Bringing Down a Bishop: The Sins of Christopher Saunders | 7NEWS Spotlight

I got some Secrets I can tell you about Bishop's ERS a very powerful figure many people fear Him many people are scared of him there are probably more than 100 victims that we know of out there this is what makes me stick to the cord I think they don't know what to do but deliver Bishop Saunders one of the highest ranked Catholics in the country has been under investigation for alleged historical sexual assault complaints never happened and it's completely malicious and I'm sorry to hear it from the press in set of from the police and this last one one last thing this investigation has been going 18 months do you think we thought that immediately he would be removed we never thought for a moment it would drag on he still got entitlements to church property Church cars Church the victims must come first the reputation of the church the secondary it is the pope alone that can appoint a bishop as the pope alone that can stand one down I'm angry at the man I feel betrayed and hurt and terribly let down by him and and the hierarchy of of the [Music] church [Music] [Applause] [Music] Cardinal George pel former Archbishop of Melbourne of Sydney the vatican's treasurer third highest ranked Catholic in the world guilty of sex crimes against two 13-year-old boys three and a half days to reach their unanimous ver guilty on all five counts the end of 2019 I was approached by a a priest who wanted to stay Anonymous and uh he said to me look I've been following your work with Cardinal pel we've been doing a series of Stories on George pel the then Cardinal of Australia who was under some serious sex assault allegations himself he said I've got another one I've got one up here with me in bloom I want to send you some evidence we didn't identify him then but we did later uh his name was father John Pernell very brave man indeed coming forward with these allegations and claims against the most senior Catholic official he had to deal with I said look I'm seven news we don't often do investigations in the news program they're not the sort of thing we do we do daily breaking news we do that very well investigations we've got another department for that can I hand you he said no I want to deal with you I'm going to send you this stuff and I said I never get to broom there's no chance I'll ever be in broom to be able to do the story with you he said I'm sending send it to you so he sent it to me and by absolute chance uh two months later Australia was closing its borders because a thing called Co had come along the controversial Christmas Island detention center now busily being prepared not for refugees but evacuees up to 600 trapped Australians we flown here from the crisis EP Center Wuhan to spend 14 days in isolation Channel 7 sent me to Christmas arm do that story of the first plane loads arriving I came out of Christmas Island after doing that for two weeks I got to Perth so I rang my wife and I said darl I'm heading home I'm on the overnight flight I'll be there in the morning and she said what do you mean you've been on Co Island you're not coming here I want you to go and spend 2 weeks in the hotel Channel 7 can pay for it and I rang my boss and I said listen I've got this idea though I'm on this side of the country in western Australia I've had this contact bring me about a potential story up in the north in broom would you let me go and investigate that kill two weeks and then I can come home the boss very generously said to me okay you can go you can have the two weeks but you can't have a cameraman you're going to have to shoot it by yourself now uh I'd never been a VJ before a video journalist uh didn't know the first thing about it but it always been intrigued by those that did and I wanted to have a go and I thought I can do this so I met a cameraman in Perth at the airport he drove out to me and in between flights and I was catching the flight to the broom and he gave me a a small Sony uh handy cam about this big showed me how to use it came with a bag but in the end I started using a a cheap coal shopping bag with a little hole for the lens cut out of the bottom and I put it in there so I have my secret camera set up and I thought okay well here's a new turn in my career I'm a VJ I'm by myself I haven't got a cameraman and for those that don't know broom is remote it's a long way it's in the furthest corner of Australia uh the broom dasis that we're talking about here that Bishop Saunders was in charge of is one of the biggest Catholic dases in the world 770,000 Square kilm it is remote Australian Bushland Bishop Christopher Saunders in intriguing character Larger than Life character a very powerful character and figure in the dasis of broom born 1950 Bishop since 1996 he' ruled that place ever since hadn't moved anywhere else that was where his roots had settled and that was where he was staying he had a tight grasp of that community and had done some great Community work in his time and it was um particularly with the indigenous Community but as I found out some of the work that he was doing went into very dark Corners with some very serious allegations attached to them and that's what we went for to investigate the truth uh the veracity of those or otherwise my first plan of attack was to establish just the patterns of behavior of Bishop Saunders so what I wanted to do was to follow him to track him and to watch what he did who he met and where where he moved in the community so I took my camera and I was in very much dressed down clothes and put the camera on the on the dashboard of the car and parked opposite his office and within minutes there he was and for the next week or so I followed him everywhere he went the tracking of Bishop Saunders uh was easy in town in broom itself but as soon as you get out of town in wa the roads get long and straight orange dirt either side a tree every kilometer or so mountains in the distance very hot shimmering Horizon all of the cliches you can think about desert life and transport and travel it's hard to track a person because they're right there and you're in their revision Mir the whole time but for some reason he didn't tweak he was very comfortable uh in that area he didn't have any suspicions that anyone was following him or investigating him and that's despite complaints been made against him since 2018 there had been complaints made about him by a complainant to the police and the police