He had a great childhood.

He attended St Patrick’s Catholic Primary School at Cessnock, and went to St Joseph’s Catholic Church at Cessnock. He became an altar boy in 1987.

He was rostered on to three to four masses each week. Father Vince Ryan was the parish priest.

Father Ryan would come to the house regularly and was a trusted person in the house.

The abuse started in 1988. CNG wasn’t allowed to ride home on his own and had to wait for his father to pick him up. The first time the abuse occurred, there was just the priest and the boy.

Ryan came up behind the boy, put his hand into the boy’s genital area, and told him “It’s alright.”

CNG: “Father Ryan would always come from behind.”

He would also sexually abuse the boy in the car while driving him home after late night masses.

CNG told his grandmother on her death bed that Vince Ryan had been touching him and swore her to secrecy. It was December 1987.

In 1989 he told his mother that Father Ryan had touched him. His mum cuddled and consoled him. She was bedridden at the time and Ryan would come around to give her communion. Her mother arranged for a different priest to arrive.

CNG: “I told a nun at my school and swore her to secrecy.”

CNG said he was contacted in 2012 by Maitland police, but did not want to be involved in an investigation.

CNG: “I’d convinced myself the abuse was only a game, like handball and hopscotch.”

He said he was not happy about the police contacting his parents to say that he should speak to police. He eventually made a statement to police in 2013, but was told Ryan would not be charged because he, CNG, would not be a reliable witness. 

CNG turned to drugs.

He praised Maureen O’Hearn of Zimmerman Services for her support through that period.

CNG: “I would be dead if it wasn’t for Maureen O’Hearn.”

“Before the abuse came out, I used to be able to walk into a room and be the centre of attention,” he said.

He is the youngest of four children. Father wasn’t a Catholic. His mother was.

In 1959, when he was in fourth class, he moved to Marist Brothers Maitland.

In 1961 Brother Romuald (Francis Cable) started at the school. He was sports master, and a big, intimidating man.

CQW is talking about a day when he was at a Hunter public swimming pool and Brother Romuald suggested a game of playing piggy in the middle, with boys putting a piece of cloth into their shorts, or his shorts.

He said Romuald put his hand into his shorts to get the piece of cloth.

CQW said later Romuald followed him into the showers. He was naked and had an erection, and told CQW he wanted to dry him off.

Romuald was a teacher at Marist Brothers Maitland High School.

Romuald introduced his class to the concept of “the whipping boy”, who would be whipped or belted for no reason, and other boys would be told to whip the boy as well.

CQW worked in IT for 40 years.

He left the Catholic Church. Although I still maintain the Christian faith, I no longer identify as a Catholic.

He disclosed the abuse to a friend, and then to his wife, more than 40 years after the abuse. Romuald was sentenced to 16 years jail, with an eight year non-parole period.

CQW: “Brother Romuald showed no remorse at all. Hearing the judge read out all the details of the charges had a very bad impact on me. It was an extremely emotional time.”

CQW has launched civil action against the Marist Brothers.

“I feel they are such hypocrites,” he said.

He told the royal commission how Romuald would run classes telling boys it was wrong to touch themselves, but that was what Romuald was doing to him.

The bishop is being questioned by Justice McClellan, after Wright appeared to argue before the lunch break that we should be looking more at the extent of child sexual abuse in the wider community, than sexual abuse in the church.

This was in response to McClellan telling him that 40 per cent of all complaints to the royal commission relate to the Catholic Church. 

McClellan has just put to Wright the issue of “clericalism”. (To assist, clericalism is briefly defined as a policy of maintaining or increasing the power of a religious hierarchy. In other words, priests thinking they are exceptional and not necessarily bound by the rules that others have to live by. Pope Francis is on the record saying clericalism has “left so many wounds, so many wounded”. He said the church “must go and heal those wounds”.)

Wright is now trying to define it, and has ventured a rambling response.

McClellan has asked him if he accepts that clericalism has contributed to children being sexually abused in the church.

