Michael Charles Glennon (13 May 1944 – 1 January 2014) was a convicted Australian child molester and former Roman Catholic priest, the subject of one of the most notorious clergy sex abuse cases in Australia.
[3] In 1971, he was ordained to the priesthood and was an assistant priest at St Monica's in Moonee Ponds, where he and his Labrador retriever were popular with "hundreds" of children.
Billed as the Peaceful Hand Youth Foundation, it centred on a mix of karate (Glennon claimed to have a black belt) and Catholic liturgy.
He was sentenced to two years in prison, and served seven months before being paroled;[3] he continued to run the camp, where he was often the only adult present.
The ruling overturned an acquittal by the Court of Criminal Appeal,[6] and Glennon was sent to prison for seven years with a five-year minimum.
These convictions were only made public after his final conviction in October 2003,[3] where Glennon was found guilty of another 23 offences against children, including rape, indecent assault, gross indecency, sexually penetrating a child under the age of 16 and sexually penetrating a child under the age of 10.
[7] Glennon was found dead in his cell at Hopkins Correctional Centre in Ararat, Victoria, on 1 January 2014.