Catholic priest ran cult-like 'Charlie Brown' group to sexually abuse young girls, royal commission hears

Catholic priest ran cult-like 'Charlie Brown' group to sexually abuse young girls, royal commission hears

JANET FIFE-YEOMANS The Daily Telegraph
December 09, 2013

A CATHOLIC priest ran a cult-like group sexually abusing young girls giving them all the surname Brown, as in Charlie Brown from the Peanuts comic strip, the royal commission has been told.

Her voice wavering, one member of the group, Joan Isaacs, said Father Francis Derriman told her he was dying and had to have sex with her first.

He fathered a child with another girl in the group when she was 17.

Ms Isaacs said: "Frank Derriman used the Peanut comic as a platform and used the surname Brown in reference to himself, the other three children and me."

At the time in 1967 and 1968, Father Derriman was a priest with the Archdiocese of Brisbane and chaplain of Sacred Heart Sandgate in Brisbane, she told the commission.

After two committals and trial, Father Derriman was in 1998 eventually convicted of sexually abusing Mrs Isaacs, now aged 60, and sentenced to one year behind bars, to be suspended after he served just six months.

"Father Derriman created a cult like group which included myself and three other children," Mrs Isaacs, 60, said....

"I have maintained friendships with the other three children in the Brown group. The two girls out of the group have told me that Frank Derriman also sexually abused them. One of them took steps to have him criminally charged in respect of her sexual abuse and the other girl fathered Frank Derriman's child at the age 17 years."....

Mrs Isaacs said she later went through the Catholic Church's Towards Healing process expecting to be treated with warmth, dignity and respect but later discovered that everything that was said to her during the process, including the apology, had been drafted by a church lawyer beforehand.

Reluctantly she ended up signing a deed of release with the church that banned her from discussing what happened to her, including the Towards Healing process, with anyone including her husband or to make "disparaging remarks" about the church.

She received enough compensation to buy $5000 worth of Coles-Myer shares and a sewing machine....

She said she had felt silenced for the past 12 years since signing the confidentiality agreement with the church. The royal commission has negotiated with the church to lift all those suppression agreements....
http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/catholic-priest-ran-cultlike-charlie-brown-group-to-sexually-abuse-young-girls-royal-commission-hears/story-fni0cx4q-1226778813498