Altar Boys Clergy Abuse
Investigative journalist Suzie Smith’s new book The Altar Boys is a searing read that raises new questions about the suicides of three former victims of Catholic clergy child sexual abuse.
Smith, a former award-winning ABC journalist, has been covering the clerical abuse crisis in the Maitland-Newcastle diocese for many years. She wrote the book in part to bring new attention to the three victims, whose suicides remain shrouded in mystery, despite two public inquiries.
The Altar Boys recounts the lives — and deaths — of Glen Walsh, Steven Alward and Andrew Nash. All three of them were victims of child sexual abuse by Catholic clerics in the diocese.
Andrew Nash was just 13 years old when he committed suicide in 1974 after being sexually abused at St. Francis Xavier College in Hamilton, NSW. Andrew was in the care of two Marist Brothers who have since been convictedon child sex offences.
Walsh committed suicide in 2017, just weeks before he was due to give evidence at the trial of Archbishop Philip Wilson. Wilson had been charged with failing to report to police that paedophile priest James Fletcher was abusing boys in the Maitland-Newcastle diocese. He was convicted in 2018, but was set free after the judgement was quashed.
And Steven Alward, a respected ABC journalist and close friend of Smith’s, took his own lifeshortly after Walsh, in January 2018.