FUGITIVE CHRISTIAN CHILD MOLESTER PRIEST FOUND DEAD

Mystery over disappearing priest

UTV Belfast Thursday, June 30, 2005

Father Christopher Clonan's whereabouts has been the source of as much speculation in recent years and filled as much newspaper copy as the progress of the child abuse legal claims against him.

But the mystery ended in May last year when West Midlands Police confirmed that the man known to neighbours in a quiet Melbourne suburb as Christie Oliver was the fugitive priest and that he had died in 1998.

Born in Clonard, Co Meath, Christopher Oliver Clonan had been a part-time builder and property developer before entering the priesthood and being posted to Christ the King church in Coundon, Coventry, in the 1970s.

Because of his former trade, he became known as "Father Fix It" for his skills in church construction schemes.

But the priest, who was known to swear like a trooper and have a weakness for whiskey and cigars, became embroiled in an altogether different project, abusing young parishioners and altar boys.

It was claims from his victims that prompted Clonan to flee the country in 1992 as police began investigating the allegations, which were said to have taken place in his presbytery, the snooker club he built and his home.

From there, he is said to have spent time in a psychiatric hospital in Dublin before flying to Australia to join members of his large family who had resettled in Melbourne.

It was then the conspiracy theories began to emerge: Clonan had faked his own rest, Reggie Perrin-style, and re-emerged with a new idenbreasty, even returning to the West Midlands.

One claimed he was posing as a teacher, travelling on an Irish pbuttport and had been spotted by two priests at St Dunstan's Catholic Church in the Kings Heath area of Birmingham.

Clonan's brother, Andrew, was forced to issue repeated denials that the former parish priest was still alive, going so far as to issue his rest certificate.

The document stated that unmarried property developer Christopher Oliver - by then he had dropped his surname - died on October 22 1998, aged 56, at 214 High Street, in the Kangaroo Flats area of Bendigo, a suburb of Melbourne.

He was cremated at Bendigo crematorium some five days later. DNA taken at the time satisfied the British detectives who travelled to Australia to conduct their inquiries with the help of local police.

It was only then that neighbours who knew Christie Oliver, the man with the Irish accent and a taste for whiskey and the game of pool, found out his real idenbreasty.

One elderly neighbour was said to have nearly collapsed at discovering he was not a wealthy retired casino operator but a man of the cloth with a less than holy reputation.

Clonan's rest means those whose innocence he robbed cannot see him punished on this earth but with eight more claims against him, they can seek an apology and financial compensation from the Roman Catholic Church.

But according to leading campaigner against loveual abuse by clergy, Margaret Kennedy, question marks remain about how he was able to flee at least temporal justice.

"I really would have liked a better inquiry about how Clonan managed to leave the country and how the church managed to lose him. It's possible he just upped and left but the church normally has support for its priests." More at:

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