw red. He jumped to his feet and confronted Pell across the conference floor for not consulting the religious leaders of Victoria before going ahead with the Melbourne Response.
Pell replied that he did consult them, but Uren said to Pell he believed the only one Pell had spoken to was Brother Paul Noonan — who was then the head of the Christian Brothers.
Uren had received the information in one of those typical Catholic coincidences — his personal assistant was the wife of the Christian Brothers’ lawyer.
Uren went on to correct Pell about the “consultation”, saying it was simply a statement informing Noonan that it would be happening. It was said that you could have heard a pin drop.
Uren really got going then, saying that the rest of them had been working on Towards Healing for three years and had been gazumped by Pell without any consultation with the religious leaders.
After the meeting, sources told me the two went toe-to-toe in the doorway, where Pell is said to have told Uren he objected to being called a liar in front of his fellow bishops.
Uren finished up as Provincial of the Jesuits the following month, in December 1996. Ironically, and much to Uren’s dismay, his successor, Daven Day, was the only religious leader (or bishop) in Australia to opt to go with Pell’s Melbourne Response, rather than Towards Healing.
Morris and many others I have spoken to in the Church believe that Towards Healing, while certainly not perfect and in many ways wanting, had a more pastoral outlook than the Melbourne Response, which was set up under the auspices of a Queen’s Counsel and had a more legalistic framework.
Pell’s argument is that the situation was so dramatic that he had to act swiftly. To be fair to Pell, things in the Catholic Church move in a byzantine and sluggish way. He knew the job needed to be done. But many of his colleagues believe that in going about it the way he did, he undermined the national process with an inferior scheme, and that unity was vital when addressing such a vexed issue.
In covering the later Royal Commission and speaking to survivors, solicitors and advocacy groups, I found that the response to the Response, from the people it was meant to help, was overwhelmingly underwhelmed. This was a position later reflected in the Victorian parliament’s Betrayal of Trust Report by the Parliamentary Inquiry in the Handling of Child Abuse by Religious and Other Institutions of November 2013.
One of the issues some survivors had was that the counselling service Carelink was run by a psychiatrist, Professor Richard Ball, who had provided treatment not just to victims, but to priests of the archdiocese and had also provided expert witness statements on the priests’ behalf.
The Royal Commission later agreed that while it did not question Ball’s integrity, “where there is a power imbalance, perceptions matter a great deal”.
Then there is the fact that Pell’s solicitor was given medical and psychological reports and assessments of the victims (albeit “on a confidential and without prejudice basis”), and was involved with each component of the process, at the same time as he was acting on behalf of the archdiocese.
The Royal Commission later found the fact that the solicitors were performing these dual roles raised “clear potential for conflict. It also raises difficulties with confidentiality.”
Child abuse royal commission: Priest abused every young boy at regional Victorian school, inquiry hears
A notorious paedophile priest abused every boy at a regional Victorian school between the age of 10 and 16, the child sex abuse inquiry has heard.
The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse is holding long-awaited public hearings in Ballarat to examine historical abuse suffered by children at a number of schools in the regional centre, at the hands of Catholic clergy and other members of the Church.
Some of Australia’s most notorious abusers, including Gerald Ridsdale, Robert Best and Edward Dowlan, were part of a paedophile ring operating in and around Ballarat for years.
In her opening address, Senior Counsel Assisting the Commission, Gail Furness SC, outlined the extent of Ridsdale’s offending.
She said the inquiry would hear evidence of Ridsdale’s time at the Mortlake parish during the early 1980s, including comments from the priest who took over from Ridsdale.
“Father Dennehy told the Catholic Church’s insurance investigator that he thought every male child between the ages of 10 years and 16 years, who were at the school, had been molested by Ridsdale,” she said.
Ms Furness said Ridsdale was a “prolific offender” during his time at Mortlake.
“There will be evidence that his behaviour around boys was no secret,” she said.
She also told the inquiry Cardinal George Pell – who later became Archbishop of Sydney and now oversees the Vatican’s finances – was one of seven present at a meeting in September 1982 where Bishop Ronald Mulkearns discussed the need to remove Ridsdale from the school.
She said under the heading of “staff” the notes from that meeting read:
The Bishop advised that it had become necessary for Father Gerald Risdale to move from the Parish of Mortlake.
Negotiations are under way to have him work with the Catholic Enquiry Centre in Sydney.
A new appointment to Mortlake will be necessary to take effect after October 17th.
The minutes did not disclose whether the Bishop said why the move was necessary, she told the inquiry.
“However … it is expected that there will be evidence that Bishop Mulkearns knew it was because Ridsdale had abused boys in Mortlake and that he had offended in this manner in 1975,” she said.
All male teachers at St Alipius PS were molesting
Ballarat was one of the most horrific sites of abuse and it was revealed that in 1971, all male teachers and the chaplain at the St Alipius primary school were molesting children.
Ms Furness said the royal commission would also hear from a survivor who had a photograph of his grade four class at St Alipius in the 1970s.
She said he would tell the hearing, of the 33 boys pictured, 12 had committed suicide.
In his opening address, inquiry chairman Justice Peter McClellan urged those attending the hearing to remember the victims and survivors.
“The evidence in the first stage of this hearing will include the personal stories of a number of survivors,” Justice McClellan said.
