News of the existence of the secret tapes comes as the church faces serious allegations in New South Wales and Victoria of failing to help bring paedophile priests to justice and as a parliamentary inquiry into criminal abuse of children by religious orders and other organisations gets under way in Victoria. Chalk was accused of abuse while working as a parish priest in Melbourne for the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart (MSC), a 158-year-old international Catholic order, which operates some schools and parishes in Australia and has its Australian headquarters in Sydney. Mr Murphy said during the meeting, Father Gallagher, then MSC head, told victims that Chalk had admitted to abusing up to eight Victorian children during the 1970s and early 1980s in the outer-eastern Melbourne suburb of Park Orchards. Despite Chalk's admissions - which Mr Murphy had originally reported to senior MSC leaders in 1987 - neither Father Gallagher nor anyone else from the church reported the priest to police.

Mr Murphy, who has a clear recollection of the meeting independent of the recording, said he and two of Chalk's other victims asked Father Gallagher to report Chalk to police in 1994. But he said he and the other victims recalled Father Gallagher telling them to ''try and work out some other way of resolving it without having to go to courts and all the publicity and exposure''. ''I remember the day … I asked him [Father Gallagher] if Chalk had admitted doing what he did. Gallagher said he had,'' said Mr Murphy who was abused in his home at age 12 by Chalk. "He [Father Gallagher] was a nice bloke, but it felt if he was just there to please us." In a written response to the allegations last week, Father Gallagher said he did all he could to support Mr Murphy and other Chalk victims. Asked last week about the recollections by Mr Murphy and other victims of him expressing a wish for police not to be involved, Father Gallagher admitted ''I would say that sentence quite differently now''.

''I believe it was an attempt, maybe naively, to support the victims, to save them from further hassle and worry. Knowing Peter Chalk's refusal to return to Australia, I was trying to ease the pain for them.'' Police did not pursue Chalk, who moved to Japan in 1981. However, his details were given to Australian immigration officers to enable him to be detained if he tried to return to Australia. He left the order in 1995 and changed his name and became a teacher. He died in Japan in 2010 after being confronted by media about the allegations. In the late 1990s, Cardinal George Pell, then archbishop of Melbourne, apologised to three of Chalk's victims, who also received compensation after their complaints were upheld by the church. Father Gallagher said he first learnt of Chalk's abuse of children in 1993. He said he offered every support to victims, including Mr Murphy. This support included financial assistance for counselling, although Mr Murphy said the counselling support was provided only after he went to police - some six years after he first told the church of Chalk's abuse. ''The understanding and the practice at that time was that the victims themselves were encouraged to report cases of abuse to the police,'' Father Gallagher wrote, adding he was later contacted by a Victorian detective who told him police did not have the resources to pursue Chalk in Japan.

''At the same time I was endeavouring to convince Peter Chalk to return to Australia to face justice … I visited him in Japan a number of times, and in May 1994 I wrote a formal letter requesting his return.'' Mr Murphy said Father Gallagher told him the church had not disciplined Chalk but removed him from active church duties and situations where abuse was a possibility. Know more about this story? investigations@theage.com.au