Samantha Donovan reported this story on Tuesday, December 8, 2015 18:15:00

TIM PALMER: The chief commissioner of Victoria Police has promised a formal apology to a man driven out of the force for trying to bring a paedophile priest to justice.



The former officer Denis Ryan told the royal commission into child sex abuse today that his colleagues conspired to cover up the priest's crimes in Mildura in the 1970s.



The commission was told a "Catholic mafia" operated in Victoria Police at the time and that the conspiracy went right to the top.



Samantha Donovan reports.



SAMANTHA DONOVAN: In 1956, when Denis Ryan was a young policeman on divvy van duty in the Melbourne suburb of St Kilda he came across Catholic priest Father John Day for the first time.



DENIS RYAN: We decided to pull the car over and noticed that the driver was a well-known prostitute Hazel Hanrahan and we then went around to the other side of the car and there was another prostitute. And lying across with their head on the driver and the feet on the other prostitute was a man with his pants down around his ankles, genitals showing. He was wearing a catholic priest collar and on the floor was an empty sherry bottle.



SAMANTHA DONOVAN: But Denis Ryan's colleagues soon told him Father John Day, then a priest in Victoria's west, wouldn't be charged.



DENIS RYAN: The common law probably of the police force was not to charge a priest short of murder.



SAMANTHA DONOVAN: Denis Ryan told the royal commission that he was aware of sectarianism in Victoria Police at the time and that Catholic officers protected priests.



In the early 1970s he was working in Mildura.



He gave evidence a local school principal reported a female student had been indecently assaulted by Father John Day.



Mr Ryan gave evidence that over the next couple of months he got statements from several boys and girls who had been sexually abused by the priest. But local police protected him.



Mr Ryan told the commission that in late 1971 he reported what he knew to the most senior officer in district, superintendent Jack McPartland, a devout Catholic.



DENIS RYAN: I rang superintendent McPartland and said, "I've got five statements from victims alleging that monsignor Day has committed numerous offences of sexual assault, gross indecency and attempted buggery."



He replied without hesitation, "I want you to give these statements to inspector Irwin straight away and cease any further inquiries." He said, "You are no longer involved in this investigation."



SAMANTHA DONOVAN: Denis Ryan told the royal commission that he decided he'd continue to investigate Day's crimes.



He appealed to the bishop of Ballarat Ronald Mulkearns to take action on the priest but his request was rejected.



Mr Ryan told the commission that in 1972, after the Police Association wouldn't help him appeal a transfer that had been forced upon him, he resigned from Victoria Police. In his letter of resignation he wrote:



DENIS RYAN: I can only hope that any member of the police force, who in the future performs a similar type of inquiry that I performed in relation to monsignor Day, does not suffer the same fate that I have suffered.



SAMANTHA DONOVAN: Denis Ryan broke down in the witness box as he began to describe his life after the police force.



Counsel assisting the commission, Angus Stewart, read from his statement:



EXCERPT FROM DENIS RYAN'S STATEMENT: In the early days I had nightmares of monsignor Day raping kids and the way the police force had condoned these offences. Hardly a day goes by that I don't think of the police force and what they did to the kids who were the victims of monsignor Day. Those children were being mentally and physically destroyed by Day and the police protected him. Bishop Mulkearns also protected him. I wonder how many kids would have been saved if Victoria Police had gone on with the inquiry into Day.



SAMANTHA DONOVAN: The commission heard that in 2006, the then chief commissioner of Victoria Police, Christine Nixon, found the investigation of father Day was "completely satisfactory" and that Denis Ryan had resigned of his own accord.



Mr Ryan told the commission she was wrong.



DENIS RYAN: I was forced out of the police force. It was my life, I liked the job, I would not have left it other than having been forced out of it.



SAMANTHA DONOVAN: Another former chief commissioner of Victoria Police, Mick Miller, told the commission today he believed his predecessor, chief commissioner Reg Jackson, was the architect of the force's response to Denis Ryan's investigation of Day.



He gave evidence the treatment of Mr Ryan was a shameful event in the history of Victoria Police.



MICK MILLER: My admiration for him for his relentless pursuit of justice for the victims of monsignor Day's paedophilia against overwhelming odds is boundless. Denis Ryan's life has been traumatically affected by this matter and I believe he should be compensated by Victoria Police for what he's gone through and for his premature resignation. The driving force behind his crusade was a desire to achieve justice for the victims of a hypocritical paedophile priest.



SAMANTHA DONOVAN: The current chief commissioner of Victoria Police, Graham Ashton, was in the hearing room today.



GRAHAM ASHTON: Well yeah, Victoria Police will be making an apology to Mr Ryan. We've heard the evidence today and accept the evidence that he has given and accept the evidence obviously that former chief commissioner Mick Miller has given, and we will certainly be making that apology and I'll be meeting with Mr Ryan soon to discuss all the aspects of it, including compensation as is necessary. We will cover that with him in the days ahead.



TIM PALMER: The chief commissioner of Victoria Police, Graham Ashton, and the reporter was Samantha Donovan.