GERARD HENDERSON’S MEDIA WATCH DOG – ISSUE NO. 348
10 February 2017
This document, titled Proportion of priests and non- ordained religious subject to a claim of child sexual abuse: 1950-2010, was prepared by the Royal Commission.
As Table 3, Table 4 and Table 5 demonstrate, the overwhelming majority of allegations relate to alleged offences which took place in the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s and 1980s – that is, 35 years ago and beyond. Overwhelmingly, they are not allegations about alleged child sexual abuse which took place between 1990 and today. However, you would never know this watching David Speers talk to Paul Collins on Sky News last night.
Documents prepared by the Catholic Archdiocese of Sydney demonstrate the point. Note that Counsel Assisting’s submission was based on material provided to the Royal Commission by the Catholic archdioceses and dioceses of Australia. The following graph prepared by the Catholic Archdiocese of Sydney (CAS) illustrates the point.
Number of incidents of sexual abuse by decade of occurrence based on claims received between 1980 and 2015 for which CAS was the relevant church authority for the claim is shown by the graph at the website.
Responses