The Church should have taken “more robust action” following the discovery of pornographic videos belonging to former Brentwood priest Fr Anthony McSweeney in 1998, according to a recently released independent review commissioned by the safeguarding commissions of the Diocese of Brentwood and East Anglia, writes Carina Murphy.
McSweeney, 70, was jailed for three years at Southwark Crown Court in 2015 for one count of a sexual offence against a teenage boy at Grafton Close Children’s Home in Barnes, west London, between 1979 and 1981 and for three counts of making indecent images of boys.
During the trial, it emerged that McSweeney had been moved to a new parish after a housekeeper had found indecent videos when he was parish priest at St Peter’s Catholic Church in Leigh-on-Sea in Essex in 1998.
She was told the boys were over 18, so the videos were pornography not paedophilia. The matter was treated as an internal church disciplinary matter, not a criminal offence, and McSweeney was sent for therapy and counselling.
The report states that the matter should have been reported to the police so that a full investigation could take place. McSweeney was moved to St George’s parish in Norwich in 1999.
Following the report, both commissions admitted, “there were failings in the way the Church managed the situation at the time”. It cited inadequate support for local priests and their parishioners, whose concerns were not taken seriously enough. It also noted: “At the time the need for child protection was in its infancy.”
National safeguarding put in place in 2001 would ensure that the safeguarding co-ordinator would immediately pass such a matter to the police, it said. Brentwood diocese had no further comment.
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