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AT Melbourne
CRIMINAL DIVISION
Case No. CR-13-01071
DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC PROSECUTIONSv
RUSSELL WALKER
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JUDGE: / Her Honour Judge HampelWHERE HELD: / Melbourne
DATE OF HEARING: / 15 October 2013
DATE OF SENTENCE: / 12 November 2013
CASE MAY BE CITED AS: / DPP v. Walker
MEDIUM NEUTRAL CITATION: / [2013] VCC
REASONS FOR SENTENCE
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Subject:
Catchwords: Sentence – 3 charges of indecent act with male child – Parish Priest – 2 victims – denial when confronted at time – both 14 year old altar boys – representative charges – 35 year delay before report to police and charge – victims profoundly damaged – observations on failure of church to protect victims or report the matter to police when complaint first made
Legislation Cited:
Cases Cited:
Sentence:
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APPEARANCES: / Counsel / SolicitorsFor the DPP / Ms S. Flynn
Ms K. Mildenhall (for
Sentence) / Office of Public Prosecutions
For the Accused / Mr T. Burns / Michael Kelly & Co
VICTORIAN GOVERNMENT REPORTING SERVICE
565 Lonsdale Street, Melbourne – Telephone 9603 2401
(Prepared by Legal Transcripts Pty Ltd) / !Undefined Bookmark, I
HER HONOUR:
1 Mr Walker you can remain seated whilst I read my reasons. I will ask you to stand at the end when I formally pass sentence on you. In 1976, as a 27 year old, newly ordained Catholic priest, you Russell Walker were appointed assistant priest to a parish in Melbourne’s then rapidly growing outer south eastern suburbs. You then went by the name of Fr Russell Vears.
2 Within a year of your arrival in the parish, you began sexually abusing two 14 year old boys. Their families were active members of the congregation, and they were both altar boys. As a result you had easy access to them, and were trusted by them and their families.
3 You have admitted sexually assaulting one of the boys on two separate occasions during the first year of your tenure at that parish. Your misconduct in respect to the other boy was more extensive and protracted. It continued for some years. By the third year of your tenure, the parents of that boy came to suspect that you had a sexual interest in their son and further, that you had acted on it. They confronted you and you angrily counter attacked, saying to them, in the boy’s hearing, “How dare you accuse me of sleeping with your son”.
4 Despite the confusion caused by your response, the boy knowing that you, a priest had lied, and the parents cowed by the apparently outraged response of a priest, the holder of a holy office that they had been brought up to respect, believe and obey. The boy soon after confirmed to his mother that what she and her husband had suspected was true and that you had been sexually abusing him. Given your initial response, it is not surprising that she sought help and protection from higher up the church hierarchy. She reported the matter to the then Archbishop of Melbourne.
5 Although you are not to be punished for the institutional response, what happened next was scandalous, no less so because, as is now abundantly clear, this boy was not the only victim of clerical abuse in the Melbourne archdiocese, nor the only victim whose welfare was ignored whilst the church took active steps to protect the priest and itself. Although not a single step was taken by the church to protect the victim, to offer him counselling or support, or to report the complaint of sexual abuse by one of its ordained priests of a child in his pastoral care to the police, you were warned a complaint had been made and shortly thereafter transferred to a nearby parish.
6 Your response when warned was not to admit wrongdoing, apologise, surrender yourself to the police or even leave the child alone. Instead, in what can only be seen as a demonstration to the victim and his parents of their powerlessness and a flaunting of your sense of impunity, you confronted the mother after mass the very next Sunday. You challenged her for having taken the matter to the Archbishop, and you continued to sexually abuse the boy. On the agreed facts you had 2 more sexual encounters with him after that, one, before your transfer in the presbytery of the original parish and the other, having told the boy you did not want the head priest of the new parish to catch you, not at the new presbytery, but in a motel booked by you for the purpose of the sexual encounter.
7 It was not until 35 years later, in November 2011, that the first of the victims that I have referred to made a formal complaint to the police and an investigation commenced. When arrested and told of the complaint made by the first victim, you volunteered the name of your second victim and you made admissions of sexually abusing each of them. Your second victim was then approached by the police. Like the first victim, he had, when in his 30’s and 40’s confided in family members and counsellors, but it was not until he was approached by the police in January 2012 that he too disclosed to the police for the first time, what you had done to him.
8 An agreed, or not challenged, statement of facts has been placed before me and based on that, you have now pleaded guilty to 3 representative charges, Charge 1 concerns the first victim, Charges 2 and 3, the second. As I hope it is clear from what I have said to date I am referring to you, the victims, as the 1st and 2nd child or the 1st and 2nd victim in order to protect your right to anonymity rather than to dehumanise or devalue you.
9 All the charges that you face are charges of what was then called indecent assault on a male. As the circumstances I will shortly recount make clear, the acts the subject of the charges if committed today would be characterised as indecent act with a child, or sexual penetration of a child.
10 The conduct, the subject of Charge 1 concerning the first child, occurred in the presbytery, a place that he was, by the time it occurred, used to visiting when you were there. On this occasion you gave him alcohol, something he was not used to and when he was relaxed by it you pulled down his pants and yours and engaged in repeated acts of masturbating him and yourself, continuing until you ejaculated in his presence. His conduct throughout indicated he was an unwilling and unwitting participant. He ran away from the room and the presbytery as soon as you had finished.
