By TARA McGRATH and CAMERON LUCADOU-WELLS
CARMEL Rafferty was silenced, shut down and bullied in 1992 when she dared to question the behaviour of a parish priest at Holy Family School where she worked as a teacher.
Known as Mrs Giddings during her teaching life, she taught at the Doveton parish school for five years from the late 1980s, before being appointed as a senior school teacher in grades 5 and 6.
It was during this year that her pupils started coming forward to tell her that they were uncomfortable with the way the then-priest, Peter Searson, was touching them.
It’s because of her experiences more than 20 years ago that Ms Rafferty was “overjoyed” to hear the federal government’s announcement of a royal commission on institutional responses to allegations of child abuse.
She also praised current parish priest Michael Shadbolt for devising protocols but described them as inadequate.
“It is counterproductive, because it will lull people into a false sense of security, which by its very nature is therefore even more dangerous.”
She said the protocols lacked an education component. “People need to be educated about grooming. Paedophiles spend months or even years preparing to assault a particular child.
“People need to know how and what to recognise, and how to name these events before they can recognise and deal with them.”
She had some forewarning of problems at the school when she accepted the job as senior teacher: “[I was] asked if I knew about the problems, but no one would say what it was.”
Ms Rafferty went to Catholic Education Office representatives with her concerns but said she was shut down. “I lost my teaching career over paedophilia in the Catholic church.”
HOLY FAMILY PROTOCOLS
OVER the past two years, Holy Family’s parish priest Michael Shadbolt and the parish leaders have penned their own protocols to prevent child abuse.
These include:
■ All staff and parish volunteers likely to come in contact with children to have an up-to-date Working With Children check.
■ Any suspicion of child abuse should go to the police.
■ Never be alone with children except your own.
■ Any church staff acting inappropriately with women should be reported to the diocesan independent commissioner.
■ No child or young teenagers in the parish or priest’s house unless accompanied by a parent or official guardian.
■ The doors of the sacristy in the church left open before and after Mass. Two adults to stay until all altar servers have left.
■ The priest will never have youngsters in his car, unless in a “clear and pressing emergency obvious to everyone”.
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