The Tragic Story of Rod Owen

[dieter 3,325]

19 minutes ago, daisycutter said:

what i don't get is wyl's little contribution here re pell's guilt of paedophilia based on some third-hand gossip from the 80's with absolutely no details or proof..............absolutely pointless and unhelpful post......but there ya go, it's wyl

The issue about 'the cameramen' is that, like I say, the complaints about Pell go back to the 60's when he was a mere apprentice  priest.  They include a life guard at Torquay where Pell went for Christmas holidays, who walked into the changing rooms and saw Pell prancing around boys in his naked splendour. The lifeguard ordered Pell to get dressed and [censored] off. The bottom line is that unless there was/is a conspiracy by a consort of people who had an issue with Pell, the number of times he has been identified as an offender goes beyond mere coincidence. 

There is also the baffling case of his defence of priests who were repeat offenders. What does that tell you about a man who always walked tall beside Risdale, one of the worst pedophiles in history?

[Sir Why You Little 34,432]

53 minutes ago, daisycutter said:

so these news cameramen in country towns back in the 80s saw pell commit paedophilia

right!

Daisy I am disappointed in that comment. 
all the kids swam at The Ballarat Pool during Summer

Old George was there too

Country Towns are small....

[Cranky Franky 1,483]

49 minutes ago, dieter said:

Yep: like the camera men at the Whitehouse who watched Clinton and Lewinsky. 

I don't think you get it. DC: the Pells of the world don't rape in front of cameras. 

FYI there is a list of complaints about Pell's behaviour which goes back to the 1960's.  Obviously all this is a Leftie, David Marr, and ABC-inspired plot to de-frock the man Greg Sheridan wanted to be the next Pope after the German Pope said Let me outta here.

And you can't keep hiding behind the specious defence that there were no witnesses. There very, very rarely are because people who rape kids and women always take this legal loophole into account. 

Dieter you are all over the shop jumping from one thing to another & always avoiding any question you are asked.

Please go & look up epistemology, logic and the basics of providing evidence for your arguments.

I just hope you never serve on a jury.

[daisycutter 28,485]

17 minutes ago, dieter said:

The issue about 'the cameramen' is that, like I say, the complaints about Pell go back to the 60's when he was a mere apprentice  priest.  They include a life guard at Torquay where Pell went for Christmas holidays, who walked into the changing rooms and saw Pell prancing around boys in his naked splendour. The lifeguard ordered Pell to get dressed and [censored] off. The bottom line is that unless there was/is a conspiracy by a consort of people who had an issue with Pell, the number of times he has been identified as an offender goes beyond mere coincidence. 

There is also the baffling case of his defence of priests who were repeat offenders. What does that tell you about a man who always walked tall beside Risdale, one of the worst pedophiles in history?

well i have no idea why my response has disappeared without any comment

secret censors

[BDA 20,032]

1 minute ago, Sir Why You Little said:

Daisy I am disappointed in that comment. 
all the kids swam at The Ballarat Pool during Summer

Old George was there too

Country Towns are small....

Why can't these people come forward and get him convicted then? I can understand the reticence back in the day. the Catholic church was a powerful institution so i can completely understand the fear of not being believed and the ostracisation that would follow. But not now. The church is very diminished. Plenty of priests have gone to prison. There has been a royal commission and the redress scheme is in place. They should come forward and provide the sworn evidence otherwise its just more tittle tattle. 

[dieter 3,325]

16 minutes ago, Cranky Franky said:

Dieter you are all over the shop jumping from one thing to another & always avoiding any question you are asked.

Please go & look up epistemology, logic and the basics of providing evidence for your arguments.

I just hope you never serve on a jury.

You are trying to turn this into an issue of semantics using every slight of hand known by the Jesuits and the so-called legal 'Profession'. The bottom line, Crank, is you seem stuck on defending the status quo, a status quo which allowed the likes of Risdale and the men who brutalised the likes of Rod Owen to keep on getting away with it, while you and your like wear powdered wigs and call each other Your Honour while little boys and girls get raped. In the meantime, if the boys and girls who have survived their ordeals come out and seek justice, your like want to do epistemology, your version of logic and try to get the victim to produce the 'evidence'. You are very blinded by the trees, mister.

[dieter 3,325]

23 minutes ago, Better days ahead said:

Why can't these people come forward and get him convicted then? I can understand the reticence back in the day. the Catholic church was a powerful institution so i can completely understand the fear of not being believed and the ostracisation that would follow. But not now. The church is very diminished. Plenty of priests have gone to prison. There has been a royal commission and the redress scheme is in place. They should come forward and provide the sworn evidence otherwise its just more tittle tattle. 

Scomo, Christian and Co are hiding behind that same smoke screen, Mister Better Days. The bottom line - if you'd care to confront some of the issues brought about by the women in Canberra recently - is that the law is still stuck in the he said she said quagmire, and it's the reason only 14% of such cases ever proceed beyond a formal complaint.