11 This charge is representative of a similar offending on a second occasion. On this occasion, you had taken him on what should have been a treat, a visit to a beach. It was a secluded beach. Using the pretext of sunbaking, you took him into the sand dunes, where you undressed completely and indicated he should do so too. Once lying down, you again, took hold of his penis and began to masturbate him. Again, he was clearly an unwilling recipient of your predatory advances. He rolled away, got dressed and went and waited for you by the car.
12 He was a vulnerable boy. He had been placed in the care of the church and adopted by a Catholic family. He was made to believe that his mother had rejected him when, as he later discovered, she had as a young unmarried Catholic woman, been forced to relinquish him. He had been brought up believing the church was responsible for his welfare and had his best interests at heart. This was a profound betrayal of trust for a person who had been brought up believing that he was beholden to the church.
13 Your second victim was also a vulnerable child. He was experiencing family difficulties and you were seen by him and his family as a confidante and adviser. You gained his trust, only to abuse it.
14 Charge 2 involves touching and masturbating this child and having him touch and masturbate you. He had been given permission to stay at the presbytery one night. Using a pretext, you got into bed with him and slowly built up from touching, in a non sexualised way, to sexualised touching. Eventually you touched his genitals, masturbated him and had him do the same to you. You told him you loved him. This charge is representative of 7 other occasions when you engaged in and had him engage in similar conduct. Many of the subsequent acts occurred at the presbytery, where this victim was a regular visitor. On one later occasion you masturbated until you ejaculated on his stomach. On another occasion, you masturbated the victim until he ejaculated, encouraging him to do so and congratulating him when he did and as I have already noted, you continued to engage in these acts even after you had been confronted by the boy’s parents, and became aware of the mother’s complaint to the Archbishop.
15 Charge 3 concerns conduct which, if it occurred today, would be charged as sexual penetration. At the time of the offending, sexual penetration was not defined to include taking a child’s penis in your mouth, or having a child take your penis in his mouth. It now is, and this is what you did. The act the subject of Charge 3 occurred when you had taken the victim to a YWCA camp at Phillip Island. As was by then your custom, you had joined the victim in his bed. After acts of touching and masturbation, you took the victim’s penis in your mouth and had him do the same to you. This charge is representative of similar conduct on 3 other occasions. The next two occurred at the presbytery. On one of those occasions, you were hosting drinks for parishioners, including the victim’s mother. The victim had gone to bed, as arranged, while you were socialising with the adults. You came into his room, woke him up, masturbated him and performed oral sex on him. The final occasion occurred after you had been warned of the mother’s complaint and had been transferred to a nearby parish. You told the victim he could not stay at the presbytery as the head priest might catch you and booked into a motel with him for the night instead. It was there that this final act occurred.
16 So it is that you now come to be sentenced for these 3 charges of sexual assault of these two males, then boys, now profoundly damaged men in their 50’s.
17 They read their victim impact statements, or parts of them, in open court on the day of the plea hearing. They recounted, eloquently and with insight the confusion, guilt and betrayal that they felt as boys and the anger, grief, despair and sense of hopelessness they have battled all their adult lives. Their lives have taken very different courses. One has never been able to trust, to form relationships, to have a partner or found a family. His employment history is poor and he lives a solitary, hermit like life. The other married, had a family and has always worked, but, as he is only too acutely aware, has been unable to maintain close and trusting relationships with family or friends, or control his temper or moods. He has at times abused alcohol. Although employed all his life, he is crippled by insecurity and unable to take pressure. He lives with the disappointment of feeling that he has been unable to fulfil his potential. Each has at times wanted to end his life and each has needed periods of intensive psychiatric intervention. Each has engaged with counselling over many years, but the patterns of suffering and the consequences for them are well entrenched and they have shown little long term improvement.
18 Each of them has lost his faith.
19 To each of you, I want to say: you are truly courageous men. It is the courage of those who know they have suffered harm as a result of something that was not of their making and was not their fault, but who have had the courage to keep on going and to keep on living. You have not given up on yourselves, or on life, although not surprisingly you mourn the life, the loss of the life that you feel you should have been able to enjoy had this not happened to you. Each of you has had the courage to make your statements and to participate in the court process. You may have been powerless when the offences were committed on you, but by telling your stories, you have shown that you are not powerless now. The church may not have protected you when it should have, but the response of the criminal justice system I hope, will encourage other victims of past sexual abuse to trust that their complaints will be heard and investigated and lead to those who have sexually abused children being held accountable.
20 This was a gross abuse of trust. You were a priest. They were young Catholics, baptised and brought up as such. They were children of parishioners, parishioners themselves and altar boys. To them, you represented the church, its teachings, values and moral precepts, as well as the authority that the church claims over its congregation.
21 The victims were young and each, in his own way, vulnerable.
22 You lied and bullied your way out of exposure and continued to offend against your second victim. You were an adult, they children entrusted to your pastoral care and you had the authority, for them and their parents, of a holy man, an ordained priest in their faith.
23 It is clear therefore that subject to consideration of matters personal to you, denunciation and deterrence are important considerations when considering what constitutes just punishment.
24 You come before the court, at 64, as a very different man from the one who offended against these two boys. By your mid 30's you had taken leave from priestly duties, although you have not been removed from the priesthood, or defrocked. It is in my view remarkable that the church hierarchy has not taken any steps to formally strip you of your priesthood, not after you admitted your sexual misconduct, not after you were charged, not after you indicated your intention to plead guilty. This is not something that adds to the seriousness of your offending, or bears on the sentence to be imposed upon you, but it is a matter I hope the Royal Commission and the other inquiries currently running in to institutional responses to sexual abuse of children will consider.