"Black-collar crime": Lists of names by Broken Rites
- Details
- Category: Fixing the broken system
- Created: Sunday, 20 June 2010 08:53
- Written by Broken Rites
This page of Catholic cases was compiled by Broken Rites Australia researchers and was last updated on 20 February 2013.
Broken Rites Australia helps victims of church-related sex abuse to obtain justice.
Our complete database of Broken Rites cases is NOT available on the internet. On this web page, we give merely a few examples of Broken Rites cases.
This webpage is divided into sections:
A: Criminal court cases
B: Out-of-court civil cases
C: Currently before the criminal courts
D: Church people failed to help the police
E: Court cases ending with no conviction
F: Lay teachers in church schools
If a particular offender is not listed on this webpage, this does not mean that this person is not an offender. Many church-abuse victims remain silent for years or forever. Only a few victims have consulted the police; some victims eventually contact Broken Rites; and some victims (often unwisely) merely tip-off the church's internal Professional Standards Office (also called "Towards Healing"), whose main purpose is to protect the church and the perpetrator. It is a wise move to contact Broken Rites first, for advice about options for obtaining justice. Click here to go to their website : http://brokenrites.alphalink.com.au/nletter/bccrime.html or here to view their latest news : http://brokenrites.alphalink.com.au/nletter/whatsnew.html.
Section A:
Criminal prosecutions,
researched by Broken Rites
Here are some examples of criminal prosecutions, researched by Broken Rites Australia (since 1993), involving Catholic priests and religious brothers. Broken Rites Australia gives support to victims, either before or after the prosecutions. The actual court proceedings are handled by specialist police from sex-crime investigation squads. This list is confined to Broken Rites cases.
Fr Michael Aulsebrook
In the Melbourne County Court on 22 August 2011, Father Michael Scott Aulsebrook (a member of the Catholic religious order Salesians of Don Bosco) was sentenced to two years' jail (with 15 months suspended, serving nine months behind bars) for indecent assaults of a boy, aged 12, at Salesian College "Rupertswood" (a boarding school) in Sunbury, Victoria, in 1983. This boy was not Aulsebrook's only victim. See more from Broken Rites here.
Fr Wilfred Baker
After action by Broken Rites, Father Wilfred James Baker (also known as Father Bill Baker or Fr Billy Baker), Melbourne archdiocese, was sentenced to 4 years jail (eligible for parole after 2 years) for offences against boys. See the Broken Rites story here.
Fr Charlie Barnett
Charles Alfred Barnett, who ministered for the Vincentian order in Catholic parishes around Australia for 20 years until the mid-1990s, was sentenced in South Australia in August 2010 to at least four years for sexual offences against boys in that state. He is also facing complaints in other Australian states. See more from Broken Rites here.
Father Roger Michael Bellemore
This Marist priest was sentenced in Tasmania in 2006 to five years' jail (with parole after 3 years) for offences against schoolboys. After he had spent nine months in jail, the appeal court granted him a re-trial. In February 2008, another jury found Bellemore guilty and he was sentenced to four years' jail. See the Broken Rites story here.
Br Robert Best
Christian Brother Robert Charles Best (also known as Brother Bob Best) was convicted in Melbourne in 1996 for sexual offences committed against one of his schoolboy victims. On 8 August 2011, after being convicted again for multiple offences (including buggery) against some more of his victims, he was sentenced (at the age of 70) to 14 years and nine months (eligible for parole after serving 11 years and three months). See the Broken Rites story here.
Fr Tony Bongiorno
The Melbourne Catholic archdiocese commissioner on sexual abuse, Mr Peter O'Callagahan, QC, has upheld complaints that Father Anthony Salvatore Bongiorno sexually abused boys who were under his supervision. And, furthermore, the Victorian government's Crimes Compensation Tribunal has awarded compensation to at least one of Bongriorno's victims. When he was training for the priesthood, Bongiorno was in the same seminary group as George Pell and Denis Hart, both of whom eventually became archbishops. See the Broken Rites story here.
Warren Booth
Warren Douglas Booth was training to become a priest when he sexually assaulted a 12-year-old boy in the showers at a public pool in Campbelltown in Sydney's south-west. Booth was sentenced in 1996 to 12 months jail.
Fr Tom Brennan, Newcastle, NSW
In August 2012, police charged Father Thomas Brennan (of the Maitland-Newcastle diocese) with 10 counts of sexually assaulting a young male while Brennan was the parish priest (in the early 1980s) at Waratah, in Newcastle, north of Sydney. He was also charged with having failed to report the sex-crimes (in the 1970s) of another priest who was under Brennan's supervision. Brennan was ordered to appear in court on 25 September 2012 on all these charges but he failed to appear and he died five days later. See more from Broken Rites here.
Fr Desmond Brown
Father Desmond Joseph Brown, Redemptorist order, Victoria and NSW, non-custodial sentence, for indecent assault of a female.
Fr Rex Brown
Father Paul Rex Brown (once a senior priest in the Lismore Catholic diocese in New South Wales) was convicted in Queensland in 1996 for possessing child pornography. Police could have charged Brown with serious child sexual-assault offences but he chose to plead guilty to the lesser charge of child pornography. See the Broken Rites full story here.
Fr Neil Byrne
In Brisbane on 7 March 2012, the Very Rev Dr Neil Joseph Byrne was sentenced to nine months in jail (suspended for two years) after he pleaded guilty to possessing and making child-exploitation material. As a lecturer in a seminary, Byrne has been involved in the training of Australian Catholic priests. See more from Broken Rites here.
Gerard Vincent Byrnes
Gerard Byrnes (born in 1948) originally trained as a Christian Brother before becoming a lay teacher in Catholic schools in Queensland and New South Wales. On 4 October 2010, he was jailed for 8-10 years after pleading guilty to sexually assaulting girls at a Catholic primary school in Toowoomba, Queensland. He was the school's designated "child protection officer". See more from Broken Rites here.
Brian Cairns, former Christian Brother
Brian Dennis Cairns taught primary students (as Brother Cairns) at Catholic schools in Brisbane until 1974. Then, after becoming a lay teacher, he taught at other Brisbane Catholic schools (as Mister Cairns) until 1984. In 1985, he was jailed for seven years for committing serious sexual offences against schoolboys over several years. Brian Dennis Cairns's name has sometimes been mis-printed as "Brian David Cairns". See more from Broken Rites here.
Br Greg Carter,
Marist Brother Gregory James Carter (born 4 July 1957) was sentenced in Queensland in 1997 to 18 months jail (with release after six months served) after pleading guilty to multiple charges of indecent treatment of a 15-year-old boy who was a boarder at St Augustine's Marist Brothers' College in Cairns, north Queensland. See our story here.
Fr Richard Cattell
Father Richard St John Cattell, of the Parramatta diocese, NSW, was sentenced in 1994 to 3 years jail (2 years minimum), after pleading guilty to five counts of indecently assaulting a boy. The boy had gone to Cattell to complain about having been molested by a teacher. Cattell, who was the vicar-general of the diocese, was the administrator whose role it was to receive complaints about sexual abuse in the diocese. See more about Cattell in a Broken Rites story about the Parramatta diocese here.
Fr Peter Chalk
This priest (a member of the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart religious order) ministered in Melbourne in the 1970s (around Croydon, Park Orchards and Warrandyte). Melbourne police later accumulated evidence which could enable them to prosecute Father Peter Gerard Chalk for sexually abusing children (as young as 12) in Melbourne. But Chalk's religious superiors allowed him to stay out of Australia (and out of reach of the Australian police), working in Japan, where he changed his surname to a Japanese one. In 2010, Chalk suddenly died (in Japan), thus closing the Melbourne police file. See more here.
