by Denis Ryan
‘Do you think he’ll be back at all today?’ I asked.
‘I wouldn’t think so,’ she replied apologetically.
That was my last contact with the Police Association. I got on the train and went back to Mildura. I rang the official and left five or six messages but he never got back to me.
That was my last avenue of appeal gone. I could have appealed the transfer myself or engaged a solicitor, but I didn’t have two bob to rub together. No, I was gone. I’d been stitched up by experts.
Now I was faced with a real dilemma. I didn’t know what to do. I could bow to the dictates of O’Connor and the Catholic Mafia and allow another Catholic priest to join the army of priests who have escaped the clutches of the law for committing the most heinous of crimes against young children. This would mean going back to Russell Street under the thumb of the Catholic Mafia.
But Jean and I had continuing concerns regarding the health of our two eldest boys. A return to Melbourne could trigger further asthma attacks. Certainly, their doctor believed it was possible. Most importantly, if I transferred, it would mean that the investigation into Day would end once and for all. My obligation to the victims who had come forward, to the many who had not, and also to the other children who would fall prey to his depravity will weigh on my mind until the day I die.
If I resigned from the force and stayed in Mildura, my voice would still be heard, but I would lose my pension and all my benefits. I had twenty years’ service in the police force; the qualification for the super scheme for police and emergency service workers was thirty years. If I took the sergeant’s position, I would be throwing all that away—more than $300,000 at my current rank—and much more. I’d walk away with little more than long service leave of three months, plus my police pension as it stood after twenty years. It amounted to a tick over $4000. I’d have to get a job. Our little orchard could not support the family, despite what O’Connor and Carmichael may have insinuated.
The police force had been my life and I was being driven out of it. Being a police officer was in my DNA. Even after all these years, I still think like a policeman and miss the mateship and the thrill of the hunt.
It was 1972. No Catholic priest had ever been charged with child sexual abuse; it was unheard of. In 1978, Michael Glennon, a Catholic priest, would be the first cleric to go before the courts. Glennon was a maverick, and after his first conviction the Church cut him loose. It would be the best part of twenty years before Gerald Ridsdale was convicted, with the Church kicking and screaming every step of the way. That fact reveals the extent and the effectiveness of the cover up. I had seen it at first hand with Day. I had no idea of the real power of the Catholic Mafia, but what I had seen had been deplorable. Walking away from the investigation of Day meant the bad guys would win and the Roman Catholic Church had learnt nothing.
Only my family and my God would ever really appreciate the anguish and abiding sense of hopelessness I experienced during that time.
I decided to walk after I got the formal order to transfer from the new superintendent, Bill McBride. I sent off a report to him, stating that the pressure that Irwin and Barritt had brought to bear on me since I had started investigating Day had left me with no other option than to offer my resignation. I rounded off the letter by stating that I hoped no other detective would have to suffer what I had in merely doing my duty.
I went on sick leave. I was in a bleak mood, depressed and bitter. I did my best to conceal it from the boys. Jean and I had discussed my options. Like me, she was down in the dumps. Now we also had money worries. Our happy household had been thrown into doubt and fear of the future.
McBride rang Red Cliffs police station and ordered a uniform constable to get out to my house with specific instructions for me to call him as soon as possible.
I drove into the station and grabbed a phone.
‘It’s Denis Ryan ringing. I got a message to call you.’
‘How dare you submit a resignation like this?’ McBride thundered down the line. ‘You can be charged with insubordination. You could be dismissed from the police force. Sacked. And you would not receive a penny. I am now demanding that you withdraw this resignation and submit an acceptable one.’
‘My resignation stands. You do what you bloody well like,’ I told McBride, and hung the phone up in his ear.
I sat there for a while, contemplating my next move. I didn’t have too many options left. I was gone. No longer Detective Senior Constable Denis James Henry Ryan No. 11468 of the Victoria Police force. I was just another bloke on the street.
