Two weeks ago acting NSW District Court judge Ken Taylor issued a suppression order to stop the naming of a convicted paedophile. Justice Taylor’s actions need investigating. The problem is that the NSW attorney general Greg Smith who has ultimate oversight for NSW judicial officers is himself embroiled is what looks like himself covering up for known paedophile Father Finian Egan.
Father Finian Egan has not been convicted of being a paedophile but the church says he is, so that is good enough for me, add that to Greg Smith’s extremely perverted and suspect behaviour and Father Egan has to be guilty. (Click here to read more on Father Egan)
But we will start off with Justice Ken Taylor and his paedophile protecting judgement. A decision he has since overturned after some media attention for some unknown reason.
Justice Ken Taylor
Two weeks ago Justice Taylor issued a suppression order so the name of a convicted paedophile could not be named. It was reported in a story in the SMH titled “Victim’s horror at abuser anonymity” which says “THE victim of a convicted paedophile says she is ”disgusted and horrified” that her abuser’s name has been suppressed by a court.”
”It’s disgusting that his identity can be protected but the intimate details of what happened to me are not protected and free for anyone to read about, and there’s no consideration of how that affects me,” she said.
It goes on to say “A spokesman for the Attorney-General, Greg Smith, said his office had requested a transcript of the sentencing hearing.” (Click here to read the full story)
What a joke, as if Greg Smith was going to do anything. He is busy covering up for Father Egan.
“The case gained national headlines after Peter Versi was named by Melbourne radio host Darryn Hinch.”
Then a couple of days ago Justice Ken Taylor overturned his own decision for no known reason. This is very strange. The only way I thought his judgement could be overturned is by an appeal court. He has decided to call the matter back into court and overturn his own judgement. To my knowledge this is unprecedented. (Click here to read more)
This leads one to surmise only two things 1. he has been influenced by the media or 2. someone has tapped him on the shoulder and told him he should overturn his own judgement. Either way there is a very serious question to be answered. I have looked for his judgement on the internet and have not been able to find it.
But even if he has overturned the judgement that does not answer the first question and that is how he could hand down such a scandalous and disgraceful judgment in the first place. And as you will see Father Egan has not been convicted of any court yet the media can still name him so why could we not name Peter Versi who had been convicted?
It is beyond belief that Justice Taylor is that incompetent and if he is he should not be a judge. His whole actions need to be investigated in full. E.g. Who he knows or doesn’t know etc.
Now to the man who is meant to have oversight for Justice Taylor’s actions.
NSW Attorney General Greg Smith
Mr Smith has been involved is dodgy conduct that has been mentioned on this site last year so his attempt to cover-up for a paedophile priest is of no surprise.
In the post last year titled “What is the price of freedom? About $900,000 if you are bribing Commissioner Phillip Bradley at the NSW Crime Commission.” Greg Smith is mentioned for his role (when worked at the Director of Public Prosecutions office 2004) in dropping charges against James Kinch so the NSW Crime Commission could get its hands on a $900,000 bribe to let Kinch go. Kinch is now in a jail in Thailand awaiting extradition to Australia to face number of charges including the ones that Greg Smith dropped. (Click here to read the post)
Now Mr Smith knows Father Egan on a personal basis and charges against Father Egan have been held up at the DPP, the same place that Greg Smith used to work, for some seven months.
The ABC 7.30 Report did a story on this on the 4th of April. The full transcript is below. (As per “Fair Use Policy” usually I would only use a small part and put the link back to the site but because it is in the public interest I have copied the lot)
Transcript
CHRIS UHLMANN, PRESENTER: Here is a story about an Attorney-General and a priest. One of the most senior lawmakers in the country is tonight being accused of making derogatory comments about a woman who alleges that she was abused as a child by a priest. Until last year NSW Attorney-General Greg Smith had a long association with his one-time Catholic priest Finian Egan, even praising him in Parliament. That appears to have ended some time after police began investigating allegations from five people that Finian Egan had abused them as children. Now 7.30 has been shown evidence suggesting the Attorney-General made insulting comments about one of Finian Egan’s accusers, allegedly branding the child sex victim just after money from the church. Tim Palmer reports. ???: There was nowhere that was safe for me. I wasn’t safe anywhere. The abuse started when I was in the later years of primary school.
