HYPOCRITES REVISTED

A lot has changed since Eros published "Moral Hypocrisy" in 2000, a booklet detailing the child sex offences of more than 450 church clergy in Australian and overseas.

Churches are finally now starting to apologise to victims, providing compensation and removing child sex offenders from their religious posts when complaints are made, instead of just moving them to other parishes, as they did in the past. The Anglican Church has even decided to adopt a national register of church workers accused, but never charged, with sex offences.

Outside the churches, major steps are also being taken to address child sexual abuse, like the recent national Police Operation Auxin, which netted hundreds of offenders, laying over 2000 charges ranging from possession of child pornography to rape, serious sexual assault, child sex tourism and the creation of child sex pornography images. The offenders came from many walks of life, including child care providers, teachers,police officers, doctors, child welfare officers, defence personnel, an assistant to a state MP and an Anglican priest.

However,when you look at all the child sex cases reported in the media, it's striking to note that not one single offender comes from the adult sex industry!
While media coverage of Auxin was comprehensive, almost no mention was made about the fact that for the last decade every state government in Australia has diverted much needed police resources away from child pornography, more than $20 million, to focus instead on prosecuting sex shop owners for selling federally classified,adults-only, X-rated videos.

Meanwhile,a year before Operation Auxin, Eros initiated a joint venture with the international sex industry program Adult Sites Against Child Pornography (ASACP), which has been responsible for 27 arrests overseas. The reality is the adult sex industry is strongly opposed to all child pornography and all sex crimes, especially those committed against children.

When it comes to child sex offences, we're shocked that so many are committed by religious leaders and we can't understand why politicians aren't clambering to do more about the problem. It must be the height of irony that the adult sex industry has spent more time and resources speaking up about this issue than any other organisation or individual in recent years.

After we published Moral Hypocrisy, we expected to see great changes in the prosecution of child sex crimes and, we hoped, a reduction in those associated with the churches but, as the following information shows,this has not been the case. Consequently, we feel compelled to provide an update on paedophilia, so readers can see just how many new charge shave been laid since 1999, against clergy and other pillars of our society.

Space limits us detailing every single case individually, so we've grouped them in sections. It's probably also worth mentioning that the Catholic Church in the US recently did their own internal audit into child sex crimes committed by their priests, finding more than 4,400 priests(that's 4 per cent of all US priests) were involved in crimes against more than 11,000 victims! Perhaps Australian churches need to undertake similar audits so the real number of offences can finally be quantified and, hopefully, dealt with appropriately.

The following have been questioned, are being investigated, allegations have been made against them or they've been charged with child sex crimes since 1999*:

• Lachlan Wallin, teacher from St Simon's Catholic Primary School being investigated for child pornography offences.
  
  
• Anglican Reverend John Crump, 58, questioned over child pornography.
  
  
• Three more priests from the Salesian order involved in sex crimes.
  
  
• Robert(Bob) Brandenburg charged in 1999 with repeatedly abusing and sodomising in excess of 80 young boys (committed suicide before trial)-- [more information on Brandenburg can be found below].
  
  
• New complainants come forward against Gerald Francis Ridsdale, jailed in 1990 4 for heinous crimes against children aged nine to 15, along with Christian Brothers Robert Best and Edward Dowlan.
  
  
• A Brisbane police officer facing 46 child pornography charges suicides in September 04.
  
  
• Music teacher, Gary Maxwell Featherstone charged with 62 child sex offences committed at YMCA camps.
  
  
• John Davies, highly placed executive officer with the Australian Taxation Office, is charged with sex slavery.
  
  
• Marist brother, John Maguire stands trial accused of 19 offences, including sexual assaults against four 11-year-old boys.
  
  
• Former WA Apex volunteer, Bernard Anthony Stuart Tynas accused of child sex abuse.
  
  
• Convicted paedophile and former Anglican priest Louis Victor Daniels is extradited to Tasmania to face fresh charges of sexually abusing adolescent boys.
  
  
• Former lay minister Cecil Neville is accused of indecent assault by three women; two were teenagers at the time of the incidents.
  
  
• Controversy surrounds Catholic Archbishop of Sydney, George Pell, with allegations of sex abuse made against him (though he was later exonerated by a church inquiry), he was known to have shared a house with notorious convicted paedophile priest Gerald Ridsdale and conceded victims of sex abuse committed by Catholic priests were required to "˜keep quite' if they accepted compensation. Pell has also publicly stated that, "abortion is a worse moral scandal than priests sexually abusing young people."
  
