CRIME & COVER UP

A brand new investigative documentary from the team

that brought you the groundbreaking films:

‘Suing the Pope’ I & II and

‘Sex Crimes & the Vatican’

BBC Television

 “The reality is there are dioceses, institutions and churchmen that must be held accountable for what they have allowed to happen for decades to innocent children”

                                                                                                            Fr. TOM DOYLE

 There are a minimum of 542 members of the UK clergy that are child abusers and have not been caught (stopchurchchildabuse)

With your donations we can expose the decades of child sexual abuse and cover-up that has plagued the Catholic Church in England and Wales.  

We know for a fact that high-quality documentaries like this can make a big difference to people’s lives; because our documentaries have changed people’s lives across the world. 

“Exposing this ongoing failure in the UK is of huge international significance. If the Catholic Church is still failing to protect children in the UK, how are we meant to believe that the same isn’t true in countries more dominated by the power of the Catholic Church?” 

                                                                                                COLM O’GORMAN

Across the world the Catholic Church has been mired in scandal.   There have been Grand Jury investigations in the United States; Australia has just announced a Royal Commission into widespread sexual abuse of minors, and in Ireland the Church has been rocked to its very foundations by proven allegations of mass abuse and cover-up by the Church authorities. 

Yet, in England and Wales there has been no investigation into clergy child abuse that is independent of the Catholic Church.

Is this because there is less clerical sexual abuse here? 

Is this because the safeguarding is better? 

Is this because the Catholic hierarchy tackles the problem head on to weed out perpetrators, handing them over to the police? 

The answer is NO

Crime & Cover Up will reveal the true extent of widespread, systemic, decade long abuse across England & Wales that has remained hidden.

We will expose a system that does nothing to force the Church to hand abusers over to the authorities.

We have secured exclusive access to incriminating documents and victims who are ready and willing to tell their stories of abuse for the first time.

But we need your help.  To turn all our evidence into a 60 –minute documentary that will expose the extent of the CRIME & COVER UP, and hopefully force the British Government to change the law to ensure there is mandatory reporting of abuse within schools; we hope to raise at least $100,000 USD.

A documentary like this will have massive repercussions, not just in England and Wales, but throughout the World.  Every survivor of Clergy abuse deserves a voice. 

WHY NOW?

“Cardinal Cormac Murphy O'Connor recently said "I would say, 12 years on from Nolan[1], that the Catholic Church in this country is noted for its good procedures". That belief is based almost wholly on wishful thinking. There is no evidence that good procedures are widespread. Calls for effective action on safeguarding meet with resistance to the highest level.”

Jonathan West, Parent of a former pupil at St. Benedicts School, London.

Each year more and more survivors of clergy child abuse are finding the courage to speak out about the abuse they suffered.

Yet in this country there is no legislation that compels the Church to alert the authorities to abusers within their schools. 

Despite widespread calls from pressure groups and lawyers, both the Church and the British Government refuse to support the introduction of mandatory reporting.  This means that children remain, as ever,  in danger.

We can’t tell you more about the content of the documentary, but we genuinely have something new to reveal about a country where there has never been an investigation into the scale of child sexual abuse INDEPENDENT of the Catholic Church itself.

WHO WE ARE

Producing this documentary is a team critical in breaking the silence surrounding Catholic child abuse in the USA and Ireland. 

Production company Make World Media will use their vast investigative journalism experience to produce the film.  

Sarah Macdonald Her films ‘Suing the Pope’ I&II were responsible for the resignation of Bishop Brendan Comiskey in Ireland and a Government Inquiry headed by retired Senate Judge Francis Murphy which resulted in the Ferns Report.

Her film ‘Sex Crimes & the Vatican’ was responsible for exposing the church’s use of Crimens Sollicitationis to silence victims of abuse upon threat of excommunication.  It caused a widespread scandal globally and in Italy, prompted a Government debate on whether the film should be broadcast, a walk-out from the Board of RAI, the State Broadcaster and eventually an insistence by the Vatican that it have two hours of airtime to rebut the allegations.  It made Time Magazine.

Colm O’Gorman A victim of clerical child abuse himself, Colm successfully spearheaded a legal case against the Roman Catholic Diocese of Ferns, documenting this in the film ‘Suing the Pope’. He is the founder of One in Four, a charity that supports men and women who are victims of sexual abuse, and is generally considered a figurehead for survivors of clergy abuse.  

Dr. Tom Doyle: A world renowned Canon lawyer, author and Catholic Priest.  Tom has testified on behalf of victims of Catholic clerical abuse against the Catholic Church.  As a result he has become an international hero to those fighting to bring their abusers to justice.

Dr. Ann Olivarius: A managing partner in the globally renowned law firm AO advocates. She has over 25 years of experience, specialising in helping adults who have who have experienced sexual abuse by priests and other people in a position of power.  

MONEY

An investigative film like this can cost up to $1million to make.  Mea Maxima Culpa had exactly that budget.  We are willing and able to produce this documentary to a high standard on a much tighter budget. We are expert film makers and we take our budget very seriously.

The $100,000 USD target on Indiegogo is the minimum at which we can make this documentary happen. We are working extremely hard to find additional funding sources that can accompany the money raised by our Indiegogo pitch.

Every single one of our sponsors will be involved in something that has the potential to change the lives of hundreds of people abused by members of the Catholic clergy. If reporting of child abuse in the UK’s Catholic schools is made mandatory then you can say that you had a small part in that.

WHERE YOUR MONEY WILL GO

We have all the evidence and expertise needed to make this documentary a success. All we need is the funding. 

All the money we raise will go towards the production of the film. Things such as: 

-       securing copyright to relevant archive that will support the story

-       reconstructions of key events where necessary

-       logistics and planning, including transportation, equipment rentals

-       info-graphics that will help illustrate and contextualize the issue

-       post-production facilities to ensure that the documentary meets international broadcast standards

SUPPORTED BY:

This documentary has been fully endorsed by a number of Survivors of child abuse charities:

MACSAS, AO ADVOCATES, THE LANTERN PROJECT, NAPAC, SNAP, THE SURVIVORS TRUST

HOW YOU CAN HELP?

1. Donate. Fixed funding its all or nothing, so please donate as much as you can.          

2. Spread the word. Link this page on Twitter and Facebook and share it with any friends that have experienced child abuse or want to see this problem properly investigated in the UK.

ANY QUESTIONS?

Email: coverup@makeworldmedia.com

Phone (UK): +44 (0) 207 603 9451

Website: www.makeworldmedia.com