TIM PALMER, REPORTER: Father Finian Egan’s more than 50 years as a priest took him to at least half a dozen churches in and around Sydney. But the priest’s service in the Catholic Church came to an end when a number of women came forward to accuse him of abusing them when they were children.
KELLIE-ANNE ROCHE (2010): I just tried to stop him from touching my breasts to show him that’s not where I want his hands … without saying anything, because he was – priests are one step down from God.
TIM PALMER: Within weeks of 7.30 airing a series of stories in 2010 on Finian Egan, at least five people had gone to police and a widespread investigation was underway.
But nearly two years later, the priest hasn’t been arrested or charged.
NIKKI WELLS: The wait’s been absolutely horrendous. It’s been really traumatic. The statements with the police were finalised in 2010. We’ve been told that the case is currently on the DPP’s desk, but it’s been on the DPP’s desk for about seven months now. They keep telling us they’re just waiting for a signature. So, to me, it’s beyond me how it could be so long. You know, the case has been investigated. It’s very clear the evidence is there from all of the witnesses. I don’t understand why he hasn’t been charged.
TIM PALMER: Finian Egan has always maintained his innocence.
As the case dragged on, questions were raised about the alleged sex offender’s long-time association with the man who’s now Attorney-General, Greg Smith. Mr Smith and Finian Egan go back some years, and when Greg Smith was elected to Parliament five years ago, he cited Finian Egan’s influence in his maiden speech to Parliament.
GREG SMITH, NSW LIBERAL MP (2007): … Father Finian Egan charmed us with his Irish wit and his pastorally devotion to his flock.
TIM PALMER: There are other connections to Greg Smith’s office. Damien Tudehope is now the Attorney-General’s chief of staff. He too knows Finian Egan well. He attended the priest’s church and as a solicitor defended him against sexual abuse allegations. The ABC does not suggest that either Greg Smith or Damien Tudehope have interfered with the potential prosecution of Finian Egan. But 7.30 can reveal documents that describe discussions the Attorney-General had about the Egan matter.
Last year, one of the alleged victims, Nikki Wells, spoke to another Catholic priest about her frustration at the delay. That priest, who the ABC has agreed not to name, says he then met Attorney-General Greg Smith last July. After that meeting the priest detailed his version of what was said in an email back to Nikki Wells, an email the ABC has obtained. The priest wrote, “I was with Greg Smith the other day and I raised your case with him. He commented that, ‘… you were just trying to get $1 million from the church.'”
NIKKI WELLS: I was horrified. I was completely horrified that the chief lawmaker in the state could make a comment on an open criminal matter for a start, but secondly that he could pass judgment on someone he doesn’t even know, and, you know, just disbelief about the whole matter that our Attorney-General could speak so publicly about me and my case and a criminal matter. Horrified.
DAVID SHOEBRIDGE, GREENS MP: There is, for me, no political excuse for the Attorney-General of the day making derogatory comments about a victim when that matter is before the DPP for potential sexual abuse charges.
TIM PALMER: The ABC asked the Attorney-General if the priest’s email description of the meeting and what was said was correct. In response Greg Smith issued a statement saying, “The Attorney General recalls no such conversation and notes that 7.30 has failed to provide any details which would help his recall. He says he would never suggest any victim of sexual abuse was simply motivated by a desire to claim a financial payout.”
Against that the priest said today he did meet Greg Smith, they discussed Nikki Wells and the email remains his account of what was said.
At the time Nikki Wells received the priest’s email detailing the alleged comment by Greg Smith, she wrote back angrily.
NIKKI WELLS (female voiceover): “Does he really think we’re all lying? What kind of man says things like that about victims of abuse? He really should not be commenting on any case in these circumstances, let alone the character of a witness.”
Clearly he thinks I’m a liar and clearly he thinks other witnesses and other victims are lying as well about it, because I’m not the only victim in this matter; there’s several of us, and there’s probably a lot more that haven’t even come forward yet. But a clear lack of empathy and devastating unprofessionalism.