Wright said there was no doubt that clericalism contributed – “that sense of protecting the group, the clergy”.

McClellan: “Are things being done to change that?”

Wright has just launched another lengthy response.

McClellan said the church was also unable to screen or identify people who were appropriate to enter the church. Multiple people with “gross inadequacies” were able to enter the church.

McClellan has told Wright that the royal commission has seen psychiatric reports for some of the clerics. Given the nature of some of the offending, and the men involved, he is indicating the reports make ugly reading.

Wright said it was still difficult to screen men for the priesthood.

Wright said people had been speaking locally about forming a group in society – a group of people with a range of expertise – who would have an oversight of matters of ongoing education of clerics and appointments. They would also have a watching brief over priests.

Wright: “Getting hard, really reliable assessment of people when they come into the system is still tricky. In the old days they were big colleges. If you did ok in your exams, you went through as a class. They’re smaller institutions now. Students are assessed far more than in the past.”

McClellan: “You can see it in Ryan. The intellectually gifted but emotionally immature man would be the kind who would offer themselves – an institution and a life that would allow the immature man to live in society. Would that be recognised today?”

Wright has responded by saying he went into the priesthood straight from school.

McClellan is now questioning Wright about the role of women in the church, and quoted Sister Evelyn Woodward saying women were low in the pecking order.

McClellan: “Has that changed?”

Wright has responded by talking about having women in roles in the church.

Wright: “The sticking point, you’ll take me to holy orders. It’s beyond my capacity to comment – the role of women is much larger than it was.”

McClellan responded by saying in the case of Vince Ryan, Woodward raised the issue of allegations against Ryan and reported it to the men, and the men didn’t handle it at all. 

Wright has confirmed that even today if allegations are raised, it is the bishop who has ultimate responsibility.

Wright is talking about the transfer of priests after allegations are raised.

Wright is now talking about the women problem again.

Wright: “We have tried to achieve a good balance, sometimes there’s a question of expertise. Gender balance is certainly one of them (considerations).”

Jane Needham, SC, for the diocese is questioning Wright about what happens when allegations are raised, and the processes that are followed.

The royal commission is being told of quite extensive processes, including mandatory notifications to authorities including the police and Family and Community Services, electronic filing and recording of allegations, and diocesan investigations under the NSW Ombudsman Act.

There are both statutory and canonical requirements for the bishop to be aware of allegations.

McClellan has asked Wright whether there’s any communication within the church in Australia about best practice on child protection, and particularly about innovations in Maitland-Newcastle brought about because the region had had to deal with the issue over a lengthy period.

McClellan: “If you’re the best, everyone should know about you. There needs to be structured education before there is change within the institution.”

The bishop is now talking about a national data collection project dealing with child protection.

Wright: “It will be a fruit of the royal commission that we will now have much more knowledge, rather than anecdote. It has been very challenging for small congregations, but valuable.”

McClellan said a similar project has been undertaken by the Anglican Church.

Wright is issuing an apology.

He said there were haunting similarities between events considered in the NSW Special Commission of Inquiry and the Royal Commission, “in as much as I am once again called upon to bear witness to a terrible and shameful chapter in the history”.

“To bear witness to this sad and terrible history I must, I think, first acknowledge the facts as we know them. I acknowledge that (a) Ryan is a priest incardinated in the diocese who committed multiple acts of sexual abuse against innocent boys beginning as early as 1972.

(b) Ryan was a sexual predator who used his status as a priest and the power that gave him to gain access to boys, also to convince their parents and other responsible adults that he was safe and to conceal his abuse.

(c) As early as 1974 Monsignor Cotter was told something of Ryan’s abusing and he abjectly failed to do anything meaningful to protect the children who should have been his primary concern.

(d) In 1975 Monsignor Cotterr responded to a further report and promptly removed Ryan from ministry and then sent him for treatment, but these acts were vitiated by subsequent failures to monitor or check whether Ryan had in fact received any meaningful treatment.

