I guess I’m here with this: The church brought the issue to police attention, and probably would have without the law. There’s a moral imperative. However, now this good man, the Bishop, is being charged because he didn’t do it on THEIR timetable. I think I have a problem with that segment of this. Just seems wrong somehow.... I dunno.... maybe I could be convinced I’m in error....
Yeah I am sure part of it is political on Jean Peter’s part....prosecutor is springboard to bigger and better political troughs to feed from.
Much like contraband substances used to be *impounded* and ~ oops! ~ just disappeared after that.
Sounds like the church hoped it could get Ratigan out of the path of sin. Which is fine as far as it goes. But it seems the measures they took were rather lame.
The church did not bring it to the police attention Capt Smith forced them after they had lied to him about there being only one photo.
In fact, the church allowed Ratigan's brother to destroy the laptop. Fortunately, the computer technician had download the images to a flash drive.
"Smith said he was shocked in May when Murphy told him there had been hundreds of photos on Ratigan's laptop, rather than a single image. Smith demanded the computer be turned over to police, but since the computer had been turned over to Ratigan's family and destroyed, it handed over the flash drive instead."
However, now this good man, the Bishop, is being charged because he didn't do it on THEIR timetable.
His timetable was certainly a little off:
Finn acknowledged earlier this year that St. Patrick's School Principal Julie Hess had more than a year ago raised concerns that Ratigan was behaving inappropriately around children, but that he didn't read her written report until after Ratigan was charged with three state child pornography counts this spring.
Even though he had paid out 10 million to 47 plaintiffs and agreed to immediately report any suspected pedophile to the authorities - That letter from a Catholic school principal was ignored.
Even when a memo dated May 19, 2010, Hess wrote that several people had complained Ratigan was taking compromising pictures of young children and that he allowed them to sit on his lap and reach into his pocket for candy
This did not jog his memory to determine what was in the catholic school principal's memo even when, it was claimed, a verbal report had been made to him of the admonishment.
This lack of curiosity for allegations of disturbing behaviour around children and his cavalier attitude towards his promise to the court, is astonishing or unbelievable - take your pick.