TIM PALMER: Beyond the alleged comment that Nikki Wells was just after money, the email raises other questions. In fact Nikki Wells had discussed a $1 million figure with the Church, not for herself, but as the loan for a charity she was running to care for survivors of childhood abuse. She was shocked that the Attorney-General would know anything about that $1 million figure, something she’d raised only with senior churchmen, and she said so in her email back to the priest.
The priest replied:
PRIEST (male voiceover): “… this is what he had heard and that concerns me where this had come from. He is well-connected within the church – he seems to know all the hierarchy – much more in the know than I am.”
DAVID SHOEBRIDGE: Well in my dealings with him on this issue, it’s an attorney that’s more likely to defend the Church than get out and defend the victims.
TIM PALMER: The email raises several serious questions for the Attorney-General. Why was he discussing an ongoing criminal investigation with an outside party? Why did he choose to discuss it with a priest from the same church as the alleged sex offender? And why did he apparently denigrate the alleged victim of a childhood sexual offence?
David Shoebridge put a series of questions to Greg Smith on notice in Parliament. Among them he asked the attorney whether he’d had any communication with anyone beyond the DPP regarding the Finian Egan case. But in his answers Greg Smith did not address that issue at all, only stating that his office hadn’t been in contact with the DPP about it.
DAVID SHOEBRIDGE: It’s a remarkable lack of candour. It was a very specific question capable of a very precise answer and we simply didn’t get that. … If the half of the answer you don’t give is the core of the information, you’ve got to ask whether or not that is misleading the person asking the question.
NIKKI WELLS: Pathetic. His response was pathetic. And, you know, the Government shouldn’t allow him to be able to respond to those questions. They were specific questions. He hasn’t responded. He’s answered five questions in one line. He’s completely evasive. Why is he being so evasive? Why isn’t he answering the questions?
The transcript says plenty about Greg Smith and how he operates. A real grub who refuses to answer legitimate questions in parliament. He obviously has plenty to hide. His old department, the DPP, has taken 7 months to do nothing and are still waiting on a “signature” to charge Father Egan. Are we really to believe that Greg Smith has had nothing to do with the go slow routine. If you would like the watch the video of the above 7.30 report click here.
Attorney General Greg Smith will end up being the Craig Thomson of the NSW Barry O’Farrell government. A ticking time bomb waiting to explode.
This comes at a time when the Ted Baillieu Victorian Government is under pressure to hold a royal commission into pedophilia in the catholic church. A recent story in the SMH starts off :
“AT LEAST five people killed themselves after allegedly being sexually abused by paedophile priest Ronald Pickering between 1960 and 1980, new research says.”
“The deaths in Melbourne, uncovered by lawyer Judy Courtin, add to the 40 suicides by victims of clergy paedophiles documented in a police report.” (Click here to read the full article)
Obviously it is time for a royal commission into the church in NSW and pedophilia in general with the first witness Greg Smith and then Justice Ken Taylor.
I thought I should put a link to this story of a lawyer in Victoria, Vivian Waller, who is representing 45 people suing the church in case someone reading this might want to contact her. (Click her to read the story)
Update: 1st May 2012 – Father Finian Egan has been arrested and charged with with rape and indecent assaults. “He has been charged with 17 offences including:
Two counts of indecent assault and one of rape relating to an alleged incident involving a 17-year-old girl at The Entrance in 1972.
- One charge of indecent assault relating to a 14-year-old boy from an alleged incident at the Entrance in 1973
- Three charges of Indecent Assault relating to an alleged incident involving a 16-year-old girl at Carlingford in 1987
- And 10 charges of indecent assault relating to an alleged incident involving a 11-year-old girl at Carlingford in 1979″ (Click here to read the full story)
Update: 2nd May 2012 – NSW Attorney-General Greg Smith has declined to apologise to the alleged abuse victim of a retired Catholic priest after accusing her of “trying to get $1 million from the church”. (Click here to read the full story)
It would be greatly appreciated if you spend a minute using Twitter, Facebook and email etc and promote this post. Just click on the icons below.
And make sure you follow this site by email which is on the top right of this page and about once a week you will get an email when there is a new post/story on this site.
This site is fully funded by myself, both time wise and monetary wise. If you would like to support the continuance and growth of this site it would be greatly appreciated if you make a donation, buy a t-shirt, coffee mug or a copy of my book. The links are below.
