Tuesday, May 07, 2013

Paedophile priests advised never to admit guilt to limit payouts, Catholic church insurer says

PAEDOPHILE priests were advised never to admit guilt as a way of limiting payouts to victims, the Catholic Church's insurer has said. 
 
Catholic Church Insurance has paid out about $30 million to 600 Victorian victims of child abuse since 1990.

Chief executive Peter Rush told the Victorian parliamentary inquiry into child abuse that the company used to tell clients not to admit anything to victims and that minimising payouts was its primary motivation.

"In the early 1990s I am confident that that would have been the way that we would have advised our clients, quite wrongly," Mr Rush said.

"That was the way insurers then, and some even now, run liability-type portfolios."

Mr Rush said 5 per cent of the insurance claims had been denied, including those where the church had knowledge of an offender.

Some of those cases included offences by notorious paedophile priest Gerald Ridsdale dating back top 1975 when then Ballarat Bishop Ronald Mulkearns became aware of his offences.

"In the course of our investigations we ascertained that the Bishop in the diocese of Ballarat was aware of the propensity of Ridsdale to offend," Mr Rush said.

Deputy chairman of the inquiry, MP Frank McGuire, said the inquiry had heard allegations of heinous crimes and cover-ups.

Independent commissioners for the Melbourne Response, Peter O'Callaghan, QC, and Jeff Gleeson, SC, rejected a Victoria Police inquiry submission that said the Melbourne Response appeared to be a substitute for criminal justice and not a single complaint had been referred to police.

Mr Gleeson said both men were appalled at the suggestion they had been involved in a cover-up.