Bishop Gerard Hanna testifies at Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sex Abuse

The retiring Bishop of Wagga diocese was questioned about Farrell on Wednesday at the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

The bishop said he was parish priest of St Nicholas’ in Tamworth in 1984 when Farrell was foisted on him by Bishop Henry Kennedy amid rumours of inappropriate behaviour following his overnight removal from Moree.

He said Bishop Kennedy gave him no details of the allegations, saying only that Farrell was “high risk, you have to watch him and put him on restricted ministry.”

Bishop Hanna told counsel assisting the commission, Gail Furness, he imposed tight restrictions on Farrell’s movements that kept him out of schools and away from altar boys.

“I believe I could not do any more than I did,” Bishop Hanna said.

“I was very hard on him.

“I am led to believe that in the three years he was with me he did not offend.”

Bishop Hanna said he even told the family of one boy he thought Farrell was spending too much time with the youngster, but the mother refused to accept there was any danger.

Child sex charges stemming from Farrell’s time in Narrabri were dismissed at a committal hearing in early 1988.

“In my view, he was quite capable of doing the things it was alleged he had done,” Bishop Hanna said.

On Farrell’s return to the parish after the committal hearing, then Father Hanna denied Farrell all priestly duties before Farrell was moved on.

Father Hanna later met Farrell for lunch in an Armidale pub and told him he had to admit he had seriously failed and needed to be honest with himself.

What was his response?” Ms Furness asked. “The tenor of his response was ‘I hear you’,” Bishop Hanna replied.

Farrell last May was jailed for 18 years after being found guilty of sexual offences against children in the Armidale and Parramatta dioceses and faces even more charges.