  
• Former scoutmaster Delville James Strickland is charged with 63 sex offences against children, some under 14 years of age.
  
  
• Boarding master Kevin George Guy, of Toowoomba Preparatory School, commits suicide on the day he is due to face charges of indecently dealing with a girl in Year 7. A second victim later came forward, both receiving large compensation claims.
  
  
• A former teacher from Melbourne's Xavier Catholic boys' school charged with child pornography in 2003.
  
  
• Julian Bruce Dever, teacher from an exclusive Catholic high school on the Gold Coast, charged with sexually abusing a former teenage student.
  
  
• Former AFL football legend, Barry Cable, investigated for sexually abusing a girl who at the time was aged 12 to 13.
  
  
• Former archdeacon of Seymour's Anglican Church in Victoria, Alan Sapsford, is charged with gross indecency, indecent assault and committing an indecent act with a child.
  
  
• Catholic priest Father James Fletcher, of the diocese of Maitland-Newcastle, charged with child sexual assault offences.
  
  
• Former Mount Isa Catholic Priest charged with 26 child sex offences.
  
  

The following have been found guilty, pleaded guilty or settled child sex crimes out of court since 1999*:

• Magistrate Michael Esmond Frederick convicted of sex with 15-year-old girl.
  
  
• Former top ranking Salesian priest, Father Julian Fox settles case involving sex abuse of two complainants.
  
  
• Salesian priest, David Rapson sentenced to two years jail for sex abuse and thechurch has paid out more than $35,000 to victims.
  
  
• Perth Catholic school teacher, Alan John Vella, from St Brigid's Primary School, was among five West Australian men to plead guilty to a total of nine counts of possessing, copying and selling illicit images of children, as part of Operation Auxin.
  
  
• Convicted paedophile Brian Perkins, allowed to work at St Anne's Special Catholic School in SA after his earlier convictions for child sex offences, is sentenced to more than 10 years jail for abusing 36 more students.
  
  
• Catholic priest Michael McArdle admits 62 counts of abusing 16 children and is sentenced to six years jail in 2003.
  
  
• Michael Crowley, co-author of the Tasmanian Anglican Church's 1998 report into child abuse, Not the Way of Christ serves one year of a two-and-a-half year sentence for sex offences against a teenage girl, aged under 13 when the offences began.
  
  
• Scout leader, Gregory John Kench, jailed for ten years for sexually abusing 13-year-old boy.
  
  
• Former Anglican priest, Garth Hawkins pleads guilty to child sex charges involving seven victims.
  
  
• Convicted paedophile and former Queensland Labor MP Bill D'Arcy is found guilty of more child sex offences.
  
  
• Kristian King, a former primary school teacher and babysitter, pleads guilty to making child pornography and later pleads guilty to 12 child sex charges, including sexual penetration and indecent acts with a four-year old.
  
  
• Two Wesley singing teachers, Trevor John Alexander and his wife Elspeth McKenzie, found guilty of ten and seven charges, respectively, relating to sex with a 14-year-old girl.
  
  
• Anglican priest Peter William Brazier pleads guilty in 2002 to seven sex charges against a 15-year-old boy. In 1994, Brazier had pleaded guilty to three counts of indecently assaulting another boy, at Tailem Bend-Menindie.
  
  
• Catholic priest in Tasmania pleads guilty to seven counts of indecently assaulting a girl aged 14-16 at the time.
  
  
• Former Melbourne priest Desmond Laurence Gannon gets a suspended jail sentence for indecently assaulting boys 20 years earlier.
• Church-going family man Robert George Marlow jailed for molesting 13-year-old boy in Fiji.
  
  
• Head of Catholic Church in Geelong pleads guilty to sex offences.
• Prominent Catholic priest, Father Paul McLauchlan convicted of sex with two teenage boys in his care.
  
  
• Former Catholic priest David Daniel found guilty of 16 sex offences against four victims, aged from 6 years, and pleads guilty to another two charges.
  
  
• Perth church volunteer, Ronald William Bartlett, pleads guilty to 13 sex charges involving boys aged nine to 12.
  
  
• Former Anglican rector Robert Ellmore, who had previous convictions for child sexual assault, pleads guilty to more sex offences, involving girls as young as five.
  
  
• Former Brisbane Anglican Church Grammar School teacher and previous Father of the Year, Frederick Roy Hoskins pleads guilty to 16 child sex offences committed against victims aged nine to 15.
  