Day, Barritt, Irwin, O’Connor—the whole bloody lot of them—had won. Alby Irwin—that scared, timid excuse of a police officer—was promoted to chief inspector. He got a pass out of Mildura to sit on the Police Disciplinary Board in Melbourne. As O’Connor’s gravy train was leaving the station, Irwin jumped on board.
In the middle of this fog of intrigue, even I was starting to lose sight of what this had been all about—the victims. I had been the collateral damage in O’Connor’s smother, but Day’s victims had lost more than me. They had lost the opportunity to receive justice, to see their tormentor standing in disgrace in the dock. They had learnt that the Catholic Church cared nothing for their pain and that the police would do nothing to prevent Day from committing further acts of sexual violence against children.
The smother had been effective. On 17 April the Victorian Crown Law Department provided advice to Under Secretary Dillon, confirming the assertions of O’Connor and of Irwin and Barritt—that there was insufficient evidence to prosecute Day. The report in part stated the obvious: ‘I trust the authorities in the Church will realise that the decision not to prosecute does not arise from any conviction that the allegations are unfounded. Having regard to the similarities of the various accounts, there would appear to be little doubt that Day misconducted himself.’
I’d taken twelve statements from Day’s victims, all alleging that he had raped and subjected them to gross indecencies. The allegations ran across thirteen years. I hadn’t touched on Day’s time at Colac, Apollo Bay, Beech Forest, Horsham, Ararat or Ballarat East. The victims I’d found had all been in Mildura—altar boys, gymnasts, and boys and girls at the Sacred Heart Primary School and St Joseph’s College.
The upper echelons of the police and our criminal justice system claimed that not only was there insufficient evidence to convict, but also that no further investigation would take place. That was how well O’Connor’s smother had worked.
The bigwigs of the commissariat at Russell Street headquarters were placated. The good name of the Victoria Police force would not be tarnished. The Catholic Mafia would not be exposed. The reputation of the Catholic Church would not be sullied. The government was satisfied. The scandal had passed. The twelve statements I had taken were left to rot in the bowels of the force’s file repositories in a gigantic warehouse in Melbourne’s western suburbs.
So many questions remained. Not the least of all was—what might happen to Day’s victims?
Later in 1972, Day returned from his overseas trip, refreshed and raring to go. He had spent weeks in Chicago, staying in the finest hotels before travelling to Portugal and putting on his most convincing penitent face for his counselling sessions. He had a great deal to be penitent for—nearly half a century of abusing and raping children. Hundreds of victims and tens of thousands of offences.
The Catholic Church had learnt nothing from the experience. The same old techniques remained in place. Bishop Mulkearns dispatched Day to Timboon, a tiny parish 50 kilometres east of Warrnambool. Another town in western Victoria to take on a priest with a dark, sinister past; another parish deceived; another unsuspecting community; another group of unwary children.
Day was active in the parish and wandered around, in his dotage by then, without any restrictions. He could take the mass. He was not prevented from being in contact with children. The people of Timboon had no idea of Day’s sordid history. He remained
there until his death in 1978, at 74 years of age. He had been a priest and an active paedophile for forty-eight years. When he died, he was feted by the Catholic Church. Bishop Mulkearns praised Day in the eulogy, describing his ‘humble magnificence’. Mulkearns depicted Day as ‘impetuous, flamboyant and a lover of great occasions but also proved himself capable of relentless work and unresting zeal’. Of his time in Mildura, Mulkearns mentioned Day’s ‘great work in extending and refurnishing the parish church in Mildura’.
Part of the eulogy was republished in the September 1978 edition of The Light, the journal of the Ballarat diocese. The journal editorialised: ‘Nor was there anything narrow or parochial about [Day]. He involved the parish community in the work of the civic community and gave it a sense of identity stronger than it ever was before.’
Bishop Mulkearns led the prayers at Day’s gravesite in his hometown of Warrnambool: ‘Lord, hear the prayers we offer for John Day, your servant and priest. He faithfully fulfilled his ministry in Your name. May he rejoice forever in the fellowship of the saints.’
