Former police officer Denis Ryan tried for decades to have one of the worst criminals in Australian history brought to justice.

Broadcast date: Friday 5 July 2013

Dennis Ryan was posted to the Victorian town of Mildura in the early 1960s.

When he arrived he was immediately introduced to the local parish priest Father John Day.

Father Day (later Monsignor Day) is now thought to have sexually assaulted more than a hundred children in the Mildura area during his time there.

Dennis collected a dozen statements from Day's victims but his superiors quashed the investigation. Instead Denis himself was later threatened with charges and had to resign from the police force.

The true extent of Day's abuse may never be known, but Denis thinks there are many hundreds of victims yet to come forward.

Unholy Trinity, written with Peter Hoysted, is published by Allen & Unwin.

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