Disgraced A Current Affair reporter
Ben McCormack sentenced
FORMER Current Affair reporter Ben McCormack had a cup of water and spit thrown at him as he left court after avoiding jail on child porn charges. A man who claimed to be a victim of sexual abuse threw a cup of water he’d apparently also spat in over McCormack as he left court.
McCormack, 43, was convicted and released on a $1000 good behaviour bond for three years at a sentencing hearing at Sydney’s Downing Centre District Court
The man called him a “f***ing filthy maggot” as he approached McCormack, who had been standing next to his lawyer Sam Macedone as he spoke to journalists. The moment the abuse began McCormack walked quickly through a large crowd of journalists — which is when the man struck.
“That happened to me when I was a f***ing kid,” the man yelled as McCormack quickly got into a waiting red Audi. The man had been waiting outside court for an hour and could be heard muttering obscenities and his outrage at McCormack’s sentence.
McCormack pleaded guilty to two charges of using a carriage service to transmit child pornography after Skype conversations between him and a West Australian paedophile were intercepted by police.
Mr Macedone said the reaction of the man was typical of someone who didn’t understand the facts of the case. “People like [the attacker] don’t really bother me, you find them everywhere. That’s his problem and he’s got his own problems...I feel sorry that Ben’s got to dry clean his suit but you expect that,” he said.
“He has accused Ben of doing something that he has not done but that’s how some people think”.
WHY McCORMACK ESCAPED JAIL
Judge Paul Conlon said, “It is a clear indication what they have been talking about is their shared fantasies.”
He referred specifically to an explicit conversation following images he sent to the other man that were never recovered by police, but alluded to semen stained underwear and Speedos.
The judge said the facts in the McCormack case was quite different to the cases of similar charges that normally came to court. It was clear the worst aspects of child porn cases was “absent” in McCormack’s case, he said.
“There was no transmission of pictures or images of child pornography ... it does not include pictures of actual child victims. There was no attempt to sexually exploit children or grooming.”
Judge Conlon spoke directly to McCormack after the sentence was handed down: “You have never harmed anyone and accordingly I wouldn’t like you to go forth and harm yourself. Hopefully those who supported you throughout this period will manage to convince you otherwise.”
‘IT IS CLEAR HIS JOB WAS HIS LIFE’
In his submissions, McCormack’s lawyer Sam Macedone said the conversations were a fantasy and a “wish list”. The Crown said that was irrelevant.
Judge Conlon said: “The overwhelming inference I drew from the conversations was they were examples of fantasies about a group of young male persons.”
He said the Crown conceded the charges couldn’t have been brought in their current form if they had taken place in person and not over the internet. As a result, he considered the charges fell at the “lower end of the scale”.
Judge Conlon believed McCormack had shown “genuine contrition” and accepted personal responsibility.
He had lost his career as a journalist where he had been “well known nationally”. “It is clear his job was his life. He will never again work in media again” before adding that McCormack believed his existence had been “destroyed”.
As he sentenced McCormack, Judge Conlon said a motivating factor was his previous good character as a journalist with A Current Affair — and also that he sought help to control his deviant sexual urges long before his arrest.
A psychologist who interviewed McCormack revealed he found the idea of sex with young boys “distressing” and didn’t believe he posed a risk to children. His risk of reoffending was estimated to be low.
The Crown dismissed the admissions he’d made as convenient and self serving and that they were made post arrest. But judge Conlon believed them, saying he believed they were accurate and rather being self serving they were “against self interest”.
He continued: “It would seem indicative of a person prepared to confront the truth necessary if one is seeking rehabilitation.” McCormack was admitted to hospital in April after a suicide attempt.
Adelaide Archbishop ordered to stand trial over child sex abuse cover up charges
The trial of the world’s most senior Catholic official to be charged over failing to report child sex abuse offences will go ahead, after a Newcastle magistrate deemed him fit to stand trial.
Philip Wilson, Archbishop of Adelaide, had his trial delayed last week after “acting on medical advice” not to travel, following pacemaker surgery and because of concerns over his cognitive capacity, according to his defence barrister.
Earlier last week the Archbishop was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, for which his defence team said he was taking medication which could take six months to work.
In a statement Archbishop Wilson said he hoped the prescribed medication would assist in slowing the progress of the disease and improving his current health. “It is a present reality that much stigma is still associated with Alzheimer’s disease,” he said.
“An initial reaction by many people is to think that life is all but over, and that a person with such a diagnosis cannot continue to live a productive life and contribute to society.
“If a point comes in the next eight years before my mandatory retirement as Archbishop of Adelaide… and I am advised by my doctors that the effects of Alzheimer’s disease might be beginning to impair my ability to function properly as Archbishop, I will offer my resignation."
But after a one-week delay to his trial, the Newcastle Local Court heard evidence this morning from a South Australian neuropsychologist, who deemed him well enough to stand trial after examining the 67-year-old’s health.