[daisycutter 28,485]

33 minutes ago, Sir Why You Little said:

Daisy I am disappointed in that comment. 
all the kids swam at The Ballarat Pool during Summer

Old George was there too

Country Towns are small....

well if we are telling stories from the 60's....

I remember playing a school football game a against a marist college at their campus

It was a long way there and we were bussed in. They put on a lunch for us in the boarding house, followed by a quick tour of the boarding house and school. It was a fairly new campus and i think they wanted to impress us.

anyway they were showing us one of the boarding dormitories. It was quite nice being new and spacious. just to the right of the door on the wall was a huge mirror, about 6' high by 10'wide. I thought where it was positioned was odd and asked one of the students. He said a brother's bedroom was on the other side and it was a 2-way mirror so the brother could watch.

I remember then how creepy i thought that was. not that that particular priest might be creepy (he may have been or not) but creepy that what sort of organisation would instruct the architect to put in a 2-way mirror to spy into a kid's dormitory 

[BDA 20,032]

5 minutes ago, dieter said:

the law is still stuck in the he said she said quagmire, and it's the reason only 14% of such cases ever proceed beyond a formal complaint.

So how do we get beyond that?

The notion that accusers should always be believed won't cut it. People lie all the time. Whats to stop someone emerging from your past to make a false accusation. What defence would you use in such a scenario. There has to be corroborating evidence.

I have no idea what the the answer is by the way

[dieter 3,325]

8 minutes ago, Better days ahead said:

So how do we get beyond that?

The notion that accusers should always be believed won't cut it. People lie all the time. Whats to stop someone emerging from your past to make a false accusation. What defence would you use in such a scenario. There has to be corroborating evidence.

I have no idea what the the answer is by the way

The scenario you mention would be a nightmare, I agree. In fact, I know of a case in South Australia where a daughter lied about her father. 

We do need a way to get beyond this impasse. My best friend at school was assaulted by a Brother in 1966. I was the first person he talked to about it exactly fifty years later. And it is a fact that only 14% of sexual assault cases get to court because the victims are too afraid or too horrified by the process to proceed. 

The fact that in the Canberra Political Bubble, a member of the Government's staff was raped in a Parliamentary Office and the victim only came out about it three years later, mainly because of the Australia Day Speech by another woman who had been raped, ought to suggest to you that things are crook in Tallarook.

[Cranky Franky 1,483]

2 hours ago, dieter said:

You are trying to turn this into an issue of semantics using every slight of hand known by the Jesuits and the so-called legal 'Profession'. The bottom line, Crank, is you seem stuck on defending the status quo, a status quo which allowed the likes of Risdale and the men who brutalised the likes of Rod Owen to keep on getting away with it, while you and your like wear powdered wigs and call each other Your Honour while little boys and girls get raped. In the meantime, if the boys and girls who have survived their ordeals come out and seek justice, your like want to do epistemology, your version of logic and try to get the victim to produce the 'evidence'. You are very blinded by the trees, mister.

I think you're having an existential crisis so good luck sorting it out.

[dieter 3,325]

15 minutes ago, Cranky Franky said:

I think you're having an existential crisis so good luck sorting it out.

I'll be succinct. When I was first introduced to the ways of the Catholic Church, in North Sunshine after we arrived as migrants, I listened to the nuns and priests talk about heaven and hell. Implied was that only nuns and priests and their ilk would get through the pearly gates: that was after strapping me, inflicting finger-nailed twists on my cheeks, in other words, behaving like depraved child molesters, I determined that if these f...kers went to heaven, I'd rather take the lift Going Down. I imagine you will be on the lift going upstairs: another reason I don't wanna be there.

[Older demon 2,166]

First off thank you SWYL for sharing the article. It is horrifying to read and made me angry as I remember the Saints disco those years and there was certainly a drinking culture but Rod's secret made him a time bomb waiting to explode. I am pleased to read that he is getting it together.

As for the abusers, they are scum and filth. I survived a good catholic upbringing completely oblivious to the perversions of christian brothers. My younger brother however saw first hand the practised grooming and abuse and even stood up to defend the weakest in the class, which got him expelled. My father could never understand how one son had no issue and the other told stories of abuse. I suspect even if Rod had told someone no-one would believe him. My late father eventually apologised when it all came out for not trusting his son. I cannot imagine what that sort of thing does to your soul and the need to be constantly numb with alcohol and drugs. I too remember this games with MFC and Rod was a gun. 

On a lighter note his brother Chris gets a mention and he is a very accomplished bowler, I wonder if they ever have a game together!

[BenJamin on Deesy St 792]

A paedophile ring infiltrated St Kilda's Little League for a decade, and the toll is now emerging

Not sure if this has been mentioned or posted but Russell Jackson has followed up with another excellent but disturbing article on the extent and impact of the alleged paedophilia by Little League coaches (Ray, Briggs and Mitchell). Again, not an easy read but these stories must be heard.