“That evidence will describe the gross violations of individuals by ordained members of the Catholic Church.
“As you are aware, the royal commission has revealed many shocking stories of the betrayal of children.
“As we listen to the evidence in this hearing, we should all reflect on the impact for those who have suffered in the Ballarat region, and the thousands of others who have suffered throughout Australia.”
Ridsdale to give evidence to inquiry via video link from prison
Justice McClellan said the inquiry would also hear from perpetrators but not directly about the circumstances of their offending.
“That has already been dealt with by the courts,” Justice McClellan said of Ridsdale’s crimes.
“However, the evidence has an important part to play in the royal commission coming to understand both the way ordained members of the Catholic Church became abusers and how the Church responded to allegations of their abuse.”
Ridsdale is serving an eight-year prison sentence after pleading guilty to 30 child sex offences in 2014.
It is the fourth time he has been jailed after three previous stints in prison for more than 100 other offences.
He will give evidence, possibly next week, via video link from prison.
The hearing will also consider why Ridsdale was able to move around to so many locations in Victoria, without being reported to police.
He offended and re-offended in Horsham, Inglewood, Camperdown, Ballarat North, Mildura, Swan Hill, Warrnambool, Ballarat East, Apollo Bay, Edenhope, Melbourne and Mortlake.
“I appreciate that the evidence of perpetrators may be confronting for some people, in particular survivors,” Justice McClellan said.
“However, without the evidence of perpetrators the true story of the response of the Church in Ballarat may never be completely revealed.
“I am aware that there may be different and strongly held views about the conduct of ordained people and the appropriateness of the response of leaders in the Church in the Ballarat Diocese.
“Many want this hearing. There are others who doubt the need for a public hearing. Some may not want the story told.
“Unless the truth is revealed and known publicly then [the] prospect of effective healing for survivors and institutions is diminished.”
Support on hand as inquiry prepares for gruelling three weeks
Today’s hearing was packed with survivors and their supporters and a spill-over court was set up in an adjacent building to cope with demand.
Justice McClellan said support would be on hand for survivors as the hearing progressed.
The Catholic Church also warned of a gruelling few weeks of evidence.
Bishop of Ballarat Paul Bird released a statement urging people across the region to support one another throughout the hearing.
He will also give evidence, as will Brother Peter Clinch, the Province Leader of the Christian Brothers Oceania Province.
Former Bishop Ronald Mulkearns, who is accused of moving perpetrators and destroying documents to avoid detection, is not on the witness list.
He did not appear before the Victorian parliamentary inquiry into child sex abuse, citing ill health.
Ms Furness said 17 abuse victims would give evidence and the commission would also hear from a psychiatrist about the post-traumatic effects of child abuse on survivors.
Some victims will give evidence anonymously, under a pseudonym.
“Many witnesses are expected to say that they were reluctant to disclose their abuse to anyone,” Ms Furness said.
“They are expected to give reasons such as feelings of shame, guilt, disgust, fear of punishment, fear of judgment and a belief that they would be disbelieved.”
Perpetrators must be called to account, victims say
Abuse victim Patrick Nagle, 50, of Ballarat, was abused at St Alipius and said testifying before the commission was “extremely difficult”.
“We’ve known this has been coming for about three months and I haven’t slept [the] last couple of nights,” he said.
“You’ve got to prepare yourself for it.
“[It was] very, very tough indeed, but [I’m] glad it’s over [I’m] going to go and have a beer now.”
Andrew Collins, 46, of Mount Helen, was abused by four different men at Ballarat schools and churches during his teenage years.
He said it was important that those who moved these men around and did not report the abuse to police were brought to justice.
“It’s not just the perpetrators, it’s the hierarchy that facilitated those abusers to cause so much more hurt, pain and suffering,” he said.
Mr Collins said the number of victims who had committed suicide was “horrendous”.
“There’s been over 40 confirmed suicides where suicide notes have been linked to the abuses, but we’re aware of many other victims who have taken their own lives,” he said.
“We’ve had 10 [suicides] in the last 12 months and it is just painful and horrendous to open up the newspaper and see that somebody you know, you know was abused, hasn’t told their family, has taken their own life.”
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-05-19/child-abuse-inquiry-begins-ballarat-hearings/6479902
Even when Gerald Ridsdale was a young man he had the habits of a sinful old bastard.
Almost from the moment he was ordained in 1961, the Catholic Church in Australia’s most vicious offender was up to no good.
With his ear to the local gossip — perhaps even in the confessional when parishioners across western Victoria’s vast plains purged their fears and regrets — Father Gerry would be poised, waiting anxiously for the information he needed.
Word of a broken home, a death in the family, financial troubles; any weakness would do.
With this knowledge, Ridsdale — 81 on Wednesday — would swoop on grieving families, pretending to be offering wise counsel and pastoral relief. Doing the Lord’s work.
All the while, he was quietly preying on the parish’s children.
The more fragile the child the better for Father Gerry.
He has been convicted of abusing 54 children, but it is quietly speculated that Ridsdale’s victims can be counted in their hundreds.
While child abuse is cruel, Ridsdale was vicious, buggering most, revelling in the sexual depravity of using blunt instruments on children too young to play mini-colts football. Most victims were boys.
But when he tired of males, he would turn to girls.