If you would like to buy a t-shirt or coffee mug visit my online shop (Click here to visit the shop)
If you would like to buy a copy of my non-fiction book on corruption in the Australian judiciary that names names visit my website for the book which has links to the online bookshops. (Click her to visit the website)
Thank you for your support.
Categories: Barry O'Farrell, Greg Smith NSW Attorney General, Ted Baillieu
It remains Incredulous to me that the band of “untouchables” remain untouched… There are so many known issues relating to what mere lay people can only describe as “Paedophile protection rings” that come from the top down, yet everyone seems powerless or not really that interested enough to say “this is enough” the dark ages where it was acceptable are over…. because apparently they are not, those in positions of power who protect, go slow, and do every other thing they can to block release and action – the spotlight should be relentlessly shining brightly on them. Then when you have reason and no one acts and you go to your MP you have to wonder how far do these rings go and the only logical answer is they permiate ever single area of high profile powers of position……
Do not stop shining the light…
Yes I completely agree until proof is gained that people should not be on a know offenders list for all to persecute… but when the justice system simply does nothing apart from protect certain members the rest of the world with a moral compass have no choice but to assume (and we know what that does) guilt and replusion…..
In QLD try talking to the Child welfare minister, if she wasn’t so tragically inept she would have been funny. (we all pray, anyone that has had dealings in this area – the new Gov will have a different view on the value of children.)
Our laws here currently protect all offenders and only allow CERTAIN people under CERTAIN circumstances to report an issue…….ie: can only be an employee = can only report a family member etc etc,,,
i could write a book on this tragic subject in the Paedophile protection state of QLD alone, each state has its own shame … so shame on you if you don’t speak up and say – we simply NO LONGER accept PAEDOPHILE protection… Do something,,,
Firstly, I need to say that I have real problems typing on these pages because there is something interfering with the screen which makes it hard to see. Is anyone else having the same trouble.?
Generally speaking, we know that abusing young boys in expensive private schools and in church settings etc is considered normal practice by those who run the joints. Normal people regard this as disgusting, dysfunctional and illegal. This is why there is such a dichotomy of opinion and action when such events are brought to light and why so many in positions of power just want to cover it up and protect those who are involved.
I really think there are those who were abused as children who believe it did them no harm, that it doesnt matter and that anyone who complains and regards it as criminal is just being soft or sooky somehow, they just cannot see that its filthy and wrong.
Their is a definite evil in this world! This evil is definitley entrenched at the top. I hope that one day people have enough of this scourge and we the good people rise up and dismantle it.
When there are numerous people complaining about the same person doing the same thing then any person would think it was true. But that is not how our justice system works it actually protects these monsters and makes it extremely hard to get a conviction for the following reason: “Right to have lots of separate trials for lots of crimes.”
“In child molestation cases the way in which criminal defence lawyers exploit this right can be seen to be truly evil. Half a dozen little children complain of being molested, for example, by a teacher, and instead of a jury seeing all six children, there are six juries each seeing just one child. Each jury thinks to itself…” if the teacher was that bad, wouldn’t other children have complained?”, as the defence lawyer emphasises in each separate trial that “it is just one child’s word against the defendant’s”. Lies. All lies. And all for money. Little do the jurors know the evil that is being perpetrated in the name of giving the defendant “fair trials”. And think about this. How can the defence lawyer not know, by trial six, that he is “defending” a wicked person? For money. Ruining children’s lives, dragging them through the court system and wrecking their faith in justice for ever, when he gets a guilty client off”. Brett Dawson, the author of “The Evil Deeds of the Ratbag Profession”. Page 176. Regards John Greer.
These people make me sick to my stomach. Some days I despair of any decency either in the people that run the country or the churches. My loathing and disgust is immense…my feelings of helplessness and despair even deeper.
Susan don’t despair, all we need to do is get together and demand our Justice system be truth seeking rather than truth avoidance. If we stick to that simple term it stops them rabbiting on and that is what they do best. If they try putting up arguments we just refer back to what has that got to do with truth seeking? Well that’s my belief. Regards John Greer.
Paedophiles are disgusting animals and deserve their punishment for their actions, breaches of trust and the soclal harm caused to their victims.