had been actively investigating him and the allegations and that was Father John pernell's motivation that this investigation had been going from the wa police for 18 months 2 years and hadn't got anywhere he was frustrated he was angry he was seeing the victim count rise eyes and he wanted to do something about it and so he reached out to us at Channel 7 as you can imagine I'm I'm terrified at the moment to to say what needs to be said but I feel I I do need to say something um initially when the two boys came forward I knew I had to do something and especially 18 months ago when the first victim came forward I had to do the right things I did inform the police and I did inform Professional Standards um and I was thinking when you asked me to to go on air of course at first I thought absolutely not no way because I I felt for my own safety but then I I got to thinking you know those two boys that came forward How brave they were and I can see what it's done to their lives and the especially the first victim his life is an absolute mess he often talks about suicide and other things and I thought well if that young man first of all had the had the braveness to come and and share his terrible story and the second boy come and share his same sort of things happened to him I thought well I should be able to be brave enough to stand up for them as well and that's why I'm doing it I'm doing it for those two boys but every time I think about those boys they go they've gone through a hell of a lot worse and if they can stand together and be strong and say no more enough is enough I'm going to share my story I'm going to tell what has happened to me then my hat goes on off to them because they are the bravest boys in the world and they are absolutely brilliant and I'm talk to get emotional B but they deserve more okay the Aboriginal people in the kimy they those young men deserve more than this [ __ ] and The Church Must Get It act together and fix it and fix it now sorry Father John provided me with a copy of police statement that a young Aboriginal male had made to police through him the Aboriginal youth had gone to Father John in tears beside himself he broke down in front of Father John and had revealed this story of repeated consistent uh abuse over a long period of time the victim said that the bishop often had had picked him up and they had gone out Bush gone out camping there's one incident that took him out camping just about 90 km outside of Columbu uh one of the communities up up north and that night at camping of course they had drinks and then he remembers that the bishop climbing on top of him pulling his pants down and then another instantly told me that the bishop had flown him down to Melbourne for a football game and they stayed in a hotel down there in in in Melbourne and that night apparently according to the victim the bishop came in tried to drag him into the shower laid on top of him pulled his pants down tried oral sex again at first I was horrified I was angry I was hurt and I felt betrayed because we we as priests are supposed to be better than this when the first victim came to me um that night 18 months ago I asked him the next morning before I took him to the police station um I said look why after all these years have you finally like decided to talk about it now and he was an emotional wreck he was crying he was vomiting all night was he was in a terrible State and I just thought well look what why now and why me he said Father John with you I felt safe I felt trusted and I felt believed there's a a a knowledge that the amounts of money that is spent in a poor dasis like the dasis of broom where we hardly have any money at all and we're all told to tighten our belts and and you know can't spend money extravagantly and all that but I am told by prior staff anywhere between $4,000 to $6,000 per month is spent wholly solely on these young men for trips away money whenever they want to ring up give them what $100 $200 mobile phones and all that sort of Stu so where does that money come from I can only assume that it comes from the dasis this Aboriginal youth had detailed a a long history with Bishop Saunders that had begun with what appeared to be quite obvious grooming behaviors Biden R's house there were parties um other young aboriginals there as well they play drinking games the games that ended up with quite serious uh sexual uh misdemeanor allegations of and this for this young male went over several years and he detailed other young males that were also being uh victimized or targeted in a similar way that was the basis of the allegation so I had four names and very furry details on where they might or might not be hard to track them down they're very itinerant the individuals involved but I took in that first week the long drive was about 1,000 km round trip out to one Township I needed to find him I had an addressed I went there it was the wrong one but they said talk to s down the road and it went from that to that to that I ended up at a garage mechanics um workshop and they said no no he's up there he's there now and I was knocking on the door of this tin Shanty type home on a concrete base messy trash rubbish everywhere pretty impoverished circumstances um this home and finally this guy opens the door I come with a gift and a message from Father John to say hello hope you're well my name is Chris re and I want to tell your story want to investigate your story and see if we we can get something done for you we talked for an hour before he' um agreed to tell me the details of what had actually uh what he alleged had happened to him at the hands of Bishop Saunders and he didn't want to say it in town I said well let's go for a drive so we jumped in the car we drove some more you know on top of the all the other CS that day we just drove around in circles and and finally he started to trust me and he said I'm ready to tell my story we pulled over and I grabbed the handicam removed it from the Cole's bag and we sat there and he told what was a really uh difficult and uh disturbing story but I could tell that he was being truthful okay tell me how you met Bishop Saunders I met him through friends who used to go around at this place for barbecues the first time I met him and he was one going around there for a barbecue and few drink so the relationship grew he started giving you jobs odd jobs pocket money jobs yeah pocket money odd jobs even weekend jobs gardening job for Quick Cash he used