When the royal commission into institutional child sex abuse marches tomorrow into Ballarat, the de facto capital of western Victoria, it will have been a long time coming for victims and parishioners alike.
To date, no national inquiry has tried to unpick the disaster of the Ballarat diocese that unfolded in the 1970s, 80s and 90s.
For while Ridsdale led the charge, he was not alone. In the mix were other convicted offenders including Brother Robert Best, Brother Edward Dowlan and Father Paul Ryan, who were aided by a grossly negligent church and, at times, a duplicitous police command. The bulk of the offending occurred in the 70s and 80s when Ronald Mulkearns was bishop of Ballarat.
Mulkearns, since retired, has been thrown under a bus by the church hierarchy in Australia, accused of destroying documents that would help piece together how such abuse could be covered up over decades.
Mulkearns, about the same age as Ridsdale, was the man who, once notified about the offending, was responsible for dealing with the offenders.
To say the modern church is outraged by the actions of the then pope’s man in Ballarat is an understatement.
“To say I took no action is wrong. I sent them for counselling. I can’t help if they blame me for what happened,’’ Mulkearns said in a recent interview.
“I regret terribly what happened. I wish I knew then what I know now because I would’ve done things differently.’’
The travesty of the Ballarat offending was that at the stroke of a pen on many, many occasions, offenders were simply shifted to a new parish. Ballarat one day, Edenhope the next. Things would go to custard in Inglewood, next stop Swan Hill.
All with the rubber stamp of the diocese.
For Peter Blenkiron, the next three weeks in Ballarat will be excruciating. He was abused at the age of 11 at Ballarat’s St Patrick’s College by Christian Brother Edward Dowlan, who was everything but a Christian. Now aged 65, Dowlan has admitted abusing boys at St Alipius in Ballarat in 1971, St Patrick’s College in Ballarat in 1973 and 1974, Warrnambool Christian Brothers College in 1975-76, Chanel College in Geelong in 1980 and Cathedral College, East Melbourne, between 1982 and 1988.
Blenkiron admits that he still struggles to cope with the effects of the abuse but is committed to speaking out because the alternative is watching his generation disappear, succumbing to suicide and drug and alcohol abuse.
“A lot of the stuff doesn’t even make the death notices because it’s too hard for the families, which is understandable,’’ Blenkiron laments. “Change is possible. It will be difficult. But to not do it will cause generational genocide.”
He says it’s not just the survivors of the abuse in Ballarat who are hurting but also their families, and these secondary victims also need support. “The ripple effect isn’t a ripple effect in Ballarat. It’s an atomic bomb.”
The impact of the abuse was immense, with the diocese covering several thousands of square kilometres — all the way to the South Australian and NSW borders.
The church, certainly until the 80s, dominated a region that was strongly old-school Irish Catholic, but so vast was the abuse that it was as if the church used the pedophiles as pin cushions across western Victoria.
The pins were moved whenever word spread that the priest was a predator.
For Blenkiron, like so many others, there is vastly more at stake than money, even if the diocese almost went broke under the weight of the offending.
“When you address this from a bottom-line point of view and don’t incorporate the values, you end up with trying to limit liability, save money, which is what the Towards Healing and the Melbourne Response did,’’ he says.
“It was about those two things, limiting liability, saving face, giving people some money, sign off, don’t mention it. That’s what used to happen.”
Blenkiron would like to see a national redress scheme trialled in Ballarat, along the lines of one for returned servicemen with post-traumatic stress disorder.
“Everyone says it’s too hard. Keep people out of jail, keep people alive, save the community money, change the culture. It’s a simple message.”
Francis Sullivan is the chief executive of the Truth, Justice and Healing Council, which is co-ordinating the Catholic Church’s response to the royal commission.
He believes the church leadership is still struggling with the backlash and agrees there needs to be a national redress scheme and an independent umpire who investigates and determines what the compensation should be.
“The Catholic Church will pay its full weight just like every other institution that has to, but it needs to be administered independently because the days of the Catholic Church investigating itself are over,’’ he says.
“I think the magnitude of the anger and disenchantment, not only in the community but in the Catholic community, has surprised, if not shocked, some of the leaders.”
He thinks that even though the church put redress schemes in place years ago, that effort has not taken away the anger people have towards the church.
“Its history is shameful and confronting and I think the royal commission and the reactions that have happened both publicly and privately demonstrate that, and I think that’s been again a real … learning, awareness, awakening,’’ Sullivan says.
“I think the church leadership has also recognised that an overly legalistic and risk management type of approach that was adopted in the past is just not suitable for a church and that real commitment to survivors and their families is a lifelong pastoral commitment.”
Yet Sullivan’s views are not always embraced by the modern church leadership, which, despite the white noise, has worked assiduously to right some of the wrongs.
The Melbourne Response adopted in the Archdiocese of Melbourne at the behest of former archbishop George Pell — despite some flaws — has been judged by those who know as being generally generous and biased towards the victims.
Much of the criticism has come from the fact that the weight of suffering has been so profound that few victims could be expected to respond with thanks toward the church. Indeed, why would they?
For the next three weeks, the royal commission will attempt to unpick the disaster that has been the Ballarat diocese.
The scope of the first hearing into the diocese includes St Alipius Primary School, St Alipius Parish, St Patrick’s College and St Patrick’s Christian Brothers Boys’ Primary School. At each school offending occurred.
