“The new charges include the alleged rape of a boy under 13. The Australian bishops’ conference LIED? [said] in September 2023 that an internal Church investigation into Bishop Christopher Saunders had identified no potential victims under the age of 18.”
“The new charges include the alleged rape of a boy under 13. The Australian bishops’ conference LIED? [said] in September 2023 that an internal Church investigation into Bishop Christopher Saunders had identified no potential victims under the age of 18.”
1. It’s not uncommon for more victims to come forward after charges have been laid. A few bravely stepping out and getting results encourages more to come out of the wood work. It’s been 5 years since that investigation was undertaken. They can’t force victims who are not ready to come forward. No one had to lie, but they did have to hand over a report and draw a line with what they did have.
2. Broome is a very large and very remote place. Whole sections are completely cut off by the wet season for six months of the year and access to the remote Aboriginal communities and parishes there are only accessible by unsealed roads. I’m not kidding. Getting suitable qualified investigators up there is not cheap or easy.
3. There is a language barrier in Northern WA remote communities. English is usually not their first language and not many other outsiders speak the local aboriginal languages or Kriol. Adds extra layers of complications for coppers and the Church external investigators.
4. Trust of outsiders is a big problem up in that part of the world and the police aren’t everyone’s favourite. Couple that with cultural homophobia and the social and economic poverty in aboriginal communities and you have a confluence of factors that make a vulnerable group to exploit and to do so with some kind of impunity. In the old days we’d only find out a couple of years after the old codger had died and the obituaries soured.
“The new charges include the alleged rape of a boy under 13. The Australian bishops’ conference LIED? [said] in September 2023 that an internal Church investigation into Bishop Christopher Saunders had identified no potential victims under the age of 18.”
To me, this is pretty striking evidence that:
1-- the Church's investigations are ineffective
2-- very possibly, that's because victims don't trust the Church's investigations
Some missing context:
1. It’s not uncommon for more victims to come forward after charges have been laid. A few bravely stepping out and getting results encourages more to come out of the wood work. It’s been 5 years since that investigation was undertaken. They can’t force victims who are not ready to come forward. No one had to lie, but they did have to hand over a report and draw a line with what they did have.
2. Broome is a very large and very remote place. Whole sections are completely cut off by the wet season for six months of the year and access to the remote Aboriginal communities and parishes there are only accessible by unsealed roads. I’m not kidding. Getting suitable qualified investigators up there is not cheap or easy.
3. There is a language barrier in Northern WA remote communities. English is usually not their first language and not many other outsiders speak the local aboriginal languages or Kriol. Adds extra layers of complications for coppers and the Church external investigators.
4. Trust of outsiders is a big problem up in that part of the world and the police aren’t everyone’s favourite. Couple that with cultural homophobia and the social and economic poverty in aboriginal communities and you have a confluence of factors that make a vulnerable group to exploit and to do so with some kind of impunity. In the old days we’d only find out a couple of years after the old codger had died and the obituaries soured.