to invite me when he started getting used to me used to invite me into this place by myself used to go around have a yarn with him and all that it was after one of those gardening jobs where it began yep that's when he offered me to use one of his um bathroom upstairs that one um one of the spare room he got and then he didn't do anything at the first time and around the time when I went around to do more Godly work for him he said the same thing if I wanted to use the bathroom and this time he entered the bloody bathroom with me what happened and he started washing me with salt putting shampoo rubbing me all over my body my private part my front part and that tried to kiss me few time he tried um few time and kiss me on the lips started kissing all over my neck and used to play play used to put soap on his private and online and used to play with himself while he's playing with me were you scared yeah I was scared he was weig flying I was just young teenager at the time how old do you think you were about 14 to 15 at the time started cting me cting me with money mobile phone new clothes boots mobile credit cigarette feed feeling me with um alcohol cash he was big powerful didn't know I was fighting didn't know how to go about it didn't know what to do at the time and and I I didn't have much family support at the time no one no one to run to or talk to he started touching me doing it more often than he blood forced me to bloody suck his penis and all that expected me to do things that I didn't want to do with him how many times did he make you do that more than 20 at least he's frighten when you you didn't buy yourself you know it looks like a power from men and I didn't know what to do it was extremely embarrassing and confronting for him to have to reveal these details with any Community it's hard with that sort of sex abuse allegation but with Aboriginal young males it's a really embarrassing thing to be touched interfered with by an older any other male figure so I had no doubt the story and the details he was giving me was absolutely 100% correct I had belief in him from the start and he told me his entire story it went for a long time and there were a lot of details there a lot of stuff to research follow up gave me some other information about other males that might well be connected so I drove back into town and then tried to track down the second one now it turns out he'd moved to uh the Northern Territory but I got him on the phone it's interesting with this one this one is quite high-profile I could give you the name and the details and a lot of Australians would know who it is but he again told a really compelling story and I didn't have any any doubt of what he was telling me was absolutely truthful and he told me stories again similar behaviors parties drinking drugs supplied by the bishop so you had three or four five boys there uh and he said what did he how did he tell them to take their shirts off what did he what were the words he used take shirts off see kiss hug and touch them touch touch them in their private parts was that the last time you saw him if you did he did he keep uh did he keep trying to get in contact with you yeah he's still he's still he's still trying to stuff how did it how did it make you feel pry disgusting just wanted to be myself so we started to put this this this story the bits and pieces the details necessary for a journalist to go to we and I rang my bosses at Channel 7 I said this is actually this has got legs this is real I'm ready to back these young men with our resources our name our brand and and I'm I reckon we should go to where I think we we need to do something there were other key things we had to do of course one of the key ones was to put the allegations to the bishop himself so they finally flew a cameraman up Channel 7 said okay well it's time to get professional on the pictures so they flew in Simon HEK from the per Newsroom brilliant operator and so we continued that investigation together for the next week and what we saw shocked and amazed us the first thing that hit me was that we didn't have to wait long you know before we saw this evidence of behaviors that were really suspicious and wrong in fact I think it might have been s's second or third day and we're following him again he's in the town of broom Bishop's on drives into the bottle shop and Simon with a little uh hidden um body camera follows him in and the bishop buy a slab of um Jack Daniels in Coke and buys a couple other things in the bottle shop gets into his car then he goes around to the servo buys bag of ice and an esy brand new esy puts everything together then he goes and picks up a young Aboriginal male and again nothing wrong with that you know maybe he's mentoring maybe he's shepherding maybe he's looking after but then they drove into the bush and we lost track of them we couldn't again that whole problem of trying to follow someone on a straight road without alerting them to the fact that you're right behind them is hard it's a difficult thing to do and and anyway we we lost him on that occasion but there wasn't again more evidence we believed in you know that looked like a pattern of behavior a pattern of behavior that that raised questions and needed some answers I had a list of people that I wanted to talk to ex employees staff current and former um that might be able to fill in the picture and one of them was one of his former Bishop sa's former secretary her name was Cheryl crty I was approached in Mass um by somebody um saying that there's a job going Bishop's looking for a new secretary personal assistant um would you like to apply so I hoed him over after Mass and introduce myself now Cheryl had worked I think for about a year and a half with the bishop and was his secretary his personal assistant she knew everything his diary contacts finances the whole lot and within weeks of her starting that job she says alarm Bells went off with her suspicions I had a very short hand over period uh from the previous incumbent she um was packed up ready to go she did say something to me that um in hindsight now um I should have listened to uh she said you'll learn and see things in this job that you wouldn't expect to see and learn and I thought that was just relating to religious and confidentiality but lo and behold I'd been 6 days in the job and I was screamed at like you wouldn't believe I was humiliated in front of the staff I'm got someone's name wrong and in front of