It will also potentially hear evidence from offenders and seek to understand the extent of the damage to the community.
Shireen Gunn is the manager of Ballarat’s Centre Against Sexual Assault. CASA runs fortnightly support groups for male survivors of institutional abuse and Gunn says the group has just “grown and grown”.
She says there is anxiety among the groups about the commission and an air of expectation. “We have got some very heavy few weeks about to descend on our town,” she says.
Not surprisingly, she says CASA expects other survivors to come forward and make contact once the royal commission starts, but many of the abused are now dead. “We have a very high suicide rate … That’s what needs to basically stop.
“How that stops is people (being) able to reach out and be supported.”
Like all social catastrophes, the implications are local, national and even international.
It is certain news of the Ballarat hearings will filter quickly, if not immediately, to the Vatican.
Like Ridsdale, Pell is a Ballarat boy. While Ridsdale is wicked, Pell used his towering intellect to become, effectively, the Vatican’s treasurer. This makes him one of the world’s most influential Australians. Ever.
When Ridsdale appeared in court in 1993 for the first time to face charges, Pell naively supported his priestly brother.
Pell had shared a house with Ridsdale for about a year from early 1973 at the St Alipius Presbytery, next door to the primary school, where some of the offending had occurred.
By then, Pell was climbing the church’s equivalent of a greasy pole and was an auxiliary bishop of Melbourne.
“It was simply a gesture on my part,” Pell later lamented.
During a recent Victorian parliamentary inquiry into child sex abuse, both Pell and incumbent Melbourne Archbishop Denis Hart criticised Mulkearns and former archbishop of Melbourne Frank Little over their handling of abuse.
Those who understand the gravity of this will look back at these words as probably the most significant of the entire parliamentary inquiry.
While the inquiry served a purpose, it also seemed to become bogged down in its own self-importance, leaping on “revelations’’ that were in fact old news.
There is no doubt Pell and Hart have made mistakes, but, conspiracies aside, they have also done more than most to address the systemic failures, which almost exclusively occurred under the watch of Little and Mulkearns.
Little is dead. But it was clear from the evidence that he covered up abuse. Mulkearns, meanwhile, was accused by Pell, under parliamentary privilege, of destroying crucial church documents.
The Australian has unsuccessfully tried to interview Mulkearns, who failed to give evidence to the parliamentary inquiry because of a recent stroke. Until late 2013 at least, he had been saying mass in the diocese.
For Blenkiron, abused so long ago by Dowlan, the royal commission is difficult but necessary.
“It’s going to be difficult because we’re talking about authority figures in the judicial system, and it was authority figures that got us as kids,’’ he says.
“It’s a necessary pain … and I’m motivated by having nobody else die. Too many people have died.”
No one is sure of how many people have died after being abused. Police have made attempts to create a list detailing the number of suicides but The Australian understands that it is most likely inaccurate.
What is certain is that hundreds of people were abused in the Ballarat diocese, and most of these victims were so spiritually damaged that their lives will have been laced with misery.
If they are still alive.
Maitland-Newcastle Catholic diocese exposed after ‘fiercely resisting” a child sex victim in court
11 Jul 2017
MAITLAND-Newcastle Catholic diocese “fiercely resisted” paying compensation to the victim of a notorious child sex offender teacher in 2005 despite internal legal advice in 1990 conceding his victims would have “a pretty good case” to sue the church, royal commission documents released on Monday show.
The teacher’s trail of destruction through the Hunter over several decades included a parting gesture to the church a year before his death – his evidence to the 2005 court case saying he warned the diocese he was a convicted child sex offender before it employed him in 1974.
His crimes against children included threatening a 10-year-old boy victim that he would “kill your mum” if the boy told her about the serious sexual assaults.
Documents released by the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse show the teacher’s evidence on February 16, 2005 caused Catholic Church Insurance (CCI) less than a week later to refuse to cover the diocese for any claims by the teacher’s victims, and increased the substantial compensation ultimately paid to 10 victims because of the diocese’s liability.
Told: Former Maitland-Newcastle Bishop Michael Malone was told Catholic Church Insurance refused to cover the diocese for claims initiated by victims of a paedophile teacher.
The documents show CCI advised the then Maitland-Newcastle Bishop Michael Malone that “the dilemma we now face is the difficulty of defending the actions of the diocese, who allegedly allowed a known sex offender to work as a teacher in the Catholic education system”.
While it had originally planned to cover the diocese for claims against the teacher and was “conscious of its obligation to support the diocese in these difficult circumstances”, the Catholic insurer said “new information which has recently come to light” caused it to change its position.
It followed an affidavit by the teacher, who cannot be named by order of the royal commission, that he told Catholic Education Office directors Monsignor Frank Coolahan and Monsignor Vince Dilley during employment interviews in 1974 that he was convicted of sexually assaulting young boys at a Hunter public school in 1962.
The teacher, known by the royal commission as GKI, was a student at Marist Brothers, Maitland in the 1940s.
GKI was convicted in 1989 of sexually assaulting two boys, aged 10, at a Hunter Catholic school. But documents held by the Newcastle Herald, and others released by the royal commission on Monday, show parents raised the alarm about GKI on at least three occasions in the 1980s, including reports to the Catholic Education Office.
