Former Catholic priest Clarence David Anderson died in retirement at Toowoombah Qld in April 1996 and peacefully rests in a Goonellabah NSW cemetery, but his alleged victims are still seeking justice....
Newcastle Herald, 23 January 2020:
A PARISH priest is suing a NSW Catholic diocese and an order of nuns [believed to be the Presentation Sisters] in what is believed to be the first Australian case of a serving Catholic priest seeking compensation for alleged child sexual abuse by a priest.
The Diocese of Lismore has denied liability for alleged crimes by the late charismatic "surfer priest" Clarence "David" Anderson against the then 12-year-old altar boy in the 1960s, and has given notice it will seek a permanent stay against the priest's case in the NSW Supreme Court.
The move, initiated by the diocese last week, means survivors are "back to square one" in some dioceses despite legal reforms following the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, the priest's lawyer Mark Barrow said.
The permanent stay application is despite the diocese offering compensation to two families in 2004 who alleged Anderson sexually abused two brothers aged 9 and 14 in the Macksville area between 1966 and 1968, and two other brothers, aged 9 and 15, in Tweed Heads parish in 1969.
Melbourne-based Broken Rites put the two families in touch with each other after both were told they were the first to complain about Anderson, and that the diocese had no knowledge of allegations about him. Anderson was a priest for just seven years. One of his alleged victims was advised by the Diocese of Lismore in 2002 that Anderson resigned in 1970. He died in 1996......
The Guardian, 25 January 2020:
The abuse is said to have occurred at a church on the north coast of New South Wales, which sat on the grounds of a boarding school....
It is the second time in recent months that the diocese has attempted to have an abuse case thrown out due to delay.
It is the second time in recent months that the diocese has attempted to have an abuse case thrown out due to delay.
In December, the Lismore diocese successfully applied to permanently stay a case brought by a woman who alleged she was abused in the 1940s by a priest named John Curran, who has since died.
The church’s approach to delay conflicts with findings of the child abuse royal commission.
According to Broken Rites; In 2020, a legal firm is acting for eleven of Father David Anderson's victims, suing the Lismore Catholic Diocese for compensation.
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