Br Bob Chambers, Queensland
The Brisbane Courier Mail has reported that in the Brisbane District Court on 10 October 2002, Christian Brother Robert George Chambers (then aged 60) pleaded guilty to assault occasioning bodily harm on a boy, aged 12, in 1968 while Chambers was teaching at St Joseph's Christian Brothers College in Rockhampton, central Queensland. Brother Chambers, who was standing at a window in the Brothers' residence, fired an air rifle at the boy in the school yard, hitting him twice in the back of his legs as the boy drank from a water fountain. Judge Julie Dick placed Chambers on a $100, six-month good-behaviour bond. The prosecutor said that the Crown had elected not to proceed with another charge against Chambers. In the 1980s, Brother Chambers taught at Ignatius Park College in Townsville.
Br David Christian
Marist Brother David Austin Christian (born 3 December 1942), formerly principal of Marist Brothers' Newman College, Perth, Western Australia, pleaded guilty to multiple counts of aggravated indecent assault against two boys (aged 10 and 11) in the principal's office. When charged in 1994, Br Christian had been teaching at Port Hedland, W.A. In 1995, Christian was fined $10,500 ($1,500 per incident) but the Marist Order said it would pay the fine for him. Brother Christian moved to live with the Marist Brothers in Templestowe, Melbourne. According to Marist websites (accessed in 2011), Brother David Christian continued to be accepted by his superiors and colleagues as a member of the Marist order.
Christian Brothers, Goulburn NSW.
In the Goulburn Local Court in southern New South Wales in 1989, a Christian Brother was convicted (and was given a suspended jail sentence) for sexually abusing a boy at St Patrick's College, Goulburn (this school later became Trinity College, Goulburn). Other victims of this Brother did not contact the police but they later demanded (and obtained) an apology from the Christian Brothers Order. Despite his offences. this Brother continued to be accepted as a member of the Christian Brothers (in an office position). See more here.
Fr Bob Claffey
Father Robert Claffey, Ballarat diocese, Victoria, was given a non-custodial sentence after pleading guilty to offences involving boys. See our story here.
Fr Patrick Cleary
Father Patrick Joseph Cleary, Brisbane archdiocese, 5-15 months jail for offences against boys. See our story here.
Fr Bryan Coffey
Father Bryan Desmond Coffey, Ballarat diocese, Victoria, was sentenced to 3 years jail (suspended) for offences against children, mostly boys. See our story here.
Gregory Coffin (alias Coffey)
Gregory Vincent Coffey (birth-name Coffin) was originally a priesthood trainee in the Salesian order. Brother Greg Coffin taught at Salesian College ("Rupertswood"), Sunbury, Victoria, in 1969-1970, and at St Mark's College, Port Pirie, South Australia, in 1971. In February 1972, he was sentenced to 12 months jail (suspended) for sexual abuse of a boy at the Port Pirie school. Despite this, he was still accepted as a lay teacher (Mr "Coffey") in Catholic schools. Coffey was sentenced to a 2-year good behaviour bond in Victoria in 1994, plus 30 months jail (suspended) in Victoria in 1997 for offences against boys at Redden College, Preston, Melbourne, in the 1970s. See our story here.
Fr Peter Colley
Father Peter James Colley, of the Ballarat diocese in Victoria, pleaded guilty in the Moonee Ponds Magistrates Court, Melbourne, on 11 March 1993 to two charges -- one indecent assault of an adult male in a public toilet at Moonee Ponds and one charge of escaping from legal custody. Court records gave Colley's occupation as "priest", living in at an address in Morriss Road, Warrnambool West, which is the address of the St Pius X Catholic presbytery. Colley was sentenced to a 12-months good behaviour bond. Peter Colley was born in Melbourne on 12 April 1948 and went to school at Parade Christian Brothers College, Melbourne. Originally he worked as a layman with the Pallottine religious order, including (he has said) among Aboriginals at Kalgoorlie, Western Australia. In the early 1970s he was living at Pallotti College, Millgrove, Victoria, seeking to be accepted as a Pallotine lay Brother but did not complete the training. Also in the 1970s, he is believed to have spent time at a Redemptorist seminary in Galong, south-western New South Wales. During the 1970s, Colley applied to Bishop Ronald Mulkearns of Ballarat to sponsor him as a Ballarat candidate for the priesthood. Thus, Colley was ordained at St Paul's Seminary for Late Vocations in Sydney in 1979 and then joined the Ballarat diocese, where his parishes included Terang, Horsham, Bungaree (near Ballarat) and Warrnambool East. In early 2000, when his court appearance was becoming known, Colley left the Ballarat diocese and his name then disappeared from the annual Australian Catholic Directory.
Fr Peter L. Comensoli
In 1994, Father Peter Lewis Comensoli (then aged 55, of the Wollongong diocese, south of Sydney) was sentenced to a minimum of 18 months jail after pleading guilty to indecent assaulting altar boys. Comensoli's abuse was reported to the Wollongong diocese in 1989 but the church authorities allowed him to continue ministering. Finally, two victims got him convicted. Despite this, Comensoli was not laicized or defrocked. As late as 2008, Father Peter L. Comensoli was still listed as a "supplementary priest" of the Wollongong diocese "on leave" or "retired". See more from Broken Rites here. This Father Comensoli is not to be confused with another clergyman, Auxiliary Bishop Peter A. Comensoli.
Fr Doug Conlan
Father Douglas Conlan began ministering in Western Australia's Bunbury diocese in the 1970s. In 1999, aged 52, he was sentenced to 3 years jail (suspended) after pleading guilty to offences of gross indecency committed (in 1976) against a 16-year-old male. The court was told that the boy's family trusted the priest who took the boy on a trip for services in country parishes. The offences occurred during an overnight stay in church accommodation.
Fr Paul Connolly
Father Paul Anthony Connolly, Hobart archdiocese, was sentenced in 2001 to eight months jail (suspended after serving four months) for multiple indecent assaults of a girl aged about 14. After the jailing, the Hobart archdiocese continued to list Connolly as a "supplementary" priest of the archdiocese. See our story here.
Fr Kevin Nicholas Cox
A Sydney jury convicted this priest of sexual crimes against a girl aged 11 to 13. Church leaders and priests then submitted "good-character" references for Cox, asking the court for a lenient sentence. A judge imposed a part-time jail sentence but church lawyers appealed to a higher court against the conviction and won the appeal on technical grounds. Privately, a church leader later apologised to the girl's family for what Cox had done to her. See more from Broken Rites here.
Fr Neville Creen
Father Neville Joseph Creen molested young girls while he served as a priest at Mount Isa, north-west Queensland (in the Townsville diocese), from 1973 to 1981. In Brisbane District Court in 2003 and 2004, Creen admitted to indecently dealing with 20 girls under the age of 13. One girl was aged just five when Creen abused her at a youth camp and later at the home of her grandparents. Creen was sentenced to three-and-half years' jail (suspended after 14 months). Judge Ian Wylie said Creen had used his position as a priest and his standing in the community to intimidate the girls into remaining silent about their ordeals. See our story here.
Fr David Daniel
In July 2000, Melbourne Catholic priest Father David Daniel was sentenced to six years' jail, with parole after 4.5 years, for offences against four boys, a girl and an adult male. This priest's last parish was St Brigid's, Healesville. See our story here.
Chris D'Astoli, former priesthood trainee
Press and radio and TV news reports in May 1994 stated that a former trainee Catholic priest, Christopher D'Astoli, appeared in Oakleigh Magistrates Court (Melbourne) on 25 May 1994. D'Astoli (aged 50 in 1994) pleaded guilty to gross indecency and indecent assault against a 13-year-old Catholic school boy in the Oakleigh area in 1969-70, when D'Astoli was completing six years as a trainee priest at the Melbourne Catholic seminary (Corpus Christi College in Glen Waverley). The court was told that the boy reported the assault to his school and D'Astoli left the seminary a few days before he was due to be ordained. However, the court was told, the boy's school (Salesian College, Oakleigh) persuaded the boy not to tell his parents or the police, and the police did not learn about the matter until 23 years later. Magistrate Susan Blashki placed D'Astoli on a three-year good-behaviour bond, and ordered him to pay $750 into the court fund. The information for this case was prepared by Sergeant Brendan Harper of Oakleigh Criminal Investigation Branch.
