A former Catholic priest who sexually abused teenage boys in South Australia paid a $US25,000 “downpayment” to be released from an Indonesian prison, an Adelaide court has heard. Charles Alfred Barnett, 69, was in the court for sentencing submissions over sexual and indecent assaults on four occasions between 1977 and 1994, the Sydney Morning Herald reports.
Barnett was arrested in Indonesia in 2008 and returned to Australia after spending a year in custody.
His lawyer Stephen Ey told the court Barnett spent a year in horrendous conditions in jail in Jakarta, despite paying $32,000 to be released on home detention so he could sort out his business affairs before extradition, ABC News says.
Ey told the court Barnett had paid a $32,000 “downpayment” to get out of jail and into home detention.
Judge Paul Rice said the payment amounted to a bribe.
“If it walks like a duck … let’s call it a duck then.”
Barnett apologized to the young men, their families, the church and their communities saying this “would never happen again”.
Ey said Barnett had lived in Indonesia since the mid 1990s, helping Indonesian families by way of atoning for his offending.
A former Catholic priest tried to bribe his way out of an Indonesian jail while facing child sex charges, the Adelaide District Court has heard.
Charles Alfred Barnett, 69, was arrested in Indonesia in 2008, three decades after he abused the first of four teenage boys in South Australia’s mid-north.
SIC: CTHAS