The documents include a report to the then Bishop Leo Clarke in 1990 by a church committee headed by the then Monsignor Philip Wilson, and tasked with reporting on the diocese’s handling of the teacher’s case.
The committee found serious gaps in the diocese’s child protection protocols, including a reluctance to include details of alleged sexual misconduct on a teacher’s personnel file.
“It would seem that if a teacher faced with allegations of sexual abuse resigns, there is nothing to guarantee that he/she will not be employed at some time in the future in a Catholic school in another diocese, or indeed in this diocese, given the reluctance to place information regarding the allegations in the personnel file,” Monsignor Wilson’s committee found.
It recommended that “personnel files contain all documents related to allegations, charges, convictions in relation to sexual abuse”.
The committee report noted that GKI had to be ordered by his probation officer to stay away from the church, the school and the children after he harassed children at Mass, followed the school bus and approached them in the street.
“Parishioners were extremely angry when they discovered that one of the teacher’s former parish priests had testified on his behalf at the court case in which the teacher had pleaded guilty,” Bishop Clarke was told.
“It would seem that there has been no attempt by the parish, school or Catholic Education Office to ascertain whether the victims have suffered financial hardship because of the events which have occurred since the time of the abuse.”
A note at the bottom of the report warned Bishop Clarke that parents had the right to sue the Catholic Education Office and the diocese for “failing to adequately protect their children”.
“Our legal consultant suggests that the parents in this case would have a pretty good case if they chose to act,” the note said.
But when one of the 10-year-old boys whose complaints led to GKI’s conviction for child sex offences in 1989 tried to sue the diocese for compensation in 2005, his case was “fiercely resisted”, his barrister Andrew Morrison, SC, said in a report on the case in 2009.
Mr Morrison on Monday said he was “not at all surprised” to learn the diocese knew GKI’s victims had a “pretty good case” to sue the church, based on its knowledge it had employed a child sex offender to put in charge of young children.
“The Catholic Church doesn’t appear overall to have learnt the lessons from what has occurred and been revealed, although there are significant changes in some areas and it is not the only institution to have been found wanting,” Mr Morrison said.
“It’s got a long, long way to go. There are still some very ugly attitudes among some decision-makers.”
Another Former high ranking parish priest accused of child sex abuse
A RETIRED Catholic parish priest who stands accused of several child sexual abuse offences was excused from appearing in Lismore Local Court on Tuesday where his case was mentioned.
Richard St John Cattell, 77, who now lives on the Gold Coast, faces nine historic charges including intercourse with a male between 10 and 17 years old as well as aggravated indecent assault with a boy under his authority.
Cattell served as a parish priest at several NSW parishes in the 1970s and 1980s before being promoted to Vicar-General of the Diocese of Parramatta in the early 1990s.
The offences allegedly occurred during Cattel’s time as a parish priest at various NSW parishes in Sydney and surrounds.
Prosecutor Luke Wiggins told the court on Tuesday the “bulk” of the alleged offences occurred in the Hawkesbury region on the Central Coast, while some of the charges occured at other locations such as Mollymook on the South Coast.
Magistrate David Heilpern adjourned the matter to Penrith Local Court on July 28.
Cattell was excused from appearing at the next court date if legally represented.
https://www.northernstar.com.au/news/former-high-ranking-parish-priest-accused-of-child/3201946/
In Mildura in 1972, Detective Constable Denis Ryan sought to charge a priest, Monsignor John Day, for sex offences against children. Ryan had obtained a number of statements from victims. The allegations were of a serious type — acts of gross indecency, buggery, rape, sexual assault.
It would have been the first time a Catholic cleric was charged with child sex offences in Victorian criminal history.
This unhappy story had its roots in an event on the streets of St Kilda in 1956, when Ryan as a young constable in the company of two more senior officers, detained Day, then a priest at Apollo Bay, after the priest was found drunk and semi-naked in his car in the company of two prostitutes. Ryan wondered why Day had not been charged at the time and was told by his sergeant, “Short of murder, no Catholic priest could be charged with any offence in Victoria.”
Detective Sergeant Jim Barritt, was a member of the group and was a close friend of Day’s. Barritt set himself up essentially as Day’s protector. Ryan did not inform Barritt of his inquiries and referred them to the most senior police officer in the area, Superintendent Jack McPartland at Swan Hill. McPartland ordered Ryan off the case and instructed him to hand over all statements to Barritt’s partner in crime, Superintendent Alby Irwin.
But Ryan would not let the matter go and continued to make inquiries and take statements from victims. In all 14 victims came forward before Ryan was forced out.
Ryan claimed he could have obtained statements from 100 victims. We now know Day has been the subject of more than 100 Towards Healing claims. I believe he had been an active paedophile for 50 years. He died unpunished in 1978.
Enter then Superintendent John O’Connor who travelled to Mildura with his sidekick Chief Inspector Harvey Child. They were “toe-cutters”, then Chief Commissioner Reg Jackson’s special investigators. Initially O’Connor offered Ryan an inducement, a promotion to the rank of detective sergeant and Barritt’s job in Mildura. Ryan knocked him back. That was when the shit hit the fan.
Ryan was ostracised within the force. O’Connor tried to fit up Ryan with disciplinary charges that were laughable and never got off the ground. He ordered Ryan’s transfer back to Melbourne, something he knew Ryan would not cop. O’Connor effectively destroyed Ryan’s career. Ryan left the force in 1972.