  
• Convicted paedophile William Brook Whitelock, employed by Churchie Anglican Grammar School in Brisbane, pleads guilty to six charges relating to the sexual abuse of two students, aged 10 and 11.
  
  
• Former parish priest Neville Joseph Creen, of North Queensland, pleads guilty to 34 counts of indecent dealings with 20 girls, aged six to 12.
  
  
• Catholic priest, Father John Barry Gwillim, of Coburg, pleads guilty to nine sex abuse charges against a 15-year-old boy.
  
  
• Retired Hunter Valley Anglican priest, Father Allan Kitchingham, pleads guilty to five charges of assaulting a 13-year-old boy.
  
  
• Former Catholic priest, Vincent Kerin Kiss, pleads guilty to 11 counts of indecent assault and two of buggery committed against four boys, aged 13 to 15.
  
  
• Former Ipswich Grammar School teacher, Kim Buchanan, pleads guilty to morethan 100 child sex offences against eight male students, aged 13 to 16. Buchanan had also molested boys at Brisbane Boys' College.
  
  
• Former Victorian sect leader, Alistah Laishkochav, jailed for sexually abusing young girls then transferred to NSW to face five more warrants for sex offences.
  
  
• Former policeman Donal Lavery jailed for sexually abusing a girl from age nine till she was 16, along with trying to pervert the course of justice.
  
  
• Former schoolteacher Phillip Hazeldine, of Gippsland Grammar, found guilty of sexually assaulting five former students.
  
  
• Disgraced magistrate Peter Liddy, convicted of sex offences against boys, is jailed for 25 years.
  
  
• Sydney-based Marist Brother and teacher, Colgan Taylor pleads guilty to molesting two girls, one who was intellectually impaired, while working as a pastor in Queensland.
  
  
• Church minister from Gold Coast, Young Key Hain, found guilty of rape, digital rape and indecent dealing with a child under 16.
  
  
• Catholic priest, Father Adrian John Van Klooster pleads guilty 12 counts of indecently dealing with a child under 13 and four of recording the child and one of child pornography.
  
  
• John Litton Elliott, a church elder who later became an Anglican priest,pleads guilty to 10 counts of sodomy and 18 counts of indecent treatment of boys aged 10 to 13.
  
  
• Religious studies teacher, Michael Anton Murre, found guilty of six counts of indecent assault and two of buggery against a 15-year-old Scots College student.
  
  
• Christian Brother and deputy principal at St John Bosco College in Engadine, Paul Gerard Barrett, pleads guilty to 29 charges of sexual assault, and requests the court take a further 61 similar charges into account in sentencing, for offences related to six victims as young as 13.
• Teacher,sports coach and church group leader, convicted paedophile Gary John Riddle of Geelong, had his original sentence doubled by the Court of Appeal. He had previously pleaded guilty to 14 sexual offences against nine girls aged 10 to 16.
  
  
• Security firm operator and convicted paedophile, Terrence Peter Bobak, of the Sunshine Coast, had his sentence doubled by the Queensland Court of Appeal. Originally sentenced for one count each of carnal knowledge and deprivation of liberty and six counts of indecent dealing with three teenage girls.
  
  
• Former Baptist Church missionary, David John Gillard, pleads guilty in NSW court to 12 counts of indecency against four boys, all aged under-16,during four trips to the Philippines.
  
  
• Greek Orthodox priest Andreas Papadimitropoulos pleads guilty to one count of indecent assault against a 17-year-old female parishioner.
• Geoffrey Robert Dobbs, who coached gymnastics as a youth leader with two church groups in Brisbane, pleads guilty to 116 child sex offences involving dozens of young girls.
  
  
• Female Catholic high school teacher, Maria Agense Loughery, is found guilty of molesting one of her students then having a four-year relationship with the girl.
  

[*The vast majority of offences listed above occurred prior 1999, many of them dating back decades with the offenders only charged in recent years.]

The following are accused of turning a blind eye to child sex offences committed by those under their supervision:

• SA Anglican Archbishop Ian George resigns after ongoing child sex abuse scandal involving 143 victims and 58 possible church offenders who were part of a paedophile network working within the church.
  