me and in front of others he just said I was stupid and um fancy getting someone's name wrong and I was in tears I'd never been spoken to or spoken about in front of others like that before in any role and it was really uh came as such a shock I'm not someone who jumps to tears easily but um it it shocked me to the core but that was just the start he had an Aboriginal boy staying in the house and he didn't want me to know or see but I had seen that person through the window I couldn't work out why these boys were staying in his home as a mother of a son and a grandmother now I had absolute suspicions about why someone would compromise themselves so badly as to have young men staying in their home with them and um it was something that I found very difficult to deal with a couple of key things there was a list a piece of paper on the office wall pinned to the wall it had a list of 60 plus names about 60 names 58 of the mail and underneath each name with the banking details of each of those young Aboriginal youths it was always petty cash uh in the amounts of 50 to 100 and I had to drop what I was doing when he asked for it to be done and do it immediately not it took precedent over anything else and she was constantly feeding out and farming uh cash funds um cigarettes telephones mobile phones SIM cards tickets bus tickets airplane tickets sometimes AFL tickets in Melbourne trips that the bishop would take to Melbourne to go and watch an AFL game final Grand Final and he'd take one of these young Aboriginal males with him this young man's mother had died she was only very young in her 40s I believe and a couple of weeks after this young man's put on a plane with the bishop and flown to Melbourne to go and see a grand um one of the AFL matches and I overheard him get a friend to book a twin room at the mcure and I thought if there isn't anyone more vulnerable in the world world than someone has just lost their mother and you're taking them away on your own I I didn't sleep I was worried for the young boy safety so now we have two streams of allegations one is the sexual allegations against the bishop and the other stream of allegations is the financial mismanagement and potential fraud of Dian money and most of that charity money given over by donations from around the country into this pretty impoverished dasis of broom to help a largely indigenous Community she feared and suspected that money was being taken out of those bank accounts and spent on young men that were being groomed by Bishop solders I actually alerted the police um during an interview that I had with Detective from kanara who initially led the investigation into sers um where to find receipts and documents to support what I was talking about but I believe since they've all been destroyed the police didn't initiate any such warrants and computer hard drives were destroyed and so were many Financial records it was difficult talking to Cheryl she she was a broken woman in many ways and she had filed complaints against Bishop Saunders with the church and felt the grieve that never were those complaints addressed they eventually one of them was the bullying complaint which she settled privately in the end but she was completely intimidated by the bishop I was terrified of him he would pull up in the driveway and I would be shaking wondering what sort of mood he would come in you know um he was volatile he's he had a terrible temper um and this is what people don't see they see this very confident man you only have to listen to him on a sermon on a Sunday he's so well spoken and he comes across with such power and um he uses that to his own advantage against vulnerable people this is what makes me stick to the core you know um there couldn't be a more Despicable situation after a week or so of gathering these bits of evidence and building a picture and building uh enough of a story to be able to go to where the next stage of that is to is to try and talk to him good morning good morning Bishop Saunders I didn't know you'd be in town today sorry I was trying to contact your office Derby Chris Rosen from Channel 7 would we be able to meet after Mass perhaps and have a chat well I have some stuff to do do you yes is well just for 10 minutes or so happy to happy to wait can we film The the service today Mass no no I we not do that okay I'll see you after all right terrific thank you so much it was interesting making that first approach to Bishop Saunders because I thought we might actually tip him off to the fact that we were investigating him if he knew about the police investigation that that stage been running against him for 18 months then surely any intelligent man that the alarm Bells would go off and feel like he was about to be involved in some sort of media sting so it was a gamble to do this my name is Christopher Alan Saunders um I'm the bishop of Breo and the kimbery and I'm 70 years old in the preliminary moments of the interview he's sitting down he's putting on his microphone and we've we've got him uh positioning for the camera and he's sort of talking ad lib about how he's doesn't trust the media yeah I'm I'm I'm very uh nervous about uh well not necessar about you but your industry he had a suspicion of media but I don't think he had any clue of what we were actually looking at broadly well a valueable service you guys do you know I mean it's an extraordinary responsibility to to convey and communicate the truth to people and that's that's where my issue was with the industry itself you know it's difficult though because I I'm interviewing a man now I have grave suspicions about and met him for the first time and shake his hand out the at the side of the cathedral in broom and um and steer him over to the setup we had with the church in the background he meets Simon my Carman and we sit down we start to talk about the area the dasis the problems of the area what the church is doing with those problems and also quietly throw a couple of questions in about issues on sex abuse on uh Aboriginal youths and to see what his response is and what he's bringing back to me there certainly um an abuse of alcohol in our communities there's no doubt about that at all sensitive issue I want to bring up too is the we see a lot of domestic violence and talk of um sexual abuse within the communities um do you guys see and hear uh much about that what could be done about that well I that's certainly uh let's take them one at a time it's uh the matter of um