Never mind the fellowship. It was like they were burying a saint.
The report of Day’s death was book-ended with an article by Father Pell, now Archbishop of Sydney, Cardinal George Pell, in which he ranted about the evils of television.
Melbourne’s first Sunday newspaper, the Melbourne Observer, was less complimentary. On 13 August 1972, the paper ran with a screaming front page headline: ‘RC Priest in Government Scandal.’ Without mentioning any names, the article provided a very comprehensive account of what had taken place in Mildura. The story of Day getting pulled up in St Kilda in 1956 also got a run. The allegations made in the twelve statements I had obtained were dealt with in detail. My fate—the forced transfer that led to my resignation—was also addressed.
No doubt some at Russell Street would have assumed I was the source. I can see O’Connor looking at that headline and reading the report with gritted teeth. It wasn’t me. It was a couple of detectives I knew from the armed robbery squad. I hadn’t set them up for it, either. For some reason they had taken it upon themselves to get this story into the press. They contacted the Melbourne Observer and sold the story. My memory is that they received eighty dollars each. Hardly worth their efforts. Years later one of them paid me a visit and apologised for selling the story. I told them I didn’t care what they had done.
Les Shilton continued to call for a judicial inquiry, but that horse had bolted. The Hamer government was re-elected with an increased majority in 1973, picking up four seats, one of them Shilton’s.
Within a few days of leaving the force, I received a phone call from a very good friend, Sid Baker, who was the detective senior sergeant in charge of the CIB at Prahran, making the first of a number of impromptu job offers.
Sid told me he was disgusted by what had happened to me, and that a position would be made available for me at Prahran without me losing seniority or rank.
‘You can do whatever you like,’ Sid said. ‘Until the day you retire.’
‘Come on, Sid,’ I told him. ‘Stop bullshitting me. Jacko’s put you up to this.’
At the time Jacko—Reg Jackson—was the chief commissioner of the Victoria Police force and a very good friend of Sid’s.
Sid hesitated. ‘Yes, he has, Dinny. Yeah.’
I knocked it back.
Harry McMenamin, a retired detective chief inspector and deputy head of the CIB, offered me a job working security at Georges, the exclusive department store in Melbourne. He didn’t make the offer out of a sense of compassion or generosity; he made it to get me out of the road.
I could have taken these cushy jobs but I knew the offers were made only in an attempt to keep me quiet and get me out of Mildura, where any ongoing inquiry into Day would have lapsed into the void. I was a thorn in the side of the Catholic Church and the Victoria Police force.
Later in the year, I received another job offer from the Victorian chief stipendiary magistrate, Alf Foley. I knew Alf well, and had had a few beers with him over the years. He was a staunch, rock solid Catholic who was well regarded in the force.
Alf said, ‘Dinny, this is Alf Foley. John MacArdle and I are going fishing up on the Darling and we need you as a guide.’
It was a strange request. I was shocked hearing his voice out of the blue. I hadn’t heard from him in over ten years.
‘Don’t bullshit me, Alf. What’s this all about?’
‘Look, I tell you what. There’s a position being created as head of the security group for the County Court, the Supreme Court and Petty Sessions. And you’re the man for the job. What do you think?’
‘First off, Alf, I don’t want to go fishing. Second, I don’t want the job.’
I had been through the wringer. I’d been forced out of my job because of my pursuit of Day. I was on the verge of a breakdown, and after I put the phone down, I burst into tears.
Jean had always wanted to be a policeman’s wife, so she became quite unhappy after I was forced to resign. She found herself more isolated than I was when I left the force, and it had a terrible effect on her. Her personality changed. She went from being a happy, fun-loving person to being withdrawn, almost lost. I’ve no doubt that my investigation into Day had stirred up some deeply repressed memories of her childhood.