  
• Former Governor-General Dr Peter Hollingworth, previously Archbishop of Brisbane, resigns as GG amidst allegations of child sex cover-ups and after telling one victim in 1998 that men's sexual urges were "only human". In May 2004, Hollingworth admitted he was wrong about child sex abuse and did not "understand the "˜emotional mechanics' of child sexual abuse and the long-term destructive effect on a victim's later life."
• NSW Bishop Michael Malone covers up child sex abuse.
  
  
• Catholic Church's Jesuit order admits using blocking tactics to frustrate victims of sexual abuse into dropping their claims.
  
  
• Boston's Cardinal Bernard Law was involved in the long-term cover up of serial paedophile priest John Geoghan.
  
  
• Baptist pastor Douglas Ray Ensbey pleads guilty to destroying evidence of the sexual abuse of a girl by church parishioner Mark Boyce.
  
  
• Catholic church priests and officials from the Fawkner North presbytery withheld information regarding church worker Robert Charles Blunden, who was potentially implicated in the unsolved murder of a 12-year-old boy in 1964. Blunden was convicted of 29 child abuse offences in 1997.
  
  
• Catholic Bishop of Cairns, James Foley, provides a pre-sentencing character reference for a former principle convicted of four counts relating to indecent dealings with an 11-year-old girl.
  
  

Compensation claims, inquiries and victims coming forward:

• The Anglican Church of SA facing a $63 million compensation bill for 70 alleged victims in a class action suit, while the SA Police investigate more than 800 historical complaints against 600 alleged paedophiles, including ones from the Anglican Church, two Catholic schools, the Scouts movement, the YMCA, South Australian surf lifesaving and the Salvation Army.
  
  
• More than 600 victims of physical, mental and sexual abuse occurring in a variety of institutions give evidence against Salvation Army's Gill Memorial Boy's Home in Goulburn.
  
  
• In the past 15 months, 104 new disclosures of sexual assault, bullying and harassment have surfaced, involving 75 members of the Anglican Church in Melbourne.
  
  
• Catholic lay lobby group, Voice of the Faithful, admits that credible abuse allegations have been made against several hundred priests in Australia, by more than 1300 victims and "˜this figure was understated'.
  
  
• Forty victims seek compensation from Anglican Church regarding church worker Robert Brandenberg, whom an inquiry found had abused 80 to 200 boys and who displayed photographs of the 200 boys on a pin board in his home.
  
  
• Catholic archbishop of Perth admits 39 complaints of sexual abuse, related to past events, have been lodged between 1998 and 2002.
• Anglican Diocese of Canberra and Goulburn apologises for abuse of three children in the care of St Saviour's.
  
  
• The Anglican Church sued by a 21-year-old man claiming he was sexually abused at an emergency women's shelter in the Diocese of Adelaide.
  
  
• US Catholic diocese of Portland Oregon settles more than 100 claims in the last four years, filing for bankruptcy in the process.
  
  
• The Roman Catholic archdiocese pays out more than $50,000 to victims of Father Ronald Dennis Pickering and the archbishop later appeals to members of Pickering's parish to come forward with information about his misconduct.
  
  
• The Archdiocese of Melbourne paid, or offered, more than $2 million in compensation to around 130 victims of sexual abuse by 22 priests.
  
  
• Catholic Church and Poor Sisters of Nazareth, in Brisbane, reach an out-of-court settlement with 18 victims of the orphanage, with up to $75,000 to be paid to each victim, dependant upon the level of physical and sexual abuse they endured.
  
  
• Former Catholic nun makes claim for compensation against Father James Barry Whelan for alleged sexual abuse he committed when she was a patient at St Vincent's Hospital.
  
  
• Archbishop of Brisbane, Phillip Aspinal admits receiving 157 complaints of sex abuse since his appointment in February 2002 (till May 2003), related to the Brisbane Anglican diocese.
  
  
• Tasmanian victims of child sex abuse perpetrated by three disgraced priests, including SA's notorious Bob Brandenburg, receive payouts of up to $60,000 each from the Tasmanian Anglican Synod.
  
  
• While police are now seizing property and assets of paedophiles for victim compensation, church assets have not been seized, even though many child sex crimes have been committed on church premises and infrastructure.

The following news sources were used in compiling the above listings:

The Age Newspaper, Federal Capital Press, Adelaide Advertiser, The Australian, Courier Mail, Herald Sun, Sydney Morning Herald, News Limited, Illawarra Mercury, ABC Online, Hobart Mercury, The West Australian, ABC TV's 7.30 Report, SBS Cutting Edge, Sunday Mail, Bay FM, Canberra Times.