Father Albert Davis
This Catholic priest (a member of the Dominican Fathers, the Order of Preachers) was charged in 2006 with 17 incidents of indecent assault involving seven boys at Blackfriars Priory School (conducted by the Dominican Fathers) in Prospect, Adelaide, between 1956 and 1960. A magistrate ruled that there was enough evidence for a jury to convict Davis. The magistrate committed him to stand trial in the Adelaide District Court. But Davis died in Canberra in March 2007 before the trial could be held. See our story here.
Monsignor John Day, Victoria
A detective gathered enough evidence to prosecute Monsignor John Day, who sexually abused many boys and girls in the Mildura parish in north-western Victoria. Influential church people blocked the prosecution. In 1997, after Broken Rites exposed the cover-up, the church authorities reluctantly admitted Day's offences and apologised to his victims. See the Broken Rites story here.
Father Adelrick D'Cruz
This priest, aged 78, was convicted in the Victorian County Court at Shepparton on 22 May 2008 after pleading guilty to indecently assaulting a teenage girl in a north-eastern Victoria parish 24 years previously. D'Cruz had ministered in the Sandhurst diocese in northern Victoria and later did freelance ministry in the Anglo-Indian community in Melbourne. See our story here.
Fr Ray Deal
Father Raymond Deal, Melbourne archdiocese, was sentenced to four months jail (suspended) for an offence against a male who was under his supervision. See our story here.
Fr John Denham
On 2 July 2010 Father John Sidney Denham, of the Maitland-Newcastle Catholic diocese, was sentenced to a 19 years and 10 months in jail (with parole possible after 13 years and 10 months) for offences (including buggery) committed against boys in the 1970s and 1980s. See a comprehensive background article from Broken Rites here and the judge's sentencing remarks here and another family's complaint here.
Fr Francis Derriman
Francis Edward Derriman was sentenced in Brisbane in 1998 to 12 months jail (suspended after serving four months) after being found guilty of indecently dealing with a teenage girl while Father Derriman was a priest in Brisbane in 1968. The court was told that Derriman left the priesthood in 1970, became a social worker and moved interstate. In the 1990s, the victim went to the church's "Towards Healing" program in Brisbane, expecting some "healing", but she later told Broken Rites that church officials at "Towards Healing" in Brisbane were evasive and dismissive towards her.
Br Gerard Dick
In 1995, Christian Brother Gerard William Dick (then aged 67) was sentenced to three and a half years jail in Perth, Western Australia, after pleading guilty to ten incidents of indecently dealing with boys aged eight to ten at a Christian Brothers orphanage, Castledare, in W.A. in the 1960s. Dick was just one of many Christian Brothers who abused boys in W.A. orphanages but most of the others were never brought to justice.
Br Edward Dowlan
Christian Brother Edward Vernon Dowlan (known as Ted Dowlan), Victoria, 1996, was jailed in 1996 with an eventual sentence (after appeal) of 6.5 yrs jail (with parole after 4 yrs) for offences against boys. See our story here.
Br "David" Down
Christian Brother Graeme James Down (known in the Christian Brothers as "Brother David Down") indecently touched boys aged 10-12 from St Mark's College in Bedford, Western Australia, in the 1980s; he left the Christian Brothers in 1999; was convicted in 2007 (pleaded guilty); received a 30-months jail sentence, with parole after one year. Later in 2007, Broken Rites received further complaints about Brother Down at the same school in the 1980s. This resulted in Down being given additional jail time in 2008. See our story here.
Fr Reginald Durham
Father Reginald Basil Durham, Rockhampton diocese, Queensland, 4-18 mths jail (for indecent assault of a girl at Neerkol orphanage). See our story here.
Br John Dyson
Marist Brother John Desmond Dyson (born 21 March 1950), who taught at Assumption College, Kilmore, Victoria, was sentenced to 12 months jail after pleading guilty to indecently assaulting three boys, aged 12 to 14. The sentence was served in community work. See our story here.
Fr Anthony Eames
Father Anthony Eames, Melbourne archdiocese, was sentenced to six months jail (suspended) for offences against girls. See our story here.
Fr Michael Endicott
On 25 June 2010 in Brisbane, Father Michael Ambrose Endicott was given a one-year jail sentence (suspended) after pleading guilty to indecent treatment of a schoolboy. See more from Broken Rites here.
Br Rex Elmer
Christian Brother Rex Ignatius Elmer, Victoria, was sentenced in 1998 to five years jail (with parole after 3 years 4 months) after pleading guilty to indecent assault of 12 boys at St Vincent's Boys' Home in South Melbourne. See the full Broken Rites story here.
Br Michael Evans, New South Wales
By December 1994, New South Wales police had gathered sufficient evidence to charge Christian Brother Michael Evans with multiple sexual crimes against Catholic schoolboys. But Evans committed suicide, thereby evading the justice process. His victims included pupils at Edmund Rice College (Wollongong) and St Patrick's College (Strathfield, Sydney). The Christian Brothers Order has apologised to Evans's victims.
Fr Paul Evans, Boys' Town, NSW
On 3 October 2008 Father Paul Raymond Evans (born 20 October 1951) was sentenced to 15 years' jail (with parole possible after nine and a half years) after a Sydney jury found him guilty of multiple sex offences against boys in the 1970s and 1980s, while he was a dormitory master at Boys' Town (a Catholic institution for troubled teenagers) in Engadine, south of Sydney. After 1988, Evans worked in parishes in the Broken Bay diocese in Sydney's north. See our story here.
Br Stephen Farrell, Christian Brother
Brother Stephen Francis Farrell (a member of the Victoria-Tasmania province of the Christian Brothers) was a teacher at St Alipius Catholic primary school in Ballarat East, Victoria, in 1973-74 but later left the order. In the Ballarat Magistrates Court on 17 January 1997, Farrell (then aged 45) pleaded guilty to nine counts of indecently assaulting two boys at St Alipius. He was sentenced to two years' jail, suspended for two years. After leaving the Christian Brothers, Farrell married three times. Jesuit Father Michael McGirr, who conducted Farrell's third wedding, gave character evidence in court for Farrell. This Stephen Farrell is not to be confused with a Marist Brother of the same name.
Fr Nazzareno Fasciale, Melbourne
Victoria Police charged Father Nazzareno Fasciale (pronounced "Fah-SHAH-Lay") with numerous indecent assaults of boys and girls. Fasciale admitted these crimes in a police interview which was to be tabled in court. He was absent from his first scheduled court appearance and died before the second scheduled court date. The Melbourne Catholic archdiocese has since apologised to Fasciale's victims. See the Broken Rites story here.
Fr Gregory Ferguson
Father Gregory Laurence Ferguson, of the Marist Fathers, was sentenced on 15 May 2007 to two years jail (eligible for parole after 12 months), for offences in 1971 against two boys aged 13 at Marist College, Burnie, Tasmania. On 13 December 2007, he was sentenced to an additional three years' jail for offences against a third boy, making a total of five years' jail (but he can apply for parole after two and half years). See our story here.
Fr James Fletcher
Father James Patrick Fletcher, Maitland-Newcastle diocese, NSW, 7.5 years to 10 years jail for sexual penetration of an altar boy. Fletcher died in jail. See our story here.
Br Michael Folli
In the New South Wales District Court, after lengthy proceedings (including an appeal by the accused), Marist Brother Michael Anthony Folli (born 4 January 1945) has been sentenced to four and a half years' jail for sexual offences against two boys during four years from 1980 to 1983 when the boys were aged 12 to 15. The prosecution said the two siblings met Brother Folli through their Marist Brothers school at Auburn, in Sydney's west. Folli befriended the family and became a frequent visitor to their house, where the alleged incidents occurred.