I co-wrote the book Unholy Trinity with Ryan. He came to my home and for four months we sifted through files and sat in my little office putting his story together. When he arrived he presented as a deeply anxious character. He spoke of nightmares, insomnia and lived with the almost constant onset of panic attacks. There was no doubt in my mind he was suffering the symptoms of post-traumatic stress and had done so for decades. Never mind that he had once been one of them, the cops had really done a number on him. A hamburger with the lot, in their dark parlance.
The book was published in 2013 and was received as a submission to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse in 2014. Ryan gave evidence to the commission in December 2015. His evidence was not challenged, he was not cross-examined. Rather, he simply read sections of his statement into the record at the commission. In the space of a morning’s proceedings, Ryan finally received the vindication he had sought since 1972.
Outside the courtroom, a long line of senior police, including the current Victoria Police Chief Commissioner Graham Ashton, stepped forward to express regret and offer their apologies.
The simple fact of the matter is Ryan need not have waited so long.
For many years prior to giving evidence to the commission, Ryan hammered away at Victoria Police, demanding answers. He was roughly ignored and the door remained shut on what I regard as the force’s darkest secret, the protection it afforded clerical paedophiles.
A Victorian independent MLA for Sunraysia, Russell Savage, decided to take up the cudgels on Ryan’s behalf. Savage was a former cop and had met Ryan and knew Ryan was telling the truth. He raised the Day investigation and Ryan’s disgraceful treatment in Victorian parliament. The then police minister, Tim Holding, requested VicPol conduct an internal review of the matter.
Ryan thought finally the wheel had turned in his favour. Surely an investigation by Chief Commissioner Christine Nixon would end his suffering and provide some form of succour. After all, it was 2006 and a raft of priests and clerics had been convicted of child sex offending, many of them in the Ballarat Diocese.
But despite Nixon’s investigation the big lie persisted. She responded with a letter in response to Savage’s inquiry in the parliament. The penultimate paragraph of that letter reads: “Following examination of this extensive statement by former Assistant Commissioner O’Connor, I am completely satisfied with the conduct of the investigations into the Day matter and that Denis Ryan resigned from Victoria Police of his own accord.”
This was the same O’Connor who had tried to fit Ryan up and who had ultimately conspired with bishop Ronald Mulkearns in Ballarat to pervert the course of justice by not charging Day and demanding Mulkearns merely move the perverted priest out of Mildura into another parish and a fresh group of unsuspecting children.
At the time of writing the book, we did not know the contents of O’Connor’s statement. We knew it existed but despite a successful application to VCAT for the release of police documents, O’Connor’s statement remained under lock and key. Now that we have seen it, we know why it was withheld.
O’Connor’s statement, sworn by him in 2006 when he was 90 years of age, was a litany of lies from a man prepared to perjure himself to the grave. When sections of the statement were read into the record by counsel assisting the Royal Commission, the public gallery burst into laughter, so ludicrous and outrageous was it.
Among the more extraordinary claims in the statement, O’Connor stated there were two Father John Days in Victoria and since 1956 Denis Ryan had battled under the misapprehension of mistaken identity. It was a lie and provably so.
According to her letter in 2006, Nixon relied almost entirely on O’Connor’s statement to form the view that the Day investigation which saw the priest removed from the Mildura parish but not charged, sent off to another parish where he would offend against children again, was a legitimate one and that Ryan had resigned of his own accord.
If you think that’s rough on Ryan then imagine what Day’s victims were going through. They had been told again they did not matter and the profound indignities they suffered at the hands of Day did not happen.
Comment was sought from Christine Nixon. She referred my questions to Victoria Police.
The trouble with that is Victoria Police have already conducted their inquiries. After the release of Unholy Trinity, former Chief Commissioner Mick Miller contacted his successor, Graham Ashton and urged him to read the book. Ashton did and then demanded the police files. He sifted through the files and quickly formed the view the Day investigation was a farce and that Ryan had been at best very poorly treated.
James Fraser Darling member of the Spartacus Club 33 years FOR THE SCOT WHO PREYED ON THAI KIDS
Sentenced to 33 years for paedophile offences in Thailand. Released on appeal and deported. Served a grand total of 2 years inside.
Darling, 56, who lived in Morningside, Edinburgh, before going to the Far East, is working in a private language school in Zhuhai in south China.
We discovered the pervert – the son of an Oxford don – posing as a respectable teacher in the same week as pop paedophile Gary Glitter jetted back into Britain.
But while Glitter, 64, was placed on the UK sex offenders’ register, Darling is subject to no monitoring or restrictions.
At his school in Zhuhai, Darling, who is paid pounds 450 a month, refused to speak to the Sunday Mail.
School principal Li Lulin said she knew nothing about Darling’s crimes – but would not sack him.
She said: “Give him a break. His performance here has been good. I won’t tell parents.
“It’s not up to the Chinese government to punish him for his past. His contract finishes in September. I’ll let him go peacefully.”
A Foreign Office spokswoman said: “It is a matter for the Chinese authorities if they admit him to the country. We wouldn’t necessarily know if Mr Darling was there.”
At the Chinese Embassy in London, a spokeswoman refused to say whether any action would be taken to remove Darling.