Archbishop Wilson was charged in 2015 with failing to report child sex abuse allegations concerning another priest, dating back to the 1970s.
It’s alleged in 1976 the Archbishop was aware that Maitland parish priest James Fletcher had indecently assaulted a 10-year-old boy in 1971, and the Archbishop failed to disclose that information to police during investigations between 2004-2006.
It also alleged that in 1976, during a confession, another child also revealed to Archbishop Wilson – who was newly ordained in his first parish – that Fletcher had sexually assaulted him.
It is believed Fletcher continued abusing children for nearly 30 years following those incidents.
He was convicted in 2004 on nine charges of assault and aggravated indecency over a number of years. The convicted former priest died from a stroke while in custody in 2006.
Archbishop Wilson has maintained his innocence since charges were first filed against him in 2015.
In a statement released when he was first charged, the Archbishop said he “vigorously” denied the allegations and expressed “deep sorrow for the devastating impact of clerical sex abuse on victims and their families.”
“I give an assurance that despite this charge, I will continue to do what I can to protect the children in our care in the Archdiocese of Adelaide,” he said at the time.
Over the last two years his legal team has attempted and failed on three separate occasions to have the charges quashed. In June this year his final attempt was unanimously dismissed by the New South Wales Court of Appeal.
If convicted, the Archbishop faces a maximum two years in jail for concealing a serious indictable offence. He is due to face a Newcastle court this afternoon.
Ballarat's St Patrick’s College strikes Archbishop Frank Little from records
Shannon Deery, Herald Sun
FORMER Melbourne Archbishop Frank Little will be struck from the records of his former college in the fallout of the child abuse royal commission’s report into the Melbourne Archdiocese.
The commission was scathing of Archbishop Little for his handling of abuse complaints saying he developed a damaging “culture of secrecy” that enabled further abuse.
Today St Patrick’s College, Ballarat, said it would remove Archbishop Little’s name from a building which had been named in his honour and revoke his status as an inducted Legend of the College.
ABUSE OF CHILDREN ‘CATASTROPHIC’ FAILURE OF CATHOLIC CHURCH
Headmaster John Crowley said the College aimed to role model the highest possible standards of behaviour to students entrusted to its care.
“The findings demonstrate that Archbishop Little’s behaviours do not meet these expectations,” Mr Crowley said. “As such we are now acting in accordance with our joint statement issued in conjunction with Edmund Rice Education Australia (EREA) in December 2016."
“This statement specifically identifies unacceptable behaviours which do not align with our expectations around child protection. The College hopes to role model, at every opportunity, responses that embody our child protection expectations and obligations in support of our mission of raising fine boys to the status of great men.”
The school says while Archbishop Little’s name will be removed from a building, it will stay on honour boards with a line through it.
The college said following the findings into its Ballarat case study, issued today, it expects to make further statements in the near future.
In its report the commission found Archbishop Little’s “culture of secrecy ... sought to protect the Archdiocese from scandal and liability and prioritised the interests of the Church over those of the victims.”
The commission found Archbishop Little lied about the resignation of paedophile priests, concealed ongoing financial assistance to others, and shuffled others between parishes.
It found there was a “practice of using oblique or euphemistic language in correspondence and records concerning complaints of child sexual abuse” with terms like “Special Issues” being used to refer primarily to complaints of child sexual abuse.
Commissioners also found that minutes of the meetings of the Curia, a body of senior clergy who advised the Archbishop, were generally euphemistic, incomplete and inaccurate.
None of the minutes referred directly to child sexual abuse or other similar terms. “The purpose of not recording information was to protect the assets of the Archdiocese in the event of a claim being made against it,” the commission found.
The report found dysfunctional systems, procedures and practices within the Archdiocese inevitably led to poor outcomes in responding to allegations of child sexual abuse.
It included the structure of Catholic education in Victoria whereby the parish priest is the employer of staff at parish schools. That system remains in place today.
The commission found during Archbishop Little’s tenure decision-making within the Archdiocese in response to complaints of child sexual abuse against priests was highly centralised.
“There were no effective checks and balances on the Archbishop’s exercise of powers in relation to priests who were the subject of complaints,” it said.
“A system for responding to complaints of child sexual abuse in which the exclusive authority for making decisions was vested in one person, is deeply flawed”.
‘The rules have never been different’: Emma Alberici on sexual misconduct in Australian media
LATELINE host Emma Alberici has spoken candidly about sexual misconduct in the media, revealing her own uncomfortable story
James Weir@hellojamesweir news.com.au
“IT’S not surprising. I’ve been around a long time. And so I know many of the stories,” Emma Alberici, the host of ABC’s long-running current affairs show Lateline says.
The presenter is getting ready to wind up the flagship news and current affairs show she’s hosted for six of its 28 years and talk has turned from the show’s end to sexual misconduct in Australia’s media industry.