Br Raymond Foster
Marist Brother Raymond Sidney Foster (born 26 November 1931) was originally called "Brother Celestine". He taught at Catholic schools in Queensland and New South Wales. In 1999, police interviewed Foster (then aged 67) at a Marist Brothers retirement home in Mittagong, NSW) and charged him with indecent assaults against boys, committed at Chanel College, Gladstone, Queensland, in the 1970s. On 23 March 1999 he was found, hanged, just hours before he was due to appear in a New South Wales court to be extradited to Queensland.
Fr Rob Fuller
Father Robert Macgregor Fuller, 54, a priest of the Sydney Catholic archdiocese, was jailed in February 2010 for seeking to procure a child under the age of 16 via internet chat sites. See more from Broken Rites here.
Fr Des Gannon
Father Desmond Laurence Gannon, Melbourne archdiocese, was jailed in 1995 for 12 months, plus suspended sentences in 1997, 2000 and 2003, and was sentenced in 2009 to another 14 months behind bars, for offences against boys. See the full story from Broken Rites here.
Br Terry Gilsenan,
In 2001, Marist Brother Terence Joseph Gilsenan (born 18 October 1955) was sentenced to three years jail (with parole after 21 months) after pleading guilty to one incident of homosexual intercourse and three incidents of gross indecency, committed against a 12-year-old boarder, from a country area, at St Gregory's College, Campbelltown, New South Wales. The offences occurred in 1987-89 when Gilsenan, then in his early thirties, was the assistant boarding supervisor, a trainee brother and a teacher at the college. Gilsenan is still a Marist Brother. He should not be confused with a Christian Brother who has a similar (but not identical) name.
Brother J.G. Gladwin
In 1998, Queensland detectives were ready to prosecute Gladwin for committing sexual crimes against schoolboys while he worked (as Christian Brother Gerard Gladwin) in Queensland in the 1960s and '70s. But, before court proceedings could begin, Gladwin (aged 65) was found dead, gassed in his car, near Brisbane. He left a suicide note. Thus, he avoided the justice process. Brother Gerard Gladwin's schools included: a school in Gympie between 1957 and 1962; St Mary's College, Toowoomba in the 1960s; St Joseph's Nudgee College, Brisbane, in 1970-71; and St Columban's College, Brisbane, in the mid 1970s. See more from Broken Rites here.
Fr Michael Glennon
Father Michael Charles Glennon, Melbourne archdiocese, was jailed in 1978, again in 1991 and 2003, serving a total of 10.5 years minimum to 14.5 years maximum for multiple offences (including rape and indecent assault), mostly against boys. He committed many of his crimes while on bail awaiting trial for other sex offences. See our story here.
Paul Goldsmith
Former trainee priest Paul Ronald Goldsmith, Tasmania, was jailed for six and a half years (with parole possible after four years) for offences against 20 boys, aged 13 to 16. See our story here.
Fr Terence Goodall
Father Terence Norman Goodall, Sydney archdiocese, pleaded guilty to indecent assault of a Catholic layman and was placed in custody until the rising of the court. See our story here.
Br Brian Gordon
Marist Brother Brian Robert Gordon (born 15 December 1942) sexually abused boys while teaching at a Marist Brothers primary school in Dundas, Sydney, in 1969-71. The Marists kept quiet about Gordon's behaviour and he eventually became the Brisbane diocese's deputy directory of Catholic Education. In 1998 he was sentenced to a minimum of 12 months jail for eight sexual offences committed in 1969-71 against four boys, aged about 11, at the Sydney school. See our story here.
Br Thomas Grealy
Brother Thomas William Grealy, alias Brother "Augustine", of the Patrician Brothers order, was sentenced in 1997 to seven years jail (parole after four years) after pleading guilty to repeated indecent assaults of two young boys while he was the principal of the primary section of a Patrician Brothers school in Grimwood Street, Granville, in western Sydney, in the 1970s. Before molesting a boy in his office, Brother Augustine would cover a statue of the Virgin Mary with a raincoat to hide his shame. See more from Broken Rites here.
Monsignor Philip Green
Monsignor Philip Richard Green, Hobart archdiocese, was sentenced to three months jail (suspended) after pleading guilty to indecently assaulting a young man who was mourning the death of a sibling. See our story here.
Fr Jack Gubbels
On 18 August 1995, Victorian detectives went to Queensland to arrest Father Jack William Gubbels for sexual crimes crimes against Melbourne boys. But, expecting the arrest, Gubbels was found dead in bed. Thus he avoided the justice process. Gubbels had worked as a priest in the Melbourne and Townsville (Queensland) dioceses. See the Broken Rites story here.
Fr Barry Gwillim
Father John Barry Gwillim, Melbourne archdiocese, was sentenced to 32 months jail (suspended) after pleading guilty to offences against a boy. See our story here.
Fr John Haines
In the Victorian County Court on 4 November 2008, Father Edmund John Haines (of the Melbourne Catholic archdiocese, based in the Geelong district) was sentenced to four years and three months jail (with a non-parole period of two years six months) after he pleaded guilty to six counts of an indecent act with a boy under 16, procurement of a minor for child pornography and possessing child pornography. Haines was previously a priest in Papua New Guinea. See our story here.
Br "Malcolm" Hall
Marist Brother Philip Stanley Hall (born 12 November 1925, alias Brother Malcolm) worked in Catholic schools in Mount Gambier (Sth Aust.), Parkes and Forbes (NSW) and Warragul (Victoria). In 1998, police arrested him (and gave him a summons to appear in court) for sexual crimes against boys and girls in Victoria. But he died just before the scheduled court date, so the court case had to be cancelled. See more from Broken Rites here.
Bede Hampton, Queensland, ex-Marist Brother
In December 2010 a former Catholic Marist teaching brother, now living in Australia — Bede Hampton, aged 62 — was sentenced in New Zealand's High Court to jail for two years and six months for indecent assaults committed against boys in a New Zealand Catholic boarding school (St Joseph's College in Masterton) in the early 1970s. Hampton left the Marist Brothers when he was 29. He has become an interior decorator based in Queensland. One of his victims now also lives in Australia. See more from Broken Rites here.
Phillip Hardy, trainee priest
In 1990, Phillip John Hardy began training for the Catholic priesthood with the Divine Word Missionaries at Box Hill in Melbourne but he did not reach ordination. In Sydney District Court in 1995, aged 41, he was sentenced to 11 years' jail (with a minimum of seven years before parole) for sexual offences committed against a boy during an eight-year period, in 1978-1986, when the boy was aged from 8 to 16. During the time of the offences, Hardy was teaching at Marist Brothers College, Eastwood, Sydney, where he was in charge of "religious studies".
Br Francis Hesford
Marist Brother Hesford (born 1 February 1914), formerly of Assumption College, Kilmore, Victoria (later moved to Western Australia), was given a non-custodial sentence in 1997 after pleading guilty to offences against two girls at Kilmore. The offences were committed in 1970, when Hesford was aged 56. See our story here and another story here.
Fr Ted Hewitt
Father Edward Patrick Hewitt, of the Perth diocese, Western Australia, pleaded guilty in a Perth court on 2 April 1996 to a charge of wilful exposure. The prosecution alleged that Hewitt (then aged 50) had stood naked in the back yard of his home, exposing himself to children as they walked past, through an adjoining park, on their way to school. At the sentencing, in May 1996, the court fined Fr Edward Hewitt $1,000.
Br Bill Hocking
0n 31 October 1992 Christian Brother William Hocking was sentenced to 150 hours of community service after being convicted of sexually assaulting a teenage boy at a Catholic Church youth refuge, "Eddy's Place", in Wollongong, New South Wales.