There is some evidence that deceased priest Vincent Casey was told something of Ryan’s prior abusing. There is also evidence Bishop Leo Clarke may have known of Ryan’s abuse. Before his death Clarke denied knowledge of Ryan’s history, but if he failed to make further inquiries and subsequently placed Ryan in positions of responsibility, with access to children, across the diocese for a further two decades.

Some of those men who were harmed as boys have managed to live stable and fulfilling lives, others have struggled to simply remain alive and continue to battle their demons on a daily basis. We also acknowledge that some of those who were abused have also taken their own lives.

Again, the attitudes held by some in the diocese put the perceived good of the church before the safety of a child and that was fundamental to Ryan’s being able to continue to abuse for over 20 years.

The harm inflicted by Ryan may have been aggravated by the diocese when certain victims sought redress for their harm through contested court processes.

Finally, as Bishop I humbly offer an unreserved apology on behalf of the diocese to all those men who have suffered and continue to suffer as a consequence of Ryan’s abuse and of the actions and omissions of members of this diocese. Through those failures and omissions, the diocese failed to act according to the gospel. I apologise to the parents and siblings of those boys whose innocence was stolen by an evil presence who was allowed to remain among us by flawed and failed leaders and leadership. I apologise to the spouses and children of those men today.

Although the royal commission has only asked me in this statement to address the matters concerning Ryan, I acknowledge that devastation and hurt has been caused by other priests who have sexually abused children in the diocese, and I extend this apology to those affected by them and to their families and to the community as a whole.”

After presenting the apology, Bill Wright is being questioned by counsel assisting Stephen Free.

Put by Free that it was critical for him to know what his predecessors knew in the past and what they did, Wright replied: “I’m not sure I’d say critical, but yes.”

Free: “An aspect of apologising or accepting responsibilities for past actions must include understanding what people knew and why they did what they did?”

Wright: “I suppose, Mr Free, I’m saying we’re subjecting some of these questions to very close examination here. I’m prepared to accept the general picture of what they did without necessarily satisfying myself on every detail, yes.”

Wright is being questioned about Monsignor Patrick Cotter’s statement to church insurers in 1997 in which he said: “I can quite confidently assert that neither woman made any complaints to me because no mother ever came to see me.”

The royal commission has already heard evidence from the mother of two young boys who said she spoke to both Cotter and Ryan in 1974 about her sons being abused by Ryan.

Free has put to Wright that it is a matter of speculation whether Cotter simply forgot or was being dishonest.

Wright: “Well, I can’t be definite about it. I manage to forget things. It’s possible, but given the significance, you would wonder.”

Justice Peter McClellan is now questioning Bill Wright.

McClellan: “The evidence of the sister was that she told Cotter in no uncertain terms what had been reported to her as happening, including anal penetration of boys. Now we’ve heard that back in 1975 these activities with boys may be seen as moral failings but not criminal acts.”

Wright: “At the time I was ordained I had no awareness of abuse by priests of children anyway, unless it was the Canadian stuff had already happened. I think perhaps that almost the bigger issue is that what they saw as the problem was the priest.”

McClellan: “The impression we’ve had from others is that even at the highest level of criminal act in abusing children, it didn’t occur to those in charge of the church that they actually had a criminal in their midst.”

Wright: “If they’d seen it as clearly a criminal act, the answer is clear, but they’re looking at it as within the organisation, an organisation of men, what do we do about this bloke? I think that’s part of the problem.”

McClellan: “It’s capable of leading to a conclusion that the church really didn’t understand how society, of which the church was part, actually worked. And then it opens up the question as to whether the culture of the church was one which was capable of responding to levels of criminality of this type within its own staff or own personnel?”

Wright: “Yes, I think that’s a very fair question.”

The royal commission is looking at the then police officer (now NSW Deputy Premier and Police Minister) Troy Grant’s interview with Patrick Cotter. Police were considering whether to charge Cotter with concealing Ryan’s offences.

