The Australian reports the explosion of child exploitation footage is so great the police can no longer arrest their way out of the problem.

The problem is made more difficult by digital encryption services and the authorities needing help to police the dark web.

"Reports of child exploitation involving either Australian victims or offenders nearly doubled to 18,000 last year — with each potentially relating to hundreds of images, videos and live streams. She said the material was also becoming more violent, and the victims were getting younger," Australian Federal Police assistant commissioner Debbie Platz told the Australian.

"Why people get sexually gratified from watching a child be tortured and murdered is beyond me," Ms Platz said.

"But that's what turns them on and that's what they're seeking to do."

"Most of the videos and images that we see of the ultimate killing of a child I would say is happening overseas, but being purchased by Australians."

"So Australians are driving the market, absolutely, but not just Australians.''

"The government could give me every government worker and I still will have a problem with child exploitation," she said.

Home Affairs secretary ­Michael Pezzullo commended mainstream tech companies who are working with the Australian government and police to take down abhorrent content.

The problem lay on the Dark Web, said Pezullo.

"We're doing a lot of work ­especially when you start going beyond what's called the clear web into the dark web, and we really need the collaboration of industry to assist us in looking at managing content at different layers of the web".

Detective Superintendent John Kerlatec, who heads NSW Police's child abuse and sex crime squad, said law-enforcement agencies feared more children would be targeted as new regions came online.

"What we're going to see is a whole bunch of people — young people — being potentially vulnerable to predators and everything else that we're seeing in other countries at the moment," Kerlatec said.

"We're expecting a large proliferation in child abuse material occurring."

According to The Australian research suggests material featuring abuse of a child is put online every seven minutes and there is evidence to say the problem will get much worse.

There are also fears 5G coverage will add to the problem.

The technology is being rolled out worldwide and in places where there has previously not been reliable internet coverage.

Source

• The Australian

He said the Church was working to improve its processes to help whistleblowers.

"I always think there's room for improvement," he said.

"I do think that one of the things that we want to do together as a community and Church is really to identify how we can do things better."

Archbishop Hart acknowledged that the Church was too slow to act in the past when dealing with paedophile priests.

He admitted that in one case the Church took 18 years to de-frock a priest, but it was "better late than never".

He said the Church was restricted by the fact that the law had to be changed and by the priest being in prison.

Archbishop Hart also admitted that one of his predecessors, Archbishop Sir Frank Little, had covered up abuse reports.

"Archbishop Little kept all these things to himself and there were no records," Archbishop Hart said.

Pressed on whether there had been a cover-up, he said: "Well I have to agree with that."

He added: "The only person who's ultimately responsible is the archbishop at the time.

"We were too slow to realise what was going on. These awful criminals are secretive and cunning."

He said he believed Archbishop Little simply couldn't believe a priest could do such a thing.

Archbishop Hart admitted that the Church had been too keen to look after itself when instructing that complaints remain confidential.

"The question of confidentiality of these matters was probably kept in one sense too much in that the Church was too keen to look after herself and her good name and not keen enough to address the terrible anguish of the victims," he said.

Questioned about compensation for victims, Archbishop Hart said he believed the payments the Church made were generous when compared with what the state paid.

Sources:

ABC News

Sydney Morning Herald

The Australian

Image: ABC News

According to whistleblowers closely involved with the now-defunct Encompass Australasia clinic — which some New Zealand priests attended — some paedophile clergy were diagnosed with a "mood disorder" so they could be treated at the Wesley Private Hospital in Sydney and meet private health insurance criteria.

Fairfax Media said a "well-placed source" aware of the status of some clergy treated by the Church clinic between 1997 and 2008 said he believed several did not have a mood disorder but were "cold and calculating criminals" who bragged about their exploits with children to others while at the hospital.

Fairfax Media reported that several sources said the clinicians at Encompass Australasia ran a world-class treatment centre, but it was used by some Church leaders as a "smokescreen" to hide paedophile clergy.

New South Wales upper house MP Gordon Moyes, who as superintendent of the Wesley Mission in the late 1990s was closely involved with the Encompass Australasia programme being set up at the Wesley Private Hospital, said that neither he nor hospital administrators knew the identity of clergy sent for treatment or the nature of their offences.

"In general we knew that they were largely priests of the Catholic Church who had engaged in various forms of serious sexual sins, particularly against children," Moyes said. "But Encompass was extremely secretive about all their business relationships."

Encompass Australasia, which was set up by the Australian Catholic Bishops' Conference, treated about 1100 clergy for sexual abuse problems, depression and substance addictions before it was deregistered in 2010.

In a submission to the Victorian parliamentary inquiry on sex abuse, the Catholic Church in Victoria has proposed mandatory reporting by ministers of religion and a new protocol for reporting offenders to police that would protect the privacy of victims who want anonymity.

The Archbishop of Melbourne, Archbishop Denis Hart, said there should be an exemption for information received during the sacrament of confession.

Sources:

The Age

Catholic Archdiocese of Melbourne

Image: World News

Fairfax Media in Australia reported that Bernard Kevin McGrath flew out of Christchurch a few months ago, some time after 252 abuse charges were laid in a Newcastle court on June 27.

The charges relate to the 65-year-old McGrath's time at Church-run institutions in Newcastle-Maitland diocese during the late in 1970s and 1980s.

New South Wales police intended to extradite McGrath from Christchurch, where he had lived since being paroled in 2008. But a New Zealand police source said the formal extradition request did not arrive until November 15.

A Fairfax Media report said McGrath is now living on a tea plantation in the highlands of Sri Lanka.

The report said Sri Lanka is a known haven for paedophiles, particularly in its rural areas where criminals run large, organised child-sex operations. It quoted the online Factbook on Global Exploitation as saying that 10,000 to 12,000 children from rural areas in Sri Lanka are trafficked and prostituted to paedophiles by organised crime groups every year.

Although Australia does not have a direct extradition treaty with Sri Lanka, it can extradite suspects from there under the London Scheme, which enables Commonwealth countries to extradite fugitive criminals to each other upon the presentation of prima face evidence.

McGrath was a teacher and dormitory master at Marylands, a St John of God boarding school near Christchurch for boys with learning and behavioural difficulties.

In 1993 he was sentenced to three years' jail for offences at Marylands and the Hebron Trust, a learning centre for street kids.

In 2002, more complainants contacted New Zealand police concerning sexual assaults by McGrath, culminating in his conviction in 2006 on 22 abuse charges.

Source:

The Age

Image: NDJ World