Ronald Hopkins
Ronald William Hopkins originally trained to be a Christian Brother but ended up as a lay teacher in Catholic schools. In 2005, Hopkins pleaded guilty to offences (five counts of unlawful sexual intercourse by a teacher, five of indecent assault and one of gross indecency) against five schoolboys, aged 12 to 16, between 1975 and 1991 while he was a teacher at two Adelaide schools — St Bernadette's in a suburb called St Mary's and Blackfriars Priory School at Prospect. In the S.A. Supreme Court in 2006, Hopkins (then aged 70) was sentenced to ten years' jail. See our story here.
Fr Dan Hourigan, Victoria
On 18 September 1995, Victoria Police charged Father Daniel Dominic Hourigan, (of the Sale diocese) with sexual crimes against boys. Three days later, he died unexpectedly, thereby avoiding a court appearance. Thus the court case had to be cancelled. See the Broken Rites story here.
Fr John Houston, visiting New South Wales
A Catholic priest, John Charles Houston (born 3 March 1955), has appeared in a court near Newcastle in New South Wales, accused of filming boys showering during a surf lifesaving carnival. The magistrate ordered that Houston be supervised by mental health workers, continue to take his medication and not loiter near public pools or beaches. See more here.
Fr Kevin Howarth
Father Kevin Howarth, Sandhurst diocese in north-eastern Victoria, sexually abused young girls and was sentenced to three months jail. The sentence was to be served in community work. See our story here.
Fr Bill Irwin
William Stanley Irwin was originally a Brother (and then a priest) in the Catholic Vincentian order. A Sydney court heard how the church authorities protected Irwin, concealing his criminal behaviour in a church file marked "Strictly Confidential". In 2011 a jury found Irwin guilty of two incidents of gross indecency against a youth whom he was "counselling". The judge imposed two six-months jail sentences, which were suspended upon Irwin undertaking a six-months good-behaviour bond. See more here.
Br Fabian Jordan
Christian Brother John Joseph Jordan (alias Brother "Fabian" Jordan, born 23 October 1927), worked at St Augustine's boys home and St Vincent's boys' home in Victoria; he later left the Christian Brothers and retired to South Australia. In 1999 he was sentenced to a 12-months good behaviour bond for indecent assault (i.e, touching) of a 13-year-old boy at St Augustine's in the early 1960s. This was not the only complaint about Jordan.
Fr John Keane, western Victoria
The Adelaide Advertiser reported on 6 January 1990 (page 2) from Melbourne:
"A Catholic priest pleaded guilty in Melbourne Magistrates Court yesterday to offensive behaviour in a public toilet. John Keane, 52, who gave his address as St Michael's Church, Wycheproof, was given a 12-month good behaviour bond. The prosecutor said plainclothes police saw Keane expose himself on April 13 last year."
Frank Keating
De La Salle Brother Frank Terrence Keating (alias Brother "Ibar" Keating) was sentenced to 8 to 36 months jail in Victoria in 1998, plus 12 months jail (suspended) in Queensland in 2000, all for multiple indecent assaults of boys in Catholic schools. Keating also taught in Western Australia and South Australia. See our story here.
Fr Terrence Keliher
Father Terrence Thomas Keliher, aged 62, was sentenced in Brisbane in 2000 to 30 months jail (eligible for parole after 8 months) for indecently dealing with a girl, aged about 11. Keliher was friendly with the girls' parents, who were intellectually impaired, and he had officiated at the parents' wedding. In 1999 the victim phoned Broken Rites, which put her in contact with the Queensland Police child-protection unit.
Fr Vincent Kiss
Father Vincent Keiran Kiss belonged to the Wagga Wagga diocese (NSW) but also worked and played in other areas, including Melbourne and the Philippines. In Sydney in 2002, then aged 70, he was sentenced to ten and a half years in jail (eligible for parole after seven years) for sex crimes against four teenage boys. He pleaded guilty to three charges of buggery and ten of indecent assault. See our story here.
Fr Frank Klep
Father Frank Gerard Klep, of the Salesian order, Victoria, 5 years 10 months jail, with parole after 3 years 6 months (after an appeal by the prosecution on behalf of the victims, April 2006, replacing previous sentence in 2005 of 1-3 yrs jail); also had a 9-months jail sentence in 1994, which he served in community work. See our story here.
Marist Brother Kostka
In the Australian Capital Territory Supreme Court on 23 June 2008, Marist Brother John William Chute (born 13 June 1932), whose religious name is "Brother Kostka" (in honour of a 16th Century saint), was jailed after pleading guilty to sexually molesting four students when they were aged 13 and 14 at Canberra's Marist College in the 1980s. See our story here.
Michael Lannen, ex-trainee priest
Michael William Lannen spent two years in the 1980s as a trainee priest at the Catholic seminary in Banyo, Brisbane. He later became a senior psychologist for Queensland's prison system. In 1996, aged 49, he was sentenced to four years jail after being found guilty of corruptly intimidating prisoners into engaging in oral sex with him in return for favourable reports regarding the prisoners' future. The prosecution said that Lannen held considerable power over the prisoners, regarding their early release or whether they were given leave of absence or home detention or were accepted into work-release schemes. Lannen's conviction relates to a period after he ceased being a trainee priest but the conviction is being included in this list, as a matter of public record, for the information of anybody who encountered Lannen in a church-related situation.
Fr Leo Leunig,
Father Leo St Clair Leunig, then aged 66, of the Perth diocese, Western Australia, was sentenced to six years jail in 1994 after pleading guilty to 46 offences against three young boys between 1965 and 1969; and he was sentenced in 1995 to another 12 months jail for offences against another boy. The offences included indecent touching, oral sex and sodomy. The church authorities had known since 1979 about Leunig's criminal behaviour, but they retained him in the ministry and merely moved him from a one-parish appointment to a multi-parish role as a relieving priest. This meant that he had access to boys in the new parishes where he would be relieving. While he was relieving, Leunig lived for many years at the South Perth presbytery, which is adjacent to a primary school, but the church authorities did not warn the school's principal or parents about him. While Leunig was serving his jail sentence (and also after he was released), the Perth diocese defiantly continued to list him for years in the annual Australian Catholic Directories as a "supplementary" (relieving) priest of the Perth diocese.
Fr Bruce Little
In the Southport District Court (Queensland) on 2 February 1996, Father Bruce Francis Little (then aged 50) was fined $750 after pleading guilty to engaging in an indecent act in a public place. Little admitted to having oral sex performed on him by a man in a public toilet block at Pizzey Park, Miami, on the Queensland Gold Coast. The court was told that police arrested Little one afternoon as they patrolled the park, a popular playground for children. (Case reported in the Brisbane Courier Mail, the Gold Coast Bulletin and the Rockhampton Morning Bulletin, 3 February 1996.) Little, who was then a priest of the Brisbane archdiocese, later transferred to the Rockhampton diocese.
Br "Nestor" Littler
Marist Brother John Aloysius Littler (alias Brother "Nestor", born 17 June 1926) worked at St Vincent's boys' home, Westmead, in Sydney's west, from 1955 to 1964. In Sydney District Court in 1993, Littler pleaded guilty to three charges of indecently assaulting a boy, aged 15, at St Vincent's in 1962. Judge Phelan sentenced Littler to a $500 five-year good behaviour bond. Judge Phelan said he was taking into account that, as a Marist Brother, Littler had a "high standing" in the community. In 1997, Littler (then aged 71) was committed for trial on 29 counts of sexual assault (including buggery) of five other boys at St Vincent's in the 1950s and '60s but he eventually managed to get the trial cancelled on health grounds. Brother "Nestor" is also believed to have taught at the Marist Brothers' St Joseph's College, Hunters Hill, Sydney, in 1965-70. The name "Nestor", which was the religious alias adopted by Littler when he joined the Marist Brothers, was the name of an ancient "saint".
Br Ray Logan
De La Salle Brother Raymond Logan (alias Brother Pius Bernard), NSW, W.A. and Victoria, was sentenced in 2000 to three years jail (to be served as periodic weekend detention) for offences against boys. See our story here.
