Our Shame: Royal Commission into sexual abuse of children

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SunraysiaDaily (sunraysia.com.au)

April 4, 2013, 4 a.m.

By Graeme O’Neill

ONE of the first known victims of a notorious Mildura paedophile priest has warned that the Royal Commission into the sexual abuse of children, which opened yesterday, would confront Mildura with uncomfortable questions about the role of some of its citizens and institutions in covering up the priest’s abuse of children over 15 years.

As a 16-year-old schoolgirl in 1971, “Nancy”, who now lives under an assumed name in South Australia, believes she was the first person in Victoria to make a formal complaint of sexual abuse against a Catholic priest.

Interviewed by former Mildura detective Denis Ryan, she described how the then-head of Mildura’s Sacred Heart Catholic parish, Monsignor John Day, had molested her when she was a 12-year-old boarding-school student at Mildura’s Convent of Mercy in 1967.

Day, who died in 1978, had an ally and protector in the person of Senior Detective J. P. Barritt, head of the local office of the Criminal Investigation Branch in Mildura during Day’s term in the parish.

With the protection of Barritt and others, Day was never charged with any offence.

Bishop Peter Connors acknowledged that he was convinced that Day had sexually assaulted young boys and girls in his care, and apologised to Mildura for Day’s crimes.

According to victim support group Broken Rites, Bishop Connors has admitted that Day was probably a serial paedophile before and during his term as head of Sacred Heart Parish in Mildura.

Broken Rites describes Day as a hypocrite beneath his veneer of piety. In his first public comment, published in Sunraysia Daily in 1957, he decried the local Mardi Gras parade, featuring bikini-clad girls, as “degrading, indecent­ and unchristian”.

Day headed the Sacred Heart Parish between 1956-1972, when former Mildura Detective Denis Ryan’s investigations, including interviews with “Nancy” and 14 teenage male victims, threatened to expose his crimes.

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