It’s one month after claims of abuse began flooding Hollywood. And just days before Don Burke — the former host of the wholesome Burke’s Backyard and one of the country’s most high-profile entertainers in the ’80s and ’90s — faces claims from former staff alleging he was a “high-grade twisted abuser” and “sexual harasser”.
The allegations are the first of a long-promised investigation led by Australian journalist Tracey Spicer. Asked about the pending investigation, Alberici — who started her career as a cadet at the Herald Sun before holding roles at Channel Nine’s A Current Affair and as ABC’s Europe correspondent — is not surprised the stories are about to surface.
“It wouldn’t take much for the average person to Google some of them. I mean, they happened in full light,” she tells news.com.au, before pausing to think for a moment.
Alberici explains the “degrees of behaviour” women are exposed to — particularly in the entertainment industry.
“It’s one thing to say the wrong thing. It’s another thing to touch someone inappropriately. A lot of ‘saying the wrong thing’ happens,” she says. “And I think that when you are young ... look ... I’ve been in workplaces where young women have been the targets and I’ve been there. And sometimes I think men prey on vulnerable younger women. I have never been the subject of any of that kind of behaviour in my workplaces.”
‘THE RULES HAVE NEVER BEEN DIFFERENT’
Alberici recalls an instance that happened when she was a 23-year-old reporter. She says she never really thought about it — but was reminded of it by the recent claims of misconduct both here and overseas.
“The worst that happened to me — and I didn’t actually see it as (misconduct) ... But my first job interview in television, the executive asked me to go back to his hotel room,” she said.
“And I just kind of laughed it off and said, ‘Well that wouldn’t look very good, would it? If I got the job then people would think that’s how I got the job. And that would be bad for me’. “And he kind of didn’t pursue it and that was the end of that. I didn’t really think about it until recently ... I still got the job. I think sometimes men forget about the power dynamic. What’s appropriate and what’s not appropriate becomes a little blurred in their heads. But, as I said, I still got the job and I said no. And that was respected. So, was that a really bad thing? I don’t know.”
Many of the claims brought forward in Australia and overseas happened in the ’70s, ’80s and ’90s. In response to the New York Times investigation into his treatment of women in Hollywood, Harvey Weinstein said he grew up in a time when the “rules … were different”.
“I hate that argument,” Alberici says of the excuse.
“The rules have never been different. That’s like saying, ‘I was a priest in the ’60s and ’70s when the rules about how to treat young people were different’. Yes, there was a whole lot of, ‘They should be seen and not heard,’ and that’s why we didn’t hear all the claims and instances of abuse. Because we believed children shouldn’t be heard. And I think, in some respects, women weren’t heard.”
‘THAT BLOKE GETS MORE MONEY BECAUSE HE HAS A FAMILY’
It’s 11.30 in the morning, and Alberici, 47, has been up since 5 for her daily run. She’s read the newspapers, flicked through online news sites and Twitter, carted her three kids — between the ages of nine and 13 — off to school and wrapped a 9.30 conference call with her production team to plan that night’s show.
By midday, Alberici will be at the ABC studio in Sydney’s Ultimo — where she’ll grill local and international political heavyweights, interview overseas correspondents and often set the next day’s news agenda — and won’t return to her Coogee home until 10.30pm.
“I’ve been really happy with my career to date. I was the first mother sent overseas as a correspondent in the ABC’s history and I had three (kids) under four. I was on maternity leave when I got the job and I had a five-month old. I’m saying that out loud because I still can’t believe it. And a few months later I was being tear-gassed in Athens,” she says, noting her “surprise” when she was offered the gig.
“And when I became finance editor at 7.30 I was up against six guys. I’ve enjoyed proving that a woman and a mother can do anything.”
Earlier in the week, Alberici had hosted the Telstra Business Womens Awards where Lisa Wilkinson spoke as a guest — just weeks after her spectacular defection from Channel Nine to Network Ten over pay parity that dominated national headlines.
Alberici says she’s “sick” of having the conversation about why women should be treated the same as men.
“I’ve had bosses say to me over the years, ‘That bloke gets more money because he’s got a family to look after’ — as if I don’t have a family to look after. This is just what society thinks about men and thinks about women and that’s got to change,” she says.
This Friday, Lateline will broadcast its final show. In its 28 years, the program has been seen as critical in setting the headlines and has won multiple Walkley Awards, including one for a report on an alleged cover-up of child sex abuse by clergy and police in Newcastle.
Alberici — who has been at the helm of the late-night current affairs program for the past six years — will take up the new role as chief economics correspondent at the broadcaster.
She describes the end as “sad” but says changing viewer habits mean it’s the right decision.
The final episode will air on Friday, December 8, and bring back all former hosts including Kerry O’Brien, Tony Jones and Maxine McKew.
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