of Family Violence of violence within family structure is uh there's too much of it simply and uh uh and it's too simple to say it's simply caused by the abuse of alcohol and drugs as for the As for the matter of of sexual abuse of children um yes I'm sure that it is happening um I'm sure it has happened in the past we know it has happened in the past and I imagine it's still happening to some degree I don't know if it's happening to the degree that uh uh that some people think uh I I'd hate to think that it is and i' I'd like to think that we're getting a a handle on it in the sense of uh uh people now are starting to realize that this is a crime and this is something that should never have happened and should never happen again and it was extremely insightful to have him in that position and to just be asking questions Gathering that intelligence and getting a better picture uh of who this person was um or with a view at the end to sort of trying to work out do I really want to get away with this CU I know it's going to destroy this man's life we have to be 100 20% right we have to cross every T dot every eye and make sure we've explored every Avenue and this was a great way of getting to know him a little bit and probe some of the things that drove him some of the things that motivated him uh and his connections particularly with the indigenous Community those guys that are waiting for me there um you know they they've got issues themselves and they talk about them you know do you personally you know know those boys do you actually develop relationships and and stay close yeah yeah I work very hard at I that's what I was doing in Derby yesterday and I I'll be perfectly honest with you now I mean the the reason I didn't stay last night is because the BLS that I was talking over were getting drunker and drunker and carried on and I wasn't going to get any further so I decided to come home you know and you built up an extraordinary level of trust with these communities and these people as well you and your your priests I mean I I remember reading from the Royal Commission in in the last couple of years that broom as a dasis had hardly had any if any um uh priest assaults on on uh on on youths on children well I think there something you're proud of yes I am I think there's an extraordinary good relationship uh between uh clergy religious and uh and abigal people but I I I'm also aware I'm sure that there are uh crimes that have happened that haven't really been reported I'm sure that that's happened too it's um very unlikely that if you run institutional care for 90 years that you haven't had some problem somewhere especially when all of the safeg guards that we build into our society today weren't present then I was satisfied with the evidence we' gathered by then and particularly with the compelling and truthful I found truthful evidence of the witnesses that this man was lying to me bold face lying he'd appeared before a royal commission the Royal commission intersects abuse as well talking about the issue in his area and had told that Royal commission that there wasn't a problem up here one or two cases that have been dealt with and and that the area was fine didn't have a problem to deal with and he made five or six strong statements in that interview saying that sex abuse is abhorrent particular of the indigenous community and it would never happen here and it was fascinating listening to him project his public persona but knowing in the background that privately he was a very different man I've regretted some things that I've done mistakes that I've made and uh I guess I would have uh lived life a little bit uh more productively had I uh known then what I know now but generally speaking I think I can stand before the Lord with a a reasonable uh sense of of of accomplishment and still begging his forgiveness for the for the times that I haven't been lived up to what I should have been so by now we've been doing this investigation for two weeks and I feel we have enough evidence to put a report together and go public I believe in the evidence we've checked it I've spoken to police off the Record I've spoken to lawyers off the Record I've got a lot of information and on top of that I've got key interviews that will I think sub you know substantiate the allegations against him and plus we've been following him and we've got the video evidence of bits and pieces that he's done it's time to put those allegations to him because at the end of the day maybe he has a reasonable and genuine excuse and Alibi for everything that has been alleged the question is how to do it with television you need to do it on camera you need to see the person's reaction and you need that reaction to be told to the viewers so they can make their judgments and and see for themselves the only place that we knew we had guarantee that he would be the front and center there without doubt was Mass on Sunday morning recording Bishop sers again Chris raising again Channel 7 do that anymore oh yeah we're not allowed to do that anymore um look far more serious things to talk about this time I just wanted to ask you some some questions did you what well I'll tell you were you're aware that you've been under investigation by the police for the last 18 months oh for what uh sex abuse allegations excuse me I don't want to talk about this very very serious allegations that you've been uh with uh young Aboriginal males vulnerable Aboriginal males over a long period of time multiple complaints sex complaints sex abuse complaints from those young males I know nothing about it what do you say to the claims I have have absolutely no no there is no substance to it whatsoever and I don't know where that's come from and I'm sorry you decided to capture me here at this particular moment that is extraordinary well it is it is and we needed to talk to you because the claims are so serious of course i' agree with you but I'm afraid and they also go to to claims of misuse of church funds thousands of dollars over years okay your your thoughts on that well my thoughts on that are precisely the same as the other one but I have absolutely no uh compunction saying I've never done anything like that and I'm just I'm just supplying alcohol supplying alcohol to I'm not going to talk anymore about this until the police tell me what the charges are so when you I'm only hearing it from you and you're not a policeman but when I do hear from the police i' be happy to answer