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A CATHOLIC priest took part in murders of child sexual abuse victims. The Catholic Church’s Melbourne Archdiocese has accepted claims about the claim as “substantially true” and paid $33,000 compensation to a man who was a victim as a child. The archdiocese’s independent sexual abuse investigator, barrister Peter O’Callaghan, QC, described the details of the murders and sexual abuse provided by the victim as “extraordinary”. “…but I have no reason or justification for doubting his credibility,” Mr O’Callaghan said in a letter to the victim’s lawyers in 2000.

The police advised that inquiries had been made with the homicide squad and their missing persons records and intelligence were unable to confirm the allegations and that there was no current investigation into the matter, Monsignor Tomlinson said.

In a sworn statement given to the archdiocese, the victim said he was first abused by the priest in Melbourne in the early 1960s, when he was serving as an altar boy at the Sacred Heart Church in Sandringham. The priest has since died. In his statement the 56-year-old victim, who wishes to remain anonymous, gave details of at least three deaths – a young woman, a young man and a child – that occurred during religious ceremony over a number of years. Two victims had their throats cut and a third was killed with an axe. Animals were also killed during the ceremonies. “I have some gruesome memories of killings,” the victim said. “I still feel totally overwhelmed and blown away when I recall these incidents. All these memories are extremely traumatic.”

The most extraordinary thing about these allegations of killings involving a Melbourne priest is not that they’ve been made, but that the Catholic Church admitted in writing that it accepted they were substantially true. Indeed “extraordinary” was the word used by the Melbourne Archdiocese’s experienced sexual abuse investigator Peter O’Callaghan QC to describe the allegations when they were put to him in 2000.

The statement provided to the Archdiocese by the victim, who wants to remain anonymous, makes chilling reading. He details how the Catholic priest, who has since died, first began abusing him at the age of 11 in 1961 when he was serving as an altar boy at the Sacred Heart Church in the bayside suburb of Sandringham and attending a Catholic school, where the priest was chaplain. The priest got the victim alone in a room on the pretext of giving his a sex education lesson and sexually abused him.

Later the priest would sexually abuse the boy in his car and at the Sacred Heart Church’s presbytery, where the victim was lured on the promise of playing with toy soldiers.

But it’s the accounts of cultish ceremonies and the victim’s eyewitness reports of murders that are harrowing.

In the statement he details at least three murders – a young girl, a youth and a young child. He says the victims were mostly drugged and appeared to be in a daze before having their throats cut or being hacked with an axe.

He says he was forced to take part and was sexually abused during them by the priest and others involved in the ceremonies.

Some of these killings, which occurred over a three year period, took place in an old house owned by the Catholic Church in Sandringham. The house was later demolished and a new Sacred Heart Church built on the site.

Others took place at other locations around Melbourne. The victim would be driven to and from the locations by the priest. The victim said during one of the final sexual assaults by the priest he was threatened with a carving knife and told he would be killed if he ever talked to anyone about what he had seen or what had been done to him.

The victim first contacted Victoria Police in 1998 and was told details would be passed to the homicide squad. He says he heard nothing more. In his interview with the victim, Mr O’Callaghan confirmed that details contained in the statement “is a series of criminal offences, but it doesn’t appear that anyone has ever been apprehended for those offences or will be”.  Mr. O’Callaghan independently contacted Victoria Police in 1999 over the allegations but was told that homicide and missing persons records had been checked and there was no ongoing investigation.

The victim finally escaped the priest’s clutches at the age of 14, when he was old enough to start avoiding him.