Kevin Lynch
Kevin John Lynch was originally a Christian Brother, teaching in Catholic schools in Queensland. One of these schools is believed to have been St Brendan's College, Yeppoon. After leaving the Christian Brothers, he worked as a school counsellor at Brisbane Boys' Grammar School (Anglican) in the 1980s and at St Paul's School (Anglican), Bald Hills, Brisbane, in the early 1990s. In 1997, police charged him with committing sexual crimes against boys while working as a counsellor. During prosecution, he committed suicide, thereby failing to clear his name.
Fr Daniel Lyne, CP
In 2002, New South Wales police were about to prosecute Father Daniel Lyne in court for sexual offences against young males but suddenly he died and the court case could not proceed. Lyne (born 1937) was a Catholic priest in the Congregation of the Passion religious order (the Passionist Fathers). Originally, Father Lyne had taught in a Passionist "juniorate" at St Ives, Sydney (this was a secondary school for boys who were "aspiring" to become priests in the Passionist order). He later worked in Africa and India. See more from Broken Rites here.
Br Edward Mamo, MSC religious order
A Catholic former religious Brother, Edward Mamo (born in 1944), has pleaded guilty to having committed multiple sexual offences against boys at Monivae College, a Catholic secondary school, at Hamilton, Victoria, in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Mamo also worked at Chevalier College (Bowral, NSW) and in accommodating Vietnamese refugees in Sydney. See more from Broken Rites here.
Br William Marchant
Christian Brother William Edwin Marchant, Tardun Boys' Home, Western Australia, non-custodial sentence.
Fr Denis McAlinden
This Irish-born priest belonged to the Maitland-Newcastle diocese in New South Wales, where he molested girls and women. This diocese then lent him to other dioceses around Australia (and in New Zealand and Papua New Guinea), keeping him out of the reach of the police as he committed to commit offences. Police accumulated evidence to prosecute McAlinden in court but when they finally caught up with him in 2005, he was in a church-run aged-care centre in Western Australia, where he died one month later. Since then, the Maitland-Newcastle diocese has been paying compensation to some of McAlinden's victims. See the Broken Rites story here.
Fr Michael McArdle,
Father Michael Joseph McArdle, of the Rockhampton diocese in Queensland, was sentenced in 2003 to six years jail (with parole possible after two years) after pleading guilty to 62 incidents of indecent dealings against 14 boys and two girls between 1965 and 1987. McArdle told a journalist that the church was aware of his offences but it never alerted police or parishioners.
Fr Charles McCann
A young woman made a sworn statement to Victoria Police in 1993 that Fr Charles McCann, of St Kevin's parish, Templestowe, in Melbourne's north-east, had invasively mauled her breasts while she was asleep in bed in her family home when she was a teenager in 1983. McCann, who was a friend of the girl's family, was making a "home visit". Police interviewed McCann in 1993 and, as a result, of this interview, they gave him a summons to appear in court in March 1994 to answer a charge of indecent assault. However, the girl's parents and grandparents feared that the case would embarrass the church, so they pressured the young woman to withdraw the charge, threatening to disinherit her if she proceeded. Feeling defeated, the young woman withdrew the charge two days before the court hearing. The church authorities then felt justified in retaining McCann in the priesthood until he retired nine years later, in 2003.
Br Bernard McGrath
St John of God Brother Bernard Kevin McGrath was jailed in New Zealand in 1993, was jailed in Sydney in 1997, and was in jail again in New Zealand from 2006 to 2008. Any Australian victims of McGrath should have a chat with the Lake Macquarie detectives office in New South Wales, telephone 02-49429909. See the Broken Rites story about McGrath and the St John of God Brothers here.
Fr Ron McKeirnan
Father Ronald McKeirnan, of the Brisbane archdiocese, was sentenced to three years jail (one year minimum) in 1998, plus 3 yrs jail (suspended) in 2003, for offences against boys. See our story here.
Fr Paul McLachlan
Father Paul McLachlan, of the Brisbane archdiocese, was sentenced to 3 yrs 8 months jail in 2000, plus 18 months jail in 2001, for offences against boys. McLachlan was formerly the head of Brisbane's Catholic Media Office for 19 years and appeared on television religious programs. See our story here.
Br Gerard McNamara
Marist Brother Gerard Joseph McNamara (born 9 March 1938) was sentenced in Melbourne to three years jail (suspended) after pleading guilty to indecently assaulting six boys. McNamara, who taught mainly in Victoria, was originally known as "Brother Camillus" (not to be confused with another Marist Brother "Camillus" in Sydney). See the Broken Rites report here.
Br "Ossie" McNamara
Marist Brother Hugh Michael McNamara (born 7 March 1933) taught at St Joseph's College in Hunters Hill in Sydney as Brother "Oswald" McNamara until about 1978. He ceased being a Brother and then taught as a lay teacher at the Marist Brothers college at Ashgrove in Brisbane, where he was jailed in 1995 for indecently dealing with a boy. In Sydney in 1999, he was convicted of physical assault of a boy at St Joseph's College, Hunters Hill in 1970; and a charge of indecently assaulting the same boy was dismissed because of lack of witnesses.
Rick McPhillamy, cathedral acolyte
In 2011, Richard John McPhillamy (who has been an acolyte at the Bathurst Catholic Cathedral and who is a former assistant dormitory master at St Stanislaus College, Bathurst) was sentenced to a minimum of 12 months jail after he was found guilty of sexual crimes against two boys while he was working as an assistant housemaster at St Stanislaus College, Bathurst in the mid-1980s. See more from Broken Rites here.
Fr Terence Merivale
Father Terence Michael Merivale was a priest in the Melbourne Catholic archdiocese but left the priesthood. Later, in 2000, he was sentenced to six months jail after pleading guilty to seven charges of indecent assault (including one of digital penetration) on three young girls when he was ministering in St Bernard's parish, Belmont, Geelong, between 1969 and 1975.
Fr Murray Moffat
In August 2010, Father Murray Alexander Moffat, of Brisbane, was sentenced to 18 months jail, with the first three months to be spent behind bars and the remainder suspended for three years. He pleaded guilty to indecent treatment of a 12-year-old girl between 1977 and 1981. See the Broken Rites story here.
Br Rodger Moloney
This member of the St John of God Brothers has worked in Australia and New Zealand. In August 2008 in New Zealand, Rodger William Moloney, 73, was jailed for sexually abusing educationally-disadvantaged boys in Christchurch, N.Z., in the 1970s. He was released from jail in September 2009. The court was told that, after completing his sentence, he would be deported to Australia. Any Australian victims of Moloney should have a chat with the police sexual offences units in Australia. See our Moloney story here. And see our background story about the St John of God Brothers in Australia here.
Br Terry Mulligan
Marist Brother Terence Mulligan was sentenced in Sydney in 2000 to 6 months periodic detention for indecent assaults against two boys. Mulligan met the two siblings through their Marist Brothers school at Auburn, in Sydney's west. He assaulted the boys in the family's house. One of the victims, "Ricky" (aged 32 in 2000), said outside the court that the sexual abuse devastated his personal development. His life became a blur of drugs, alcohol and rage. Ricky's wife said the effect of the abuse was being felt by her and the whole family.
Fr Gerard Mulvale
Father Gerard Joseph Mulvale, born 17 July 1948, from Western Australia, jailed 18-36 mths in Melbourne 1995 while he was a priest in the Pallottine order. See our story here.
Br Lawrence Murphy
Christian Brother Lawrence Denis Murphy worked in Catholic boys' orphanages at Tardun, Castledare and Clontarf in Western Australia in the 1940s and '50s. In May 1997, he was arrested in Adelaide and extradited to Western Australia on charges of unlawful carnal knowledge and indecent dealing at the orphanages. In 1998 a West Australian magistrate ruled that there was indeed sufficient evidence for a jury to convict Murphy (then aged 80) but Murphy died before the the trial could be held.
Monsignor James Murray
In June 2000, Monsignor James William Murray, Geelong, Victoria (Melbourne archdiocese), was convicted and fined $500 after pleading guilty to having indecently assaulted a 25-year-old woman who had requested his pastoral care. See our story here.
Fr "Max" Murray
After Father Magnus William Murray committed child-sex offences in New Zealand, he was transferred to Sydney, where he was allowed to minister in the Woollahra parish in 1972-76. His past was concealed from Sydney parishioners. He later returned to New Zealand, where he was sentenced in 2003 to five years jail after pleading guilty to ten representative charges of committing indecent assaults and indecent acts on four boys in New Zealand between 1962 and 1972. The Sydney archdiocese now denies that it breached its duty of care in allowing Murray to minister in Australia because (it claims) Murray was New Zealand's responsibility, not Sydney's.
Br Ross Murrin
On 10 March 2008, Marist Brother Ross Francis Murrin (born 10 June 1955) was sentenced to 39 months' jail, with a non-parole period of 18 months, after pleading guilty to indecently assaulting Catholic primary school boys in the 1970s. In February 2010, he received additional jail time after pleading guilty to sexually abusing another boy at a later school. See our story here.
Brother Robert John N*****
This former De La Salle Brother, received a ten-year jail sentence in NSW in February 2002 (when aged 55), eligible for parole after 6 yrs (the judge granted the offender a name-suppression order). See our story here.
Fr Ross O'Brien
In Glen Innes Local Court in New South Wales in May 1993, Father Thomas Ross O'Brien (then aged 57) was charged with indecent assault of a hitch-hiker, whom he had picked up between Lismore and Casino on 22 October 1992. Magistrate Chris Bone found the offence proved and placed Father O'Brien on a $100 good-behaviour bond for 18 months. (Reported in the Glen Innes Examiner 28 May 1993 and mentioned again in the Sydney Sunday Sun-Herald 19 March 2000.) Father O'Brien belongs to the Armidale diocese. When in court in 1993, he was ministering at the Glen Innes parish. He was later located at the Armidale Cathedral and then in the Quirindi parish. In several editions of the annual Australian Catholic Directory (e.g., the editions from 1997 to 2004), he was listed as the contact person for the "Continuing Education of Clergy" in the Armidale diocese — that is, he has been involved in the training of priests.
Br Damien O'Dempsey
In Brisbane in 1994, Christian Brother Damien John O'Dempsey (then aged 46) was sentenced to 18 months' jail (with parole after four months) after pleading guilty to six counts of indecently dealing with a 15-year-old boy at St Mary's Christian Brothers College, Toowoomba, Queensland, in 1987. In 1998, O'Dempsey was summoned to a magistrates' court again, facing 22 charges (indecent dealing and carnal knowledge) involving another boy at a Townsville school in 1981-84. The magistrate ordered O'Dempsey to stand trial, which was listed for 1999. However, a tragedy occurred in the family of the alleged victim and the trial was abandoned. See the Broken Rites report here.
Fr Kevin O'Donnell
Father John Kevin O'Donnell, Melbourne archdiocese, was sentenced to 15 months jail for offences against children, mainly boys. Broken Rites helped O'Donnell's victims to obtain justice. See our story here.
Fr John O'Regan
This priest ministered with the Catholic order of Oblate Fathers, in Queensland and Western Australia and possibly elsewhere. In September 1998, Queensland detectives began investigating O'Regan regarding indecent assaults of girls at Nazareth House girls' home, Wynnum North, Brisbane, in the 1950s and '60s. But O'Regan died during this prosecution process. See the Broken Rites story here.
Fr Paul Pavlou
On 29 June 2009, Melbourne diocesan priest Father Paul Pavlou (then aged 50) pleaded guilty to committing an indecent act with a 14-year-old boy and another charge of possessing child pornography. He was given an 18-months jail sentence (suspended) plus a two year community-based sentence (to be served by doing community work). See the full Broken Rites report here.
Fr Wieslaw Pawlowski, Polish chaplain
In a Sydney court on 14 November 2008 this Catholic priest (from a Polish religious order, the Society of Christ) was convicted of wilful exposure in a public park, at Miller, in Sydney's west, and was fined $400. A nearby resident contacted the police, who found the priest allegedly lying, naked, on his back, on a banana lounge in the park about 10.00am on a Saturday. The court was told that, as the police approached, Father Pawlowski began to put on a pair of underpants while still lying down and he claimed that he put the white pants over the top of a G-string he was already wearing. He said he sunbathed regularly, on doctor's orders, to help heal some burn-scarring on his back. He denied that he was lying naked with his genitals exposed. This was nonsense, he said, because he was a priest and this would have been against his principles. Convicting him, the magistrate said that most people would find it "immoral and obscene" that a grown man was sunbathing naked in a park where children might play. Fr Wieslaw Pawlowski has been listed since 2000 as a chaplain to Australia's Polish community, first in Adelaide, then Sydney and later Melbourne.
Fr Dave Perrett
Father David Perrett, who was a "chaplain" to Aborigines in the Armidale diocese in northern New South Wales, pleaded guilty in Orange District Court to indecent assault of two young Aboriginal boys at the Walgett parish and another Aboriginal boy at the Guyra parish. On 1 November 1996, Judge Shillington sentenced Perrett, then aged 59, to a three-year good-behaviour bond. The Catholic directories continued to list Perrett as a priest of the Armidale diocese ("on leave") until his name was removed in 2001. Another complaint against Perrett was aired on ABC-TV's "Four Corners" on 11 November 2002. The program featured a statutory declaration by a young Aboriginal named Edward, who said he was raped by Perrett at Walgett; however, this complaint never reached a court. Edward, who had an intellectual disability and was partially deaf, had a traumatic adolescence. He ended up in jail, where he committed suicide.
Fr Kevin Phillips
In Sydney on 21 April 2011, Fr Kevin Francis Phillips (of Mackay in the Rockhampton diocese in Queensland) was jailed after pleading guilty to offences against a boy at St Stanislaus College (a boys' boarding school) in Bathurst, New South Wales, in 1990. See the Broken Rites story here.
Fr Ron Pickering
For years, Father Ronald Dennis Pickering was protected by the Melbourne Catholic hierarchy. In late 1993 he suddenly fled from Australia to England, fearing that one of his victims would talk to police. The police eventually obtained enough evidence for a prosecution but were discouraged by the problem of locating Pickering in England (although the Melbourne archdiocese secretly knew his England address) and also the problem of extraditing him to Australia for the court proceedings. The Melbourne Catholic Archdiocese, which had long known about Pickering's liking for boys, admitted that Pickering was an offender and it made civil settlements with some of his victims, so as to limit the church's financial liability. See the full Broken Rites article here.
Fr Terry Pidoto
On 17 September 2007, Father Terrence Pidoto, of the Melbourne archdiocese, was sentenced to seven years and three months' jail (with a minimum of five years before becoming eligible for parole) on charges of buggery and indecent assault against boys. See our story here.
Priest #1, Adelaide
In Adelaide in 1989, Catholic Church authorities tried to conceal a priest's court case. In Holden Hill Magistrates Court, Adelaide, on 21 July 1989, this diocesan priest and another man were found guilty of indecent behaviour and were each fined $100. Late on a summer's night, police had found the pair lying under bushes near Walkerville oval, engaging in sexual activity. The priest also was originally charged with giving a false name and address. Church lawyers persuaded the court to prohibit the media from publishing the priest's name but media lawyers contested this application. The Supreme Court lifted the suppression order and the case was reported fully, with names, in the Adelaide "Advertiser" and "Sunday Mail" during July 26-30, 1989. Archbishop Leonard Faulkner wrote in a letter to all priests on 7 June 1989: "In reflecting my decision that [this priest] continue his ministry at [his parish], I remembered my own shortcomings and those of a number of our brother priests." The priest is still in charge of an Adelaide parish.
Priest #2, Adelaide and northern Sydney
This priest was a mature-age entrant to the priesthood. He was recruited by (and was trained for) the Adelaide diocese, where he worked in parishes in the 1970s and '80s. While visiting Cairns, Queensland, he was caught wilfully exposing himself on a beach. In a Cairns court on 27 July 1987, he pleaded guilty and was fined $100. After this, the church authorities transferred him to the Broken Bay diocese, in the northern suburbs and outskirts of Sydney, where he was put in charge of parishes, including parish schools. In February 1995, the Cairns court case was revealed in the "Manly Daily", Sydney (circulating in the Broken Bay diocese), in an article headed "Shock of priest's past: Parents stunned at exposure case". The priest verified this report.
Fr "Joseph" Pritchard
Father Peter Harold Pritchard (alias Fr "Joseph" Pritchard), of the St Gerard Majella religious order in the Parramatta diocese, NSW, was sentenced in 1997 to 6 years jail (four years minimum) after pleading guilty to charges of buggery, intent to commit buggery, and indecent assault involving seven trainee Brothers and another young male, all aged 16 to 21, over a 19-year period. See our story here.
Fr David Rapson
Father David Edwin Rapson (born 30 July 1953), who was then a member of the Salesians of Don Bosco, was sentenced in 1992 to two years jail after pleading guilty to five incidents of indecently assaulting a 15-year-old boy at Salesian College, "Rupertswood", in Sunbury (in Melbourne's north-west), where Rapson was a vice-principal. In a newspaper report in 1992, Rapson's name was given (apparently wrongly) as David Edward Rapson. See more here.
Fr Michael Reis, MSC religious order
Father Michael Francis Reis (known as Mick Reis), who has taught at Monivae College in Victoria and Downlands College in Queensland, was sentenced in Brisbane on 6 November 2008 to 18 months jail (with a minimum of six months) for offences against two young girls in the 1980s and 1990s. See our story here.
Fr Gerry Ridsdale
Father Gerald Francis Ridsdale, Ballarat diocese, Victoria, has pleaded guilty to indecently assaulting a total of 40 children (comprising 39 boys and one girl). He is serving a jail sentence of 19 years (minimum), with parole possible in the year 2013. See our story here.
Br Gregory Riley
Christian Brother Francis Riley (known as Brother Greg Riley), New South Wales, was sentenced in 1999 to three years jail after pleading guilty to 17 counts of indecent assault against boys.
Fr Stephen Robinson
In 1998, Father Stephen Joseph Robinson (then aged 51), who was then a Catholic priest in the St Gerard Majella order in the Parramatta diocese, NSW, was sentenced to a minimum of 18 months' jail for acts of indecency on two trainee Brothers. See our story here.
Fr Victor Rubeo
Father Victor Gabriel Rubeo, Melbourne archdiocese, pleaded guilty in 1996 to having indecently assaulted two boys in a previous parish (Laverton in the 1960s). On 28 October 2011, Rubeo appeared in court again, charged with additional incidents from the 1960s and was ordered to re-appear on 16 December 2011 for a full hearing but he died (aged 78) before this next hearing date. See the Broken Rites story here.
Fr Paul-David Ryan
Father Paul David Carl Ryan, Ballarat diocese, Victoria, was sentenced in 2006 to 18 months jail (12 months minimum) for offences against boys. See our story here.
Fr Vince Ryan
Father Vincent Gerard Ryan, of the Maitland-Newcastle diocese, NSW, was sentenced in 1996-97 to 16 years (minimum of 11) for offences against boys. See the Broken Rites story here.
Fr Peter Searson
This Melbourne diocesan priest pleaded guilty in a magistrates' court in 1997 to physically assaulting a 12-year-old altar boy. The police also had evidence of sexual abuse committed by Searson, but Searson chose to plead guilty to the physical abuse, thereby ensuring a more lenient sentence. The court ordered Searson to observe a good-behaviour bond. Also in 1997, the Melbourne archdiocese's Commissioner on Sexual Abuse investigated certain other allegations about Fr Searson, involving a number of women, boys and girls. See the Broken Rites report here.
Fr Kelvin Sharkey
On 29 April 2010, Father Kelvin Gerald Sharkey (a priest of the Wollongong Catholic Diocese in New South Wales) was sentenced to a minimum 15 months in jail after pleading guilty to buggery and indecent assault of an altar boy. See the Broken Rites story here here.
Jack Shea
John Rowan Shea was originally a priesthood trainee in Melbourne archdiocese and was later a prominent layman (a "good Catholic") in Melbourne parish affairs and in the St Vincent de Paul Society. In 1996, aged 73, he was sentenced to three years jail (minimum of one year) for offences against boys in his "care" in church-related situations in the 1970s. There have also been allegations that he abused boys while he was a football coach at a Catholic school, Whitefriars College, in Melbourne in the 1960s.
Br Terence Simpson,
former Christian Brother Terence Simpson, Brisbane, was sentenced to two years jail (suspended) for offences against boys. See our story here.
Fr Michael Slattery
On 9 August 2007 a Catholic priest from Western Australia, Father Michael Slattery, was sentenced in Sydney District Court to an 18-months jail sentence (suspended, with a good-behaviour bond) after he pleaded guilty to committing three acts of indecency (masturbation) in the presence of a schoolgirl, who was aged 14 to 15. The offences occurred in 1981-82 while Slattery was a lay teacher at a North Sydney Catholic girls school before becoming ordained as a priest for Western Australia. See more from Broken Rites here.
Fr Brian Spillane
On 19 April 2012, a Sydney court sentenced Brian Joseph Spillane to nine years jail (with parole after five years) for indecently assaulting three young girls when he was working as a Catholic priest (in the Vincentian religious order) in New South Wales in the 1970s and '80s. He is awaiting further court proceedings for alleged sexual offences against boys. See the Broken Rites story here.
Br Peter Spratt
Marist Brother Peter Richard Spratt (born 2 August 1937) used to work at Marist College in Canberra. In 1996 he pleaded guilty to two acts of indecency against a 14-year-old boy from the school. The incidents occurred in 1979 at a Marist Brothers' residence at Wategoes Beach, Byron Bay, NSW, and at a holiday centre in Jindabyne, NSW. A magistrate at Cooma Local Court placed Spratt on a $2,000, two-year good-behaviour bond. Brother Spratt also taught at Marist Brothers, Pagewood, Sydney. It is believed that in the 1960s he taught with the Marist Brothers at Lismore, NSW. In those years he was probably known by a "religious" name, rather than his real name. It was common for Marist Brothers to adopt a "religious" name such as Bartholomew, Ignatius, Aloysius, Xaverius, etcetera.
Br Gregory Sutton
Marist Brother Gregory Joseph Sutton (born 19 March 1951) taught in the 1980s at Catholic primary schools in New South Wales, where he has admitted committing numerous serious offences, including rapes of young girls and indecent assaults of young boys. He fled to the USA, where he became principal of a Catholic school. He was extradited back to Australia, where he was jailed in 1996 for a maximum of 18 years (with parole possible after 12 years). See our story here.
Fr John Sweeney
Father John Gerard Patrick Sweeney, St Gerard Majella order, Parramatta diocese, NSW, 18-27 months jail. See our story here.
Fr Tadeusz Swiatkowski
Father Tadeusz Swiatkowski, of the Society of Christ (a Polish religious order in Australia), appeared in a Brisbane court in 1994 for soliciting a prostitute (he later moved to Mayfield West, Newcastle, NSW).
Alan Swingler
Alan Edward Swingler (born in September 1941) was originally a Marist Brother but left the Marist order and became a lay teacher of religious studies at St Joseph's Christian Brothers' College, Geelong, Victoria, where he stayed for 18 years. In 1996 Swingler, aged 54, was sentenced to seven years jail (minimum of five years) on one incident of buggery, three incidents of gross indecency and nine of indecent assault of boys. Outside the court, the mother of one victim said