the charges that the uh professional Professional Standards has contact you in last week about uh about supplying alcohol to Young aigal miles I don't know anything about the stuff you're talking about right and I really find this I've seen this before on television I never thought I'd be a victim of it okay well at last chance to deny everything that I've just put to you and yes exactly you want to come around to here Simon um Bishop these claims are extremely serious obviously and uh and we're giving you a chance here to to talk about them and to give us your side of this story to you I just gave you my side of it right there and right then you have it you face allegations and possible charges of aggravated sexual penetration without consent oh oh that's extraordinary listen let me say without any doubt whatsoever without any reservation that has never happened and never would happen and that's completely malicious and I'm sorry to hear it from the Press instead of from the police and just last one one last thing this in investigation been going 18 months do you think you should stand down during that time for a couple of hours he sat and dwelled on what had just happened we let him go um he' been we just hit him with some extraordinary allegations and any man is going to be struggling to deal with those let him have that space and you know he knows where to contact me and he can come back with official denials through his lawyers or through the church uh at his time and Pace in that time though he contacted the bishop in the Archbishop in Perth and told him what had happened and made certain statements and the Archbishop and he came to the conclusion that he had to stand aside so that happened without Fanfare without press release without any public distribution we held the story on for the day and at that point I email the Vatican and the Archbishop in Perth and instantly they come back with a press release saying he stood down we've taken this action we're moving another Bishop into take his place and an investigation internal will be started immediately I was amazed at how quickly that happened it was almost like they've been waiting for that phone call from a medeia organization or a police organization for some time and the story quickly exploded around the country and around the world tonight 7 News can reveal new abuse allegations rocking the Catholic church since October 2018 Bishop Saunders one of of the highest ranked Catholics in the country has been under investigation for alleged historical sexual assault complaints this is really disturbing just when the church was saying that we have learned these things happened in the past they will never happen again this has now happened it it's actually a really difficult thing to do when you know you're going to destroy someone's life you really do have the potential to destroy someone's life you don't know what's going to happen at the end of that interview you don't know what their reaction is going to be and it's a really difficult thing for a journalist to do everyone always looks at us and seem do we love it I hate it I was nervous as all hell I knew what was sitting in front of me I knew the potential damage I could do and it's actually a really gut-wrenching awful thing to do and I look back at the raw tape and you can see how I'm nervous I'm I'm you know it's not exactly the most eloquent interview I've done as I hit him with those allegations and so I'm not enjoying the moment um he's certainly not enjoying the moment and when that door slammed I was satisfied that we'd given we'd had he wasn't you know it wasn't just a 10-second run we'd had him for 3 or 4 minutes he had plenty of time to deny to explain to give context to what I'd been putting to him and none of those opportunities he took up and I don't know I got to the end of that and I thought I'm comfortable that wasn't the kind of denial you would make if you were absolutely 100% convinced of your innocence there was something there and it was substantive we then finished our series of reports and the political pressure was on the police to actually a answer why they hadn't acted faster B come to it their own conclusion well that police investigation rolled on for months more it was at that time the outbreak of CO as I mentioned earlier so the whole country did slow down the police argued they couldn't move around they couldn't travel the vast distances to get to the interviews that they needed to do and so the investigation stalled but by May 21 the following year a bit over a year later uh they came out and they announced that they weren't going to press any charges against Bishop Saunders while this is going on during that 18 months how many more young men have had to suffer and it just turns out that 4 months ago that that's when the second victim came forward and he had actually suffered and had things done to him like parading around his house Stark naked that all happened after the first victim came forward so while everyone in the in the background doing what they can do this behavior is still continuing and young men are still being put through hell their key reason for doing that they said was the difficulty of getting evidence from the complainants they are terrified to stand up in a court of law a room full of white fellas the Aboriginal person especially young young people up here in the Kimberly they don't know times dates places and all that sort of things so to say to to say victim number one where were you on October the 15th 2015 when this incident was supposed to Happ they're not going to know that they're not going to be able to say I was in in Melbourne at such and such a hotel in room 604 I had steak and chips for dinner with the bishop the next morning I had bacon and eggs and then we did this they don't know that every day is just for the moment all they know is oh happened long time back or happened just recently and that's going to be a problem in court because that's not going to I don't think it's going to stand up in court in wa Western Australia the age of consent is 16 and the police were having trouble working out whether the complaints were being made when the youth were pre or post 16 so in the end the police determined that they were consenting homosexual relationships and they weren't illegal but a lot of the complainants and the victims and their lawyers said well even if it was underage or overage it was inappropriate and potentially it was rape