IN 1996 the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions declined to prosecute Maitland-Newcastle Monsignor Patrick Cotter for failing to report serious allegations about paedophile priest Vince Ryan to police because of Cotter's age, and because it would not be in the public interest.
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A senior NSW police officer later said the decision meant Ryan's victims had been "denied justice".
In 2012 Maitland-Newcastle priest Tom Brennan was the first Australian Catholic clergyman to be charged with concealing the serious child sex crimes of another priest, John Denham, but died before the matter was heard.
A second Hunter priest, Lew Fenton, was charged with a similar offence relating to another child sex offender, but a Newcastle magistrate declined to commit the priest to stand trial.
In 2013 the ODPP advised police against charging former Central Coast Catholic Schools director Brother Anthony Whelan despite a prima facie case against him for failing to report the child sex crimes of a teacher, Thomas Keady, to police in the late 1970s.
Prosecuting Brother Whelan "would not be in the public interest" because of the "staleness of the offences" and the "negligible penalty", the ODPP advised police. The decision outraged a Hunter man and victim of Keady who made the initial complaint to police. Keady was convicted in 1994 of indecently assaulting a boy at Muswellbrook. Court records showed he ran a mobile amusement business in the Hunter and Central Coast for up to six years after leaving teaching, with constant access to children.
In 2013 the NSW Special Commission of Inquiry recommended a charge against an un-named senior Catholic clergyman with knowledge of allegations against Hunter priest Jim Fletcher.
The recommendation came after Hunter police investigated separate allegations against three senior Australian Catholic clergymen with knowledge of the child sex crimes of Hunter paedophile priest Denis McAlinden.