Fraser-Darling and other Westerners allegedly molested the boys at the picnics and in Fraser- Darling’s cottage near the poor village of Rawai.
The boys showed investigators photos of themselves naked with the man they knew as “Uncle James”.
More nude pictures were found at Fraser-Darling’s home, along with a Spartacus magazine article on “boy love” written by a J.Darling. Fraser-Darling denies being the author.
Fraser-Darling, who went to posh Repton school, was arrested in November 1995 after a colleague at the university reported him.
He was about to leave Thai-land for Cambodia when police swooped.
The pervert was taken from prison to court in his brown jail uniform early yesterday. His ankles were chained.
Fraser-Darling admitted he was a paedophile.
But he denied the charges, claiming he was a scapegoat in Thailand’s “witch- hunt” against child sex perverts.
Fraser-Darling’s father is Scots academic Sir Frank Fraser-Darling, an expert on Scottish birds and Hebridean wildlife.
Someone was pulling strings to get him out of Thailand.
A PAEDOPHILE has arrived in Scotland to claim a family inheritance – still lying about his sleazy past.
Toff James Fraser Darling, 51, is in the Highlands to get what is left of his family’s cash after being freed from a Bangkok jail.
But while the former teacher claims he won an appeal against all convictions, the truth is that the Thais kicked him out after only reducing his jail sentence.
Fraser Darling was left a small fortune while languishing behind bars and used some of the money to win his freedom.
Now the pervert, who preyed on young boys in the seedy resort of Phuket, is staying at an pounds 18-a-night guest house in Forres near his former family home while he plans his future.
Local residents are unaware that he is a convicted paedophile.
Fraser Darling’s father, Sir Frank, died in 1979 at the age of 73 after his retirement as chief officer of the Imperial Bureau of Animal Genetics in Edinburgh.
Edinburgh-born Christina was his third wife and met him when she was taking care of his children after his second wife’s death.
Since Fraser Darling’s arrest he has been too ashamed to contact his brother Richard, 52, a senior Foreign Office intelligence officer, and his sister Francesca, 46, who lives in the USA.
He says he has spent his time in Scotland trying to register for work after a lifetime working abroad in Thailand, Iran, Sri Lanka and El Salvador.
THE paedophile son of a Scottish knight was jailed for 33 years in Thailand yesterday for preying on young boys.
Teacher James Fraser Darling, 47, whose father, a leading academic – was an authority on Scottish wildlife, was chained by the ankles as he was led away to the cells wearing regulation brown prison shirt and shorts.
The appalling sex acts he was convicted of were carried out on boys from a sea gypsy community at a Thai beach resort.
He was sentenced to five years each on nine counts of separating children from their parents.
Darling’s mother, Lady Christina Darling of Forres, Moray, died while he was on trial.
His brother Richard, a senior intelligence officer specialising in the war against drugs, works for the Foreign Office in Britain and did not attend the court.
Richard Ogilby Leslie Fraser Darling Counsellor, Foreign and Commonwealth Office.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_depth/uk/2001/birthday_honours_2001/1390918.stm …
Pervert Darling, a London University arts graduate, travelled the world teaching in Brazil and Sri Lanka before arriving in Thailand four years ago.
A book published by the Spartacus organisation – a European group linked to paedophilia – was found in his house, and a chapter inside, written by J Darling, described Roman orgies with young boys.
However, Darling denied that he was the author of the work.
The court’s decision was welcomed by FACE, the coalition against Child Exploitation, which has been monitoring suspected paedophiles in Thailand.
James Fraser Darling
Son of Sir Frank Fraser Darling
Brother of Richard Ogilby Leslie Fraser Darling (MI6!)
1998 Sentenced to 33 years (originally even longer) for paedophile offences in Thailand.
Released on appeal (sentence reduced)and deported.
Served a grand total of 2 years inside.
Apparently now teaching English again in China, or was.
1997
http://www.thefreelibrary.com/I+BOUG…rt.-a061003477
http://www.thefreelibrary.com/CHILD+…ld.-a061022024
1998
http://www.thefreelibrary.com/33+YEA……-a060566664
http://www.thefreelibrary.com/33+yea…DS.-a060677225
http://www.engagingnews.us/select/Si…r-Darling.html
2001
http://www.thefreelibrary.com/KID+SE……-a077244498
http://www.thefreelibrary.com/LIES+O……-a077244478
2008 (Re him teaching in China)
http://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/Article.aspx/802420
http://www.forumosa.com/taiwan/viewt…hp?f=8&t=73801
List of MI6 officers (Richard Darling listed)
http://webcache.googleusercontent.co…&gbv=2&ct=clnk
Given OBE in 2001
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_depth/…01/1390918.stm
Frank Fraser Darling
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Fraser_Darling
http://desperatereader.blogspot.co.u…nk-fraser.html
http://littletoller.co.uk/2012/06/wh…ned-to-bobbie/
http://www.oxforddnb.com/templates/a…ersion=2011-01
Three of the Salvation Army’s most senior commanders are related to alleged or convicted abusers
26 Apr 2017
Three of the Salvation Army’s most senior commanders are closely related to men who have been accused of, charged with or convicted of sexual offences, including against children.
The revelation demonstrates how deeply the church child-sex scandal has affected the tight-knit Salvation Army community and comes after a royal commission uncovered evidence of horrific assaults allegedly committed by its officers and staff.
