NZ Herald
May 18 2004
Church gave job to priest despite offences
NZPA
The Catholic Church
was aware paedophile priest Alan Woodcock had a previous sexual assault
conviction before it made him a teacher at an Upper Hutt boys school.
When knowledge of his offending began to spread, a former chief district court
judge - an old boy of the school - advised the church to keep it out of the
public eye.
Woodcock yesterday pleaded guilty to 21 charges relating to the abuse of 11
boys between 1978 and 1987 when he was teaching at
Woodcock was remanded in custody to appear in the Wellington District Court for
sentencing on June 25.
Woodcock was extradited from
Documents reveal the church was aware before it appointed Woodcock to St
Patrick's that he had previously been convicted of sexually assaulting a
17-year-old youth in
Correspondence shows the church knew of the incident even before he was
convicted.
Father Noel Delaney, then head of the Society of Mary of which Woodcock was a
member, wrote to the court offering church support for the priest.
He was moved from
Court documents show that Woodcock made friends with boys, offered cigarettes
and enticed them to his bedroom, where he performed indecent acts on them.
One victim describing his sexual appetite as
"voracious".
After several students complained of abuse, the college advised Woodcock to get
a passport.
It also set up a list of rules he had to follow such as not having boys in his
bedroom with the door closed "unless the visit is of a confessional nature
or a similarly private matter". At the end of that year he was quietly
moved to Highden noviciate in Palmerston North.
When one of Woodcock's victims, Terry Carter, went to the media in 1994 the
church consulted Judge Peter Trapski.
In a 1994 church document Judge Trapski is reported
to have advised the church to place "confidential material" about
Woodcock into his employment file but within a separate envelope labelled
secret.
Judge Trapski told the church he believed it would be
restricted in responding to the media allegations by a 1979 suppression order
on Woodcock's conviction for sexual assault.
Judge Trapski retired from the Bench in 1989 and
until 1993 was a member of the Waitangi Tribunal.
In 1995, he was appointed Judge Advocate General of the Defence Force, the same
year he received a papal knighthood from the
Judge Trapski could not be contacted yesterday.