A New Zealand woman is launching a compensation claim against the the Maitland-Newcastle diocese for alleged sexual abuse by the late Fr Denis McAlinden.
The abuse allegedly occurred after Fr McAlinden was sent to New Zealand during the 1980s, The Newcastle Herald reports.
More victims are expected to come forward after reports about Father McAlinden were published in a New Zealand newspaper last week, the paper says.
The New Zealand reports recounted that Maitland-Newcastle Bishop Michael Malone had issued a statement in October 2007 saying Fr McAlinden was a serial child sex offender over nearly five decades who was wanted by police for alleged child sex offences at the time of his death in 2005.
The Herald says it is aware of at least 20 victims.
Fr McAlinden was denied the right to be a priest in the Hunter in the late 1990s but was never reported to police by the Church, the paper says.
He was transferred to the Waikato region of New Zealand in 1984 after he was moved from Maitland-Newcastle to Western Australia in the early 1980s.
He allegedly sexually assaulted at least one young girl in the Pilbara mining region of WA.
Father McAlinden also spent time in Papua New Guinea.
SOURCE
New claims over sex abuse priest (Newcastle Herald, 22/11/08)