The commission identified at least 19 alleged child abusers within the Salvation Army over recent decades, while an ongoing police investigation into boys’ homes run by the church has led to two arrests so far.
WOODBURY, MAJOR ERROL
Major Errol Woodbury of the Salvation Army became a police chaplain in 1984. In 1988 he was appointed full-time as a senior chaplain a position he held until January 1995. Since then Major Woodbury has continued as an honorary chaplain. He is also actively involved in pastoral care ministry for the Salvation Army.
https://pansw.org.au/about/life-members/life-member-biographies/woodbury-major-errol
The Salvation Army’s national chief secretary, Colonel Mark Campbell, is the son-in-law of a former major, Errol Woodbury, who was the subject of “historical allegations” that led to his being stripped of his position in 2015.
Queensland’s divisional commander, Lieutenant Colonel David Godkin, is the son-in-law of a former Salvation Army soldier, Maurice Press, who is serving 5½ years in jail for 11 counts of sexual assault on a child.
The Australian has previously revealed that Ray Pethybridge, whose son Kelvin is chief secretary-in-charge of the church’s powerful eastern territory, will face court next month charged with 14 sexual offences, including indecent assaults on girls under 16.
Two of Mr Pethybridge’s alleged victims said they grew up in the Salvation Army but left the church after they came forward claiming to have been assaulted
“They just didn’t do anything about it,” said one woman, whose family reported the allegations to the Salvation Army in the 1980s.
“I don’t know whether they just turned a blind eye and didn’t know anything about it but I also think there was a mentality back then that if you ask God’s forgiveness … you will be forgiven.
The second woman said: “They like to think they have (changed) but how can they? To me, the Salvation Army has lost all humanity in the way we have been treated.”
More than 250 of those who gave evidence in private to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse said they were abused in recent decades in children’s homes run by the Salvation Army.
Evidence before the commission shows Mr Woodbury was involved in handling claims of physical and mental abuse against one such child in 1993.
In a statement, the church said it had “commissioned an independent external investigation into historical allegations made against Mr Woodbury, with the findings from that investigation being provided to both the Queensland Police and the NSW Office of the Children’s Guardian.
“A decision was made to terminate Mr Woodbury’s officership in 2015. Mr Woodbury is strictly prohibited from representing the Salvation Army in any official capacity,” the statement said.
The Salvation Army has previously said it “co-operated with a police investigation and … criminal proceedings” against Press, who was jailed in November.
A Salvos spokesman said “a number of significant changes to ensure policies and procedures remain best-practice’’ had been enacted. “The Salvation Army would like to again sincerely and unreservedly apologise to survivors, their families and the Australian public for serious past failures.”
Isn’t it funny how sometimes odd little coincidences occur in life?
Take this one for example – the Uncle, Cousins and Brother of the arch=pedophile Clarence Henry Howard Osborne – aka Clarrie Osborne – all lived withing a short walk or a decent stone’s throw from the Anglican Church Grammar School in East Brisbane, then known as the Church of England Grammar School, but best known as Churchie.
Gee that’s interesting Archie, I hear you say, but Brisbane’s a small town and sh*t happens and what does it all mean?
Plenty is the answer, especially in a town of well over a million that ain’t that small at all, but hold your breath and I’ll tell you why in a few minutes.
But for now just take a gawk and get the lay of the land.
First up, Clarrie’s Dad’s brother Merv – aka Mervyn Howard-Osborne – a lawyer about Brisvegas town.
He lived at number 11 Longlands Street, East Brisbane, a short jog or a mid-range gunshot from Churchie.
Cool Arch, I hear you say. So what?
Just ask the Bovver Boy.
The joint below is where Clarrie’s brother Len – Leonard James Howard-Osborne – used to live, back in the days when Clarrie was in the Army.
The army? Clarrie?
I’ll tell you more about that in a minute too.
First though, have a peek at where Len used to live. It’s even closer to Churchie than Uncle Merv and the cuzzie bro’s joint.
De La Salle College at Revesby a ‘hot spot’ of paedophilia, claims Sydney lawyer
July 17, 2017
DE LA Salle College at Revesby Heights has been labelled a “hot spot of paedophilia” by a Sydney lawyer who is working through thousands of historical child sex abuse cases.
The revelation about the Catholic boys school comes after countless men came forward with allegations of being sexually abused by numerous staff at the school in the 1970s and ’80s.
Among the worst offenders was Brother Anselm Hallam, also known as Tom Hallam, who was allegedly moved to the Sydney school from one in Melbourne after sexual abuse complaints were made against him.
Mr Hallam died in the early 1990s aged 92 before his charges could be heard in court.
John Comerford told NewsLocal that at age 18 he went to the Revesby school with a loaded shotgun to confront Mr Hallam, who allegedly raped him seven years earlier, but was told the teacher was dead.
Jason Parkinson, of Porters Lawyers, said an article that referenced the school in January led to about 15 men contacting him and saying they had been assaulted at the school.
“I think that says a lot about the number of children being abused,” he said.
“The men have complained to us that Brother Anselm would routinely molest the entire class of children by having them stand up at the side of their desk, and have them unbutton their shorts and then go from one child to the next.
“We consider it to be a hot spot of paedophilia in Sydney.”
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