Devil's Playground

Tom Allen is a well-regarded psychiatrist in his forties and a practicing Catholic. When Tom’s ex-lover, Alice turns up to church without her son, no one is particularly worried. A dreamy 12-year-old surfer-boy, Peter often runs away from home. His best friend, Elliot Darcy, is worried about his friend but keeps his suspicions to himself when questioned by detectives at school the next day. A mysterious older boy, Brendan, also keeps hanging around near the school, even following Elliot through the park.

Peter’s body has been found and the Manly Dam area is now a crime scene. People from the church visit Alice’s house to comfort her. Father Andrassi seems extremely perturbed – and he later faints on the floor of Alice’s bathroom.

It is Peter’s funeral and Father Andrassi makes a moving eulogy: Peter has been spared future earthly sorrows and died during the magical state of boyhood. Joe packs up and goes to WA, leaving a grieving Alice to look after Finton.

Tom takes his concerns over Brendan’s revelations of abuse to Bishop McNally. McNally assures him that Father Andrassi is a fine priest and the allegations are not credible. McNally warns Tom of the danger these sorts of allegations can cause to an innocent man’s reputation. Tom decides to investigate further and travels down to Colleton to see if he can get to the bottom of things.

Bishop Quaid enters Kyrie House, the church-run treatment centre for priests accused of sexual abuse. Here they are given a range of therapies, psychological and chemical, and then ultimately sent back out into the community – often into different dioceses with the parishioners never told about the priest’s treatment. Quaid sees this as a disgusting dereliction of responsibility and knowing he cannot trust his immediate superiors (as they have condoned this) he sees the Pope’s representative, the Papal Nuncio, to complain.

Tom returns to discover, to his horror that a priest has been to see his kids. Altough nothing happened the threat is easy to read. Tom feels his family are in danger. He could run but his feelings for Alice and the need for justice spur him on.