But wait for a moment: Do paedophiles usually kill their victims, maime their victims, orphan their victims, destroy their victim’s physical and social infrastructure, their parent’s physical and social infrastructure, cause their victims and families to be refugess from killing and invasions for theft of resources. (search; General Smedley Butler: War is a Racket’)
Well who does that?
Try; our Federal politicians and their mass media and commenting running dogs.
How many children have we destroyed in Afghanistan, Iraq and other places and for what purpose?
In the US, ex-veterans are committing suicide at very high daily rates…look it up.
Now let us put the paedophiles in jail ………………..right along side Ivan Milat and our ‘respectable’ politicai and media warmogers who cause most of the more sickening physical and emotional injuries to children in the world.
Try including what epleted uranium munitions have done in Iraq, causing horrific abnomalities in the new born. (if you can stomach the pictures).
The hypocracy of those who only concentrate on the paedophile side of evil is sickening, when we are all responsible for what our warmonger society is really doing.
I note with interest that you totally ignore the part in my post which says ““AT LEAST five people killed themselves after allegedly being sexually abused by paedophile priest Ronald Pickering between 1960 and 1980, new research says.”
“The deaths in Melbourne, uncovered by lawyer Judy Courtin, add to the 40 suicides by victims of clergy paedophiles documented in a police report.”
I hate to tell you but the only hypocrisy is your comment. It is like you are the defence council for some paedophile priest who has been found guilty and you are trying to down play the priests actions in your last submissions before the judge.
You say in your comment “But wait for a moment: Do paedophiles usually kill their victims, maime their victims, orphan their victims, destroy their victim’s physical and social infrastructure, their parent’s physical and social infrastructure, cause their victims and families to be refugess from killing and invasions for theft of resources. (search; General Smedley Butler: War is a Racket’)
Well who does that?”
I can tell you now paedophile priests do that. Some 45 suicides by victims of paedophile priests did not even rate a mention in your comment. Yet suicides by US soldiers did which has nothing to do with the post.
And yes those suicides by victims of priests do destroy their victims and families physical and social infrastructure.
You mention Ivan Milat ( he killed 7 people), but you should really mention Martin Bryant (he killed 35 people and injured another 21 in Tasmania. Remember that there are 45 suicides by priests victims which is only the tip of the iceberg. So the paedophile priests outdo Ivan Milat and Martin Bryant combined and the counting has just started.
Your whole comment makes no mention of the three main people in my post that being the NSW attorney general Greg Smith, NSW District Court judge Ken Taylor and Father Finian Egan. I am sure you agree that they should all be facing jail or a police investigation? Or do think what they have been up to is no big issue.
And who are these people who you claim “The hypocrisy of those who only concentrate on the paedophile side of evil is sickening”. I do not know any. You seem to being making up false people to help your argument.
For you to try and down play the impact paedophiles have on their victims I find very disturbing. Especially when you conveniently ignore facts that blows your whole argument out of the water.
A lot of the paedophile priests should also be facing man slaughter charges if not murder charges as well. They would have known the impact their abuse would have on their victims.
The damage done to the fabric of society by paedophiles is tragic. Those with the power to do so have a responsibility to ensure these crimes are punishable, not to cover up the crimes. By protecting paedophiles, allowing these crimes to go on, these public servants/Judges are inflicting damage on generations. We must have changes to the culture of our courts system to act in a way that protects citizens, not allows criminals to flourish. Those with power must be held to account, which is obviously not the case here. When the next government gets in they must call whatever Royal Commission is necessary and restore justice, unfortunately, I do not believe the Gillard Government has the integrity to do so, and this is an absolute tragedy for the victims here.
Well said Shane.
Argument from moral equivalence? Paedophiles or warmongers, abhorrent in equal measure. There aren’t degrees of total evil. There is just evil.
Paul,
yes evil is evil but calibrated as per varying
degrees of punishments imposed for relevant
consequences from the crime.
My original comment has been misunderstood. The hypocrites are the warmongering politicians and apologists for war. They are my targets, they should be in jail too with longer sentences when death,
Maiming etc., are the consequences. They should not be excluded in considerations of crimes against children, indeed also in regard to being against all humanity.
