As the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse prepares today to investigate allegations of sexual abuse at a Melbourne children’s hospital, two men in Sydney are facing sex abuse charges that stretch back four decades.
The commission will investigate allegations that a child was abused by a volunteer while being treated at the Royal Children’s Hospital (RCH) in Melbourne as well as at a number of public and private medical institutions in New South Wales during hearings in Sydney beginning on May 6.
Police arrested the men in raids at Miranda and Granville as part of separate operations after multiple allegations of sex assaults against children going back to the 1980s.
A 79-year-old man was arrested at his home in Miranda yesterday after a six month investigation that began in August when Miranda police received information about multiple historical indecent assaults that occurred in Miranda, in Sydney’s south, beginning in 1985.
During the investigation, several witnesses came forward to support the allegations.
The man was yesterday charged with 19 offences including 14 counts of indecent assault of children under 16 years of age and one count of indecent act with person under 16 years.
Meanwhile, a former Catholic priest accused of abusing eight children between 1975 and 1992 has been charged with several counts of sexual and indecent assault.
The 70-year-old was arrested on Tuesday at a home in Granville, in Sydney’s west, as a result of a year-long investigation which began with allegations he abused a young girl in 1986.
Seven more victims were subsequently identified during the investigation.
The former priest has been charged with two counts of sexual assault and 17 counts of indecent assault.