Cotter told Grant in 1995 that “I had knowledge of the rumour about that, I had no definite knowledge about it.”

Free: “At least in relation to the 1975 incidents, that can’t have been true, can it?”

Wright: “No.”

Free is just putting to Wright that to some extent there is a question of having to judge past events by different standards, but has asked Wright if it is alarming to him that Monsignor Cotter “seems to have been not truthful in his interviews with the police”.

Wright: “Yes it is. On the face of it he’s giving an answer that’s not only untrue but likely dishonest. The possibility there is he’s aged and forgotten, but it looks on the face of it, untrue and likely dishonest.”

Asked about Cotter’s opinion that he believed Ryan went to Melbourne and returned “cured”, Wright said it was a very poor response.

Wright: “Clearly, you would think that someone coming back from what you perceived as treatment, you would require some report, some… the notion that he comes back home so he must be right seems to me either incompetent or stupid or something.”

Wright is now being questioned by Free about Bishop Leo Clarke and his knowledge that Ryan was a child sex offender.

After initially putting to the royal commission that Clarke might not have known Ryan was sent to Melbourne because of child sex offences, Wright has conceded that a document by Clarke while he was still bishop, in which he notes that “I have not received any accusations that could be investigated”, suggested that Clarke did know.

In response to questions by McClellan, Wright replied: “Yes, I take your point about the accusations, yes.”

Wright has now been taken to another statement by Cotter in which he refers to telling Clarke in 1976 that he believed Ryan was homosexual and “there were some problems with children, he had been subject to treatment”.

Free: “Do you accept that Bishop Clarke was told all of those things in 1976 by Monsignor Cotter?”

Wright: “Well, that’s Cotter’s evidence, yes.”

The royal commission is considering a letter from a Father Maurice Cahill to Bishop Michael Malone in 1999, where he said he became good friends with Cotter during the 1970s.

Cahill wrote: “He (Cotter) told me how he had refused to answer the detective’s question as to whether he had discussed Vince with Bishop Clarke. But he certainly did talk to Bishop Leo about Vince. He told me that it was himself who recommended to Leo to take Vince back into the diocese. He used to mention he could not understand why Bishop Leo had let Vince take on such a high profile in the diocese.”

Wright is now being questioned about Vince Ryan and the memorandum of understanding between Maitland-Newcastle diocese, introduced by Malone, who defended the decision in the royal commission on Thursday. Ryan has never been defrocked.

Wright said he was in two minds about defrocking Ryan.

“Entering into the memorandum of understanding with him and so on was premised on the belief that he had cooperated and confessed to multiple offences that the police were unaware of and really, that he had named all victims and confessed everything he could possibly remember. That clearly now is not the case,” Wright said.

McClellan is asking Wright about the structural problems within the church that have been identified by the royal commission, and contributed to children being sexually abused.

McClellan has just noted that about 40 per cent of complaints to the royal commission in private sessions, relate to the Catholic church.

McClellan: “That’s a very significant proportion of what’s coming to us.”

Wright: “Yes, indeed.”

Wright has told the royal commission that “Some of us bishops and some religious congregational leaders have had to think about these matters much more than others have.”

McClellan: “It is apparent to us or it has been told to us anyway that there are some in the church who don’t really accept that the spotlight, as it is referred to in the newspapers, should have been shone on the church to the extent that it has?”

Wright: “I myself, your Honour, you know, wonder – it sometimes that so many of the case studies are delving into matters of 30 and 40 years ago and I kind of wonder where the more contemporary spotlight should be fuelling.”

After another question or two Wright ventured the following: “I just feel that we – and it’s the remit of the commission to look at institutional responses, not the broad community stuff – but I just have this misgiving that there’s an awful lot of stuff going on out there now and we spend so much time decades ago. I’m sorry, it’s just my concern.”

McClellan: “Thank you for that, but we have been charged with, and the community wanted the church, your church, amongst others, to face up to what happened in the past in a public way?”