Paul, I agree. It is also evil to see evil and not do anything to stop it when you have the power to do so.
bbpd.,
The people WE elect have the power.
But they use that power to brown nose to the money and foreign
Agendas
Look up Madeleine Albright interview where she says 1 million Iraqi children dead was worth it.
Shane, you are an inspiration, proceed out of your present
Lmited endeavors.
HWS sounds very suspect. There are certain people who cover all media with comments to swing blame away from child molesters. They trawl sites adding comments to either defend outright or veer the spotlight away from the condemnation of paedophiles. I have only just found this site (tonight) and thank goodness (not a pun) that I am finding like-minded people or person – Shane this is BRILLIANT – loved the stuff on Gillard – makes so much sense. I have been at wit’s end trying to understand how she got to be pm. What a great find – I will pass your site on to everyone. Thankyou so much.
This situation happens all over the world. It does get a kind of publicity but of the usual 3 day wonder sort.In the US there have been high profile court cases for years now, but if you don’t know where to look it all remains cloaked in cloud. New cases will blow up in the UK this year and the denial of the church is already in place. One case were abuse of boys as young as 10 over many years by the principal of a prestigious Catholic College is slowly approaching the courts. Very little is known because local newspapers avoid like the plague reporting anything. One problem is that two of the editors of a particular paper located in the same city are ex-boys of the school and have suppressed reporting details apart from a forced reporting of the local bishop apologizing just over a year ago. Sadly just a short paragraph was published with the bare details (Bishop apologizes for abuse at Catholic College via Google should bring up some details.) The abuse involving a number of clergy, spread over 35 years and has been a secret until last year, when details started coming out. It involved several old boys that had committed suicide because of the abuse and rapes. Once the little publicity came out a large number of old boys came forward with stories of horror involving the principal and a number of other priests, all part of a high school paedophile ring operating with in the college, which had a boys boarding section. One of the real tragedies is that all the abusers are dead,most for many years. An incredible fact is that the abuse was never discussed between victims while at the school or after until last year. Parents did not know, brothers didn’t know, wives were not told later. In fact a large number of wives still don’t know. And remember this abuse goes back to the 1940’s and many boys are now grandfathers with no wish that their wives, children and grand children should ever know. Total victims could be over 300 with only a faction known to this date.
The local Diocese actually admitted that they had knowledge of the abuse for many years, but were saying nothing in the hope that all the victims would die off before the truth came out.
Some of the suicides were not successful and victims suffered appalling injuries and some spent months in hospitals without their parents,doctors or nurses finding out. Can you imagine a boy of 12 that tries to kill himself and survives still could not tell anyone because no one could believe in those days that a priest of any kind could do such acts against young boys. Could anyone reading this stay quiet for 60 years after the events of childhood? Boys who rebelled or fought back were expelled and the deputy principal, also a paedophile, would tell the whole of the assembled college the next morning “so and so has been expelled for bringing the college into ill repute”. The cruelest trip was to expel boys just before an important exam and fling them out on the scrap heap. Little wonder they became do and outs, drug addicts, alcoholics and the like. Some survived to get good jobs and make their way in the world but the vast majority have just survived living a simple life without any great ambition or success. The victims are spread around the world including Australia and New Zealand. I believe when the case hits the headlines, and it will, there will be many more victims coming forward. A final thought and prayer for the men that have gone through this horror and survive, remember too, many have died without telling a soul of what they went through. The clergy involved all got buried with full church honours, even though the church knew the truth. Some of the victims actually became priests and abusers too! The cover up goes all the way to the top in the Vatican.
http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/priest-friend-of-ag-arrested/story-e6freuy9-1226343469234
Thanks for that. I have updated the post with the link.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/breaking-news-old/no-smith-apology-for-alleged-abuse-victim/story-fn3dxity-1226345018840
Thanks again. Have updated post with link.
Thankyou for your coverage concerning Greg Smith. I know you have just scratched the surface. There is so much rot in NSW becuase of people in High places like Greg Smith. The rot is so deep it never surfaces.
Wow the Same Greg Smith who will now be defending police Whistle blower and best cop in the history of NSW Glen McNamara , Greg Smith is a criminal but then again most of them are!