Disgraced former Anglican priest Louis Daniels facing jail again over more historical child sexual abuse

“I feel it is something that will never go away, like a scab that will never heal.” Another two survivors of disgraced paedophile and defrocked priest Louis Daniels have shared their pain in court.

Louis Victor Daniels at a CEBS leadership conference in the 1970s.

DISGRACED and defrocked paedophile priest Louis Victor Daniels is again staring down the barrel of prison time after pleading guilty to more historical child sexual abuse and rape.

The notorious former senior Anglican priest, now aged 75, has already served two stints in jail for sexually abusing 11 young boys between the 1970s and the 1990s, including a victim who later died by suicide.

Daniels was extradited from Canberra to Hobart last year after another two of his victims pressed historical charges with Tasmania Police in 2018.

The former Burnie Archdeacon was taken into custody at the time, but released on bail.

On Monday, he pleaded guilty in the Supreme Court of Tasmania to two counts of persistent sexual abuse of a young person, dating back to the late 1970s and 1980s.

He was taken back into custody, awaiting sentencing next month.

Crown prosecutor Claire Flockhart said one of the boys was aged nine to 16, while the other was aged 14 to 23, when Daniels abused them between 1978 to 1987 at Coningham, Meander, Berriedale, Dover and Glenorchy.

At the time, Daniels was a prominent leader of the Church of England Boys’ Society (CEBS) in Tasmania, a youth group for young boys under 16, and regularly ran camps.

Ms Flockhart said Daniels repeatedly sexually abused one of the two boys repeatedly at CEBS camps at Coningham.

The abuse only stopped when the boy and another church leader approached a senior figure in the church.

The second boy was also repeatedly sexually abused by Daniels, including when the priest would drive him home after CEBS meetings and during sleepovers.

On several occasions, the priest forced the boy to perform oral sex on him, and also raped him at his home.

After the rape, Daniels told the boy that “it was a secret, and because I’m a priest, no-one will believe you”.

The boy then refused to return to CEBS or other church activities.

The first survivor read his victim impact statement to the court on Monday, saying he couldn’t remember a time in his life when he had been free from shock, confusion, ongoing shame and flashbacks as a result of Daniels’ abuse.

“Daniels manipulated my mother and father to get access to me and they thought they could trust him because of his position in the Anglican Church,” he said.

“There is a world of memories and psychological trauma inside my head that I keep hidden.

“The invisible weight that I carry never leaves me.”

Ms Flockhart read a statement to the court on behalf of the second survivor.

“I don’t know how I got through the 80s alive,” the man’s statement read.

He said he developed a drinking problem to “numb out” the memories, and self-harmed by burning himself with cigarettes.

“I feel it is something that will never go away, like a scab that will never heal,” he said.

Daniels resigned from the church in 1994 and was officially deposed in 2002.

Dating back to the 1960s, a paedophile ring operated within CEBS, with the national child sexual abuse royal commission confirming in 2017 that the organisation contained “networks of sexual predators” who knew of each other’s offending and sometimes facilitated child sexual abuse.

However Daniels, giving evidence at the royal commission, denied ever sharing boys or being part of such a ring.

The paedophile will be sentenced over the new charges on April 28.

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Originally published as Disgraced former Anglican priest Louis Daniels facing jail again over more historical child sexual abuse