Wright: “Yes, please, I have no – I hope I haven’t come across as saying that’s an exercise that should not have been performed and it’s certainly absolutely right and we’re answerable for that, but you asked me a spotlight question and I do have that concern as to where that balance falls not so much between Catholics and others as between past and present.”

McClellan: “We’ll take lunch now. I’ve got some more questions for you after lunch.”

10.46am Maureen O’Hearn, head of the healing and support services section of Maitland-Newcastle diocese’s Zimmerman House.

O’Hearn has outlined the services provided that include “organising and facilitating counselling for people, supporting people to make reports to police and supporting them through the process, including supporting them through the whole criminal process, supporting people at trial, assisting with writing impact statements, supporting people attending special commissions and royal commissions, introducing people to other survivors and at times creating groups in response to a particular need”.

Zimmerman Services also supports the families of abused.

O’Hearn said if people came forward and said they had been abused, one of the most important things was they would be believed.

O’Hearn: “We don’t see our role as testing those allegations, we just accept what the person has said, welcome them, offer them support.”

O’Hearn has told the royal commission that while Sean Tynan manages Zimmerman Services, she did not report directly to him, but to the vice chancellor of pastoral ministries within the diocese.

O’Hearn said she was not aware of equivalent services in other dioceses, and described the service as “atypical”. Other dioceses had professional standards units and paid for counselling. Some other dioceses and institutions had contacted her service for advice – Parramatta, Armidale and the Marist Brothers.

O’Hearn said that on occasion her service had acted as advocate for survivors in civil claims against the diocese.

The diocese has had two people working in the healing and support service for three years.

O’Hearn said she started working at Zimmerman Services in 2007 in response to survivors of Hunter paedophile priest Denis McAlinden, who had sexually abused young girls for more than four decades.

In September 2007 the Newcastle Herald first identified that Denis McAlinden was a serial child sex offender of young girls, who was moved between states of Australia and overseas – to Papua New Guinea, New Zealand and other countries – in response to many child sex allegations from as early as 1953, only four years after McAlinden arrived in Australia from Ireland as a 26-year-old priest.

Royal commissioner Andrew Murray has just questioned O’Hearn about the importance of counsellors, psychiatrists and psychologists being trauma-informed or trauma-trained.

O’Hearn said a minority of professional people understand the nature and effects of child sexual abuse.

O’Hearn: “I think it’s improving and I think with things such as a royal commission it raises that awareness, but I don’t think we could make the assumption that all psychologists and psychiatrists and counsellors are trauma informed.”

Murray has just told the royal commission that many people who had taken part in private sessions with the commission had expressed dissatisfaction with the form of counselling or treatment they’ve had with psychiatrists, psychologists and counsellors.

10.06am Psychiatrist and former ordained priest, Dr Peter Evans, is giving evidence.

Dr Evans left the priesthood in 1976, but ran a retreat house for the Franciscans in Melbourne. Hunter paedophile priest Vince Ryan was sent to see Dr Evans in 1976 after serious child sex allegations in Newcastle.

The royal commission has already heard that Ryan only saw Dr Evans once.

Dr Evans said he had decided to leave the priesthood in late 1975 before he was contacted about Ryan.

Evans said the first contact was a phone call made by Sister Evelyn Woodward. In her evidence Woodward said her contact was with another person, Franciscan priest Peter Cantwell, who was also living at the retreat.

Evans said Woodward told him Ryan was a “high profile Catholic priest” and he was being sent at the instigation of Monsignor Patrick Cotter.

Evans said he was happy to see Ryan but “I would only agree to an assessment, not a therapeutic consultation, because I was leaving and so it would be just simply to assess and advise on what was the best option of treatment”.

Evans said he doesn’t remember much of a conversation, if anything, with Peter Cantwell.