She’d never been anything more than a light social drinker, but with her demons disturbed by the events in Mildura, she began to hit the bottle. She did it in a clandestine way, hiding the booze all over the house.
I tried to talk to her but she was retreating before my eyes. I suggested counselling but she wouldn’t have a bar of it. Jean began a long descent into alcoholism and anguish from which she would never return. One day she said she was going down to Melbourne to find work. I didn’t stop her; we needed the money. In 1980 she jumped on the train at Mildura, and she didn’t come back.
I only saw Jean once more and that was three weeks later when I went down to sign the divorce papers. It saddened me, but there was nothing I could do. I think she had just had enough of Mildura. She was a city girl and that’s where she wanted to be. My determination to bring Day to justice had driven her into her own personal hell. The whole business had affected her deeply and I felt that I was to blame. It had unlocked many unhappy memories of her childhood and the abuse she had suffered at the hands of her guardian.
After the divorce, she’d occasionally ring on some pretext or other but would want to talk about Day. Sometimes she posted me newspaper clippings about him. I’d also hear a whisper from Melbourne from time to time; she was hitting the drink harder and harder. It ended up taking her life in 2000.
My sons—Michael, Martin, Gavin and Anthony—have grown up to become fine young men. They know they owe their existence to their mother, Jean.
After I left the force, I began to take an interest in local government. I’d always been keen on politics. The stuffing had been knocked out of me, and local politics and serving the community in Mildura was a means of alleviating my pain. I needed the involvement; it forced me to concentrate on other things. I ran for the Mildura Shire Council in October 1972 and was lucky enough to get the votes. I went on to become shire president of Mildura in 1979.
In 1980, I met up with Premier Hamer in my capacity as shire president. I was driving him around Mildura Shire, showing him some of the improvements the council had made. We were discussing state funding and money that had been made available by his government in the local area.
There was a pause in the conversation before Hamer said to me: ‘Denis, if you were still a detective and the same situation arose as it did back then, would you do the same thing?’
I was astonished. The question had come like a bolt out of the blue. I took my time answering him.
‘Yes, I would, Mr Premier,’ I replied. ‘But I do think the penalty was a bit harsh.’
He took his time to answer.
‘Yes, it was.’
9
BLOODIED B
UT UNBOWED
Blessed are those who are persecuted for the sake of
righteousness: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
MATTHEW 5:10
I refer to your letter dated 16th August 2006 to Minister Holding regarding former Detective Senior Sergeant Constable Denis Ryan. This matter was referred to me by the Minister for consideration on 4th September 2006.
Since your letter, I have arranged for a comprehensive sworn statement to be taken from former Assistant Commissioner, Services Department, John O’Connor who worked as the Chief Commissioner’s Special Investigator in 1972. At that time, Mr O’Connor was tasked by the Chief Commissioner, along with Detective Inspector Harvey Childs [sic] to personally investigate the reported misconduct by Monsignor John Day, parish priest at the Sacred Heart Church, Mildura.
This matter was subject to inquiries by the Mildura CIB at the time and Assistant Commissioner O’Connor met with Senior Constable Ryan and Detective Sergeant James Barritt in Mildura on 20 January 1972. Later that day, Assistant Commissioner O’Connor and Detective Inspector Child interviewed nine youths, none of which made any allegations against Day.
Subsequently, Senior Constable Ryan did not produce any statement of complaint to Assistant Commissioner O’Connor however one statement alleging sexual assault by Monsignor Day was subsequently recorded.
Following extensive interviews and investigation the brief of evidence was referred to the Crown Solicitor’s Office for approval to prosecute. The Crown Prosecutor did not approve the brief due to the lack of corroboration as was then legally required.
On 7th September 1972, Assistant Commissioner O’Connor met Denis Ryan again at the Mildura Court where unrelated charges against Detective Sergeant Barritt were heard and dismissed. Assistant Commissioner O’Connor inquired as to why Ryan had resigned from Victoria Police and he advised that it was because he could not get on with Sergeant Barritt.