Father Brian Lucas ... put everything he had this week into convincing the royal commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse that his handling of the case of Father John Farrell - who was abusing children from the moment he was ordained in 1981 - was absolutely proper. Lucas was the go-to man when paedophiles had to be persuaded to leave the church. Rules set in Rome made it essentially impossible to dismiss these men. They could be suspended from duties, given no work, forbidden to celebrate mass - but they had to consent to their own sacking. How many cases he had handled before he confronted Farrell he couldn't exactly say. Perhaps 35. He never turned them over to the police. And he never took notes. Lucas was not alone when he met Farrell in September 1992. With him were two senior churchmen: Monsignor John Usher, director of the Catholic charity Centacare, and the judicial vicar of the Armidale diocese, Father Wayne Peters. Peters made a document. Lucas had a policy then of not encouraging victims to go to the police: not dissuading, but not encouraging. Lucas ... still maintains no useful admissions were made by Farrell and that Peters' letter is not accurate. Once the first charges were laid in October 2012, Farrell was protected by non-publication orders and the pseudonym Father F. They were lifted in May this year when he was sentenced for 62 historical sex crimes against children, with a further 17 offences taken into account.