um these young men didn't want to be involved in these sexual relationships with this bishop the bishop likes to get all these young men drunk then he likes to tell them to take their clothes off sometimes you'll just scrip them down to their underwear other times if they're alone St naked no clothes on at all uh this young victim is very good at dancing Aboriginal style and for our mass of the land of the Holy Spirit or the Aboriginal Mass uh the bishop selects certain dances to to process in with the gospel because it's a beautiful beautiful ceremony and a beautiful liturgy and one day um this young victim was at his house here in broom the bishop gave him a few drinks asked him to practice the dancing of the Gospel which he did and then later on the bishop told him to take his clothes off strip down to his shorts which he did danced around again then told him to go Stark naked and I said I said to when the victim was telling me I said said so you were actually no clothes on at all and he said yep that's right Father John no clothes at [Music] all so May 21 the police decide they're not going to take any further action and they've said no we just can't work out and determine the ages accurately of the victims uh when these relationships started so they dropped that they dropped the case I was genuinely gutted disappointed and and a little bit angry and frustrated I just thought you know they hadn't followed through this investigation they hadn't taken some of the evidence that we had and offered to give to them they never came and asked for it by the way never came and interviewed asked to see what we' gathered uh for me I met a couple of the police officers in broom you know fine upstanding but I just think that some parts of that investigation retive laziness two of them pulled me aside at one point and said look Chris it's just so hard to establish indigenous witnesses as reliable and credible you put them into a white man's court and a white jury will not believe what they say not up against a powerful man like the bishop that we don't think the charges is going to work after the story went to a I rang one of the victims that night and he he was in tears he was crying down the phone he said Chris listen to this and he hold held his phone up and I could hear partying in the background he said this is my community happy to see that Bishop Saunders has been stood down we all know what he's done they don't know it's me as in the victim that uh that spoke to you I don't know it's me that's been that's one of Bishop saunders's victims but we're sitting here and partying to tonight for what Channel 7's done thank you you've got him stood down the police decided not to charge bitterly disappointed to lawyers to others that had come forward to the uh the key Witnesses in my story Father John Cheryl quilty a string of other former priests a nun a lot of people up there who' wanted to see the police do more the damage is just over the entire kimbery in fact the dasis of broom with this bishop has become the Devil's Playground but quietly 4 months later Bishop sers decided to retire and he did retire from the position but he didn't retire from broom and all of them said he still turned up to church he still turned up to officiate at funerals and services and he still got entitlements to church property Church cars Church resources according to my contacts up there was still running the dasis uh de facto even though he was officially stood down I think the pel case had a bearing on what happened here in Western Australia in fact one of the detectives did say to me that um he was waiting for the outcome of the pale case and I was very frustrated by that I don't think they're quite sure what to do because it's a bishop if it was a priest I could understand they could stand a priest down or or the bishop could stand that priest down pending investigation and pending the allegations and then going from there but I feel because it's a bishop they're not quite sure what to do so they've just been waiting for the police to do everything they can I've informed the Nuno I've informed Archbishop Castello and had a wonderful conversation with him and I feel he's he fantastic support and I'm aware that Rome also knows about [Music] it the pope decides to take some action and the pope himself Pope Francis has only chosen to do special Catholic papal investigations a handful of times around the world when he sees something that he thinks raises questions that need serious answers he appoints what's called a Vox Estis looks Monday you are the light of the world it's a policy he brought in to try and investigate and clear up abuse within the church so what they did was they engaged two local private detectives two former wa police officers with vast experience some 30 years each 60 years total with the wa police and those two men quietly began their investigations late 2022 they traveled the length and breadth of Australia interviewing Witnesses interviewing alleged victims and they compiled this report on behalf of the Vatican they were given 3 months to do it but because of the vast distances they were going particularly uh in Outback Australia the detectives asked the Vatican for an extension they got another 3 months 6 months in total their investigation went for before they finally handed that report into the Vatican the Vatican then sat on that report for some 6 months everybody around the country everyone who had a stake in this story everyone that knew uh what had been going on anyone that had a gripe and a complaint and a concern about Bishop Saunders was waiting for the results of this report 6 months later nothing's been done and a source reaches out to me with a copy of the report they're unhappy that it's still been sitting with the Vatican on the desk of one of the Pope's right-and men for 6 months and still nothing has been done and they hand it to me and say you take over you publicize it so we did the Vatican has a copy so too does seven news and we put to a a a weekl long series of reports that got an extraordinary response I'm pretty confident that no other investigation report has ever been leaked we're extremely fortunate but it's a massive responsibility to get this leak and to do something with it and and we did it's explosive calling 73-year-old Saunders a sexual predator four victims of sexual acts were identified but then it adds 67 additional youths and men may have been subjected to sexual or grooming behaviors