By CAM LUCADOU-WELLS
WIELDING a gun, stealing school funds and molesting children – no allegation was strong enough to dislodge parish priest Father Peter Searson from Doveton’s Holy Family Parish and school for 13 years.
Former student Julie Stewart told a Royal Commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse on 25 November that she was preyed on by Father Searson in the privacy of the Catholic confession box soon after he arrived in 1984.
Searson was the last of a string of four accused paedophile priests overseeing the Doveton parish from 1972-97.
During 12 months, Searson’s indecency progressed from coercing her to sit on his knee, requesting her to kiss his lips, and touching her genitals, Ms Stewart told the hearing at the County Court in Melbourne.
On the final occasion in 1985, he sat her on his lap while he was aroused and whispered “you’re a good girl. The Lord forgives you”.
Ms Stewart told the hearing she ran out “sobbing and hyperventilating” to a teacher and other children waiting in confessional.
She was taken to see principal Graham Sleeman at the time and didn’t go to confession again.
Mr Sleeman told the hearing after that incident he was “convinced beyond doubt” that his boss Searson was “interfering” with boys and girls.
“On that very day that she came out, a little girl who was always open and communicative to me became a total recluse.
“That is the day that I became extremely concerned about what other children in my care were going to be damaged by this guy.”
Mr Sleeman told the hearing he argued with Searson’s concept of reconciliation, in which he was “hellbent” on instructing each child in the privacy of the confessional.
“He was, you’d almost say, paranoid about making it happen that way.”
Mr Sleeman’s repeated complaints were met with no action from the Catholic Education Office nor senior clergy right up to Archbishop Frank Little. They kept telling him there wasn’t enough evidence.
“That’s my greatest cross that I have to bear now, that perhaps I didn’t provide enough safety for the children that were placed in my care.
“I’m saying ‘yeah there’s the evidence, this is what he’s doing. It is contrary to church teachings, it’s contrary to general conduct of a person who is involved with children’.
“They treated me like a dill.”
By that time, the principal had complaints of Searson pulling an army service revolver on boy cleaners at the school, tape-recording confessions with children, stealing $45,000 of school money for personal use and asking children to kneel between his knees.
One of his class teachers was refusing to take her pupils to Searson’s reconciliation confessionals because of the allegations.
“I challenged them on the fact of ‘would you guys believe a video recording that I brought to you?’ And they didn’t respond.
“So I said ‘hey you wouldn’t even believe that, would you? Because it would create scandal for you guys, that you couldn’t handle’.”
Mr Sleeman threatened to resign in 1986, but was still told by the Catholic Education Office that Searson would remain at Doveton for the foreseeable future.
Mr Sleeman was warned he might not get another job if he resigned. And that’s the way it played out as he unsuccessfully applied for Catholic school principal vacancies over the next 10 years.
“What compounds this whole sorry story is the fact of the authority and the standing and the power. That the people in Doveton, or a good percentage of the people in Doveton, would have seen that the parish priest is someone who is beyond reproach.
“I believed, and I am convinced now, that the Melbourne Archdiocese had no concern for the parisioners of Holy Family School Doveton and what priests they sent to them.”
Ms Stewart told the hearing that no senior clergy or representatives from the Catholic Education Office spoke to her about the incident until 1997.
In that year, she was interviewed by Peter O’Callaghan QC, appointed as an independent commissioner by then Archbishop George Pell to examine child sexual abuse allegations within the Church.
That year, she was seated facing Fr Season and cross-examined by his lawyer in a “hostile” way during a hearing presided over by Mr O’Callaghan.
After the hearing, she signed a confidentiality statement in the next room. She later received a $25,000 from the archdiocese and a letter of apology from Archbishop Pell.
At the time, Searson was finally removed as priest, put on administrative leave and charged with unlawful assault after a complaint of him hitting an altar boy.
He was released without conviction on a good behaviour bond.
He died in 2009.
The Royal Commission continues.