“It was Sister Woodward that I spoke to on the telephone. I don’t recollect Peter as an intermediary. I don’t know why that would be the case. I was superior of the house, there’s no reason why she wouldn’t speak to me, if I was to provide the service,” Evans said.

He said he had a clear recollection of the call with a nun.

“Yes, Sister Woodward was her name. I’d forgotten the name but it came back to me in a flash when I saw the letter from Monsignor Cotter, which also comments on the fact that he thought Sister Woodward had already spoken to me.”

Evans is just being shown a letter sent by Patrick Cotter to him in 1976.

Cotter: “The problem which now brings him under your care became known to me about one year ago. The circumstances then were such that he knew that I was sure of what happened, and thinking the embarrassment he suffered from so knowing, would have been more eloquent than any possible advice of mine, I decided to say nothing. Unfortunately this was a mistake on my part because apparently such a condition does not come right without the help of treatment. The current incident is more serious, involving altar boys and more than one.”

Evans has told the royal commission that his retreat centre, La Verna, was not a treatment centre, but a “house of spirituality”.

Cotter notes in his letter that he expected Ryan would go to La Verna “under your care to stay as long as you request”.

Evans said he never spoke to Cotter or anyone else in the diocese, other than Woodward.

The royal commission has just been shown Evans’s letter in response, in which he says Ryan is expected at the middle of January.

Evans: “When Father arrives I will discuss with him the length of stay at La Verna and the possibility of post graduate studies at one of the theological faculties here in Melbourne.”

Evans described it as “purely a polite letter of request”, and not saying that I would recommend those issues or that they would happen.

He is describing the psychiatric assessment he prepared of Ryan at the time: “Male aged 37, priest presents sexual attraction to boys. He was an only child, no friends outside school and he was an isolated person. He had few social relationships. He admitted to one masturbation with a boy while he was in the seminary, and he masturbated to adolescent fantasies. He said his father drank. He said he had a poor relationship with his father. He said he often had fights with his father. His mother put up with his father. Got on fine with his mother but had little affection there.”

Evans said Ryan had a personality disorder with immature features both emotionally and sexually. He was “not accepted to therapy here. I’ll be finishing practice next week for UK”.

Evans has told the royal commission that religious superiors and bishops “often like to send delinquent priests far away from them into someone else’s care”.

Evans: “It is therapeutically bad to send a person away from their support base where they’re unknown, have no supports”.

Evans said Ryan gave him the impression he was highly intelligent, quite affable, and he seemed to give the impression he wanted to do something about it and was being honest and he was, in my opinion, rightly or wrongly at that time, agreeable to take responsibility for his – for what happened to him, for what treatment he was going to have.

In his statement to the royal commission, Evans said that based on what he had been told by Sister Woodward and Monsignor Cotter, it was “self-evident that the acts described were criminal”.

Evans said he didn’t convey to anyone in Maitland-Newcastle diocese what his views of Ryan were because Ryan had to accept responsibility for his treatment, and had told him he accepted responsibility for his treatment.

Evans: “I would have hoped that he would have gone back to the referring doctor and Monsignor Cotter and said ‘Well, you know, I’m going to have treatment here in Maitland’.”

More than 20 years later Cotter wrote that because Evans “allowed him back without any advice or warning”, Cotter thought he was cured.

Free: “It also suggested, Dr Evans, that Monsignor Cotter thought that silence from you, that is, allowing Father Ryan to come back without any advice or warning, was relied on by Monsignor Cotter to conclude he was cured?”

Evans: “Well, that was an assumption of his, not mine, and again it simply underscores the fact that Vince Ryan did not communicate.”

Evans said he relied on Ryan to communicate with his superiors, which “may have been misplaced”.

10.00am

Good morning. It’s Joanne McCarthy back at the Royal Commission hearings in Newcastle, with the focus today on the response of Catholic Church authorities in the Maitland-Newcastle region to allegations of child sexual abuse. 

Get a recap of what happened on day two below.

To read more about the hearings into the Newcastle Anglican diocese, check the video and links below.