the allegations date back to when he was a priest in Celli Sydney 1976 the matter is still being dealt with and it would be quite wrong of me to interfere with that at the moment 6 months since the investigation was finished no action from the Catholic church only confirming the report is with the Vatican I'm sorry that's really all you need to say at the moment the six-month inquiry by two former wo detectives found 102 Witnesses including six priests the covert operation finding the bishop spent hundreds of thousands on alcohol cigarettes mobile phones cash hotels bus and airfares grooming vulnerable young Aboriginal men also alleging much of that money came from church and charity funds like this St Vin's op shop with claims he once had $3 million in five separate bank accounts a safe with $80,000 in cash multiple firearms and that he used the church plane to take alcohol into dry Aboriginal communities in hessan bags to disguise the contents a nun writes about a youth taking camping while he was in his sleeping bag the bishop tried to get in with him one at a youth Catholic Festival allegedly woke up with the bishop lying naked on top of him insiders saying the paper report means this time the bishop is in checkm now the implications of this report are that the bishop can be uh defrocked stood down stood aside moved somewhere else in the world I know that the victims in this case and the complainants as well want to see him first and foremost removed from broom so he can't be there anymore can't be liasing with young Aboriginal men can't be doing what he does in that small town and they want him defro they want him removed from the church certain there a lot of officials around the country in the Catholic hierarchy and I'm talking right to the top that would like to see him removed from the church altogether I think he should be lzed defr as a priest it would be the first case in Australia but his peers must have known his arrogance and the fact that he was a bully but priest Bishops in Australia don't report to anyone but Pope Francis so as much as you know they say that um you know that the hierarchy doesn't allow for reporting of a fellow bishop or priest um I can't believe their conscience hasn't got to them was 6 months after we broke that story about the Vatican report a development we hadn't seen coming and it happened on January 15 which just happened to be Bishop sa's 74th birthday child abuse detectives raid the home of a former broom Bishop a special crime Squad investigation into Christopher saers revealed as operation stent searching for evidence at his pigot way property at the same time interviewing him in Perth it is investigation into historical sex offenses so it may take some time to work through the new information that new information a top secret Vatican dossier revealed by seven news last year prompting this latest probe the Inquisition ordered by Pope Francis leveling allegations of grooming against the bishop of 50 years that he had as many as 71 victims all denied by Saunders this is a very significant development with the police now finally making this move on Bishop Saunders they had been under enormous pressure to do something as you know this investigation had been going now for 5 years in three different iterations it started as operation white plane it went to operation artifact and now it's opened again they're calling it operation stent it happened in two ways there were two activities both on January 15 a team of detectives flew to broom and raided his personal home seizing boxes of personal items and documents and also back in Perth uh police their detectives escorted the bishop into the police station for extensive interview he was interrogated for hours and then released there's no doubting the significance of this move from the police they haven't charged him yet we're waiting to see what happens with that the impact though on the church investigation a lot of us are thinking will be uh a negative one a lot of people watching this case uh very skeptical and cynical now about the way the church has been handling this and they fear that now that the police have relaunched this investigation uh the church might might pause theirs and we might see a further delay in a final decision uh from the pope Pope Francis on what the future is for Bishop Saunders I'm angry at the man and I'm frustrated I feel betrayed and hurt and terribly let down by him and and the hierarchy of of the church the church have a lot to answer for I myself and I know many others and we're probably talking 20 or 30 at least that I know of have written to both the nonos the previous Nono and the current Nono they' I've written to the acbc uh the Australian Bishop's conference not one of the Bishops or the Nonio or anybody has acknowledged receipt of my email let alone replied we're now five six years into this investigation and still nothing's being done by either the police or the church and the two of those organizations church and state hand inand opposite each other and unable to make a call and a lot of people growing frustrated with that wanting some action action from the police action from the pope but everybody wanting something done because this is simply taking too long not once have Professional Standards or the powers of being the church not once have one of them asked how are those boys doing not once that tells me that the church has become the Devil's Playground because it's it's a sickness and it's wrong and it's not just in this dasis I guarantee every dasis in this country will have the same sort of problems and we have to root out this evil once and for all and the only way to do it is for for people to stand up and say enough is enough if you commit these crimes if you do these things to Young vulnerable adults then you must be held accountable for your actions

Channel: 7NEWS Spotlight

Views: 221,887

Keywords: News, Channel 7, documentary, interview, 7news, spotlight, feature, christopher saunders, seven news australia, chris saunders, child abuse, sexual assault, bishop saunders, bishop saunders broome, pope francis, bishop removed, bishop arrested, perth bishop, pope francis latest news, pope prays, catholic mass, catholic truth, catholic conversion, perth, perth police, crime documentary, true crime, crime rate by country, crime rate by country 2023, coffeehouse crime

Id: ijF892FqV6g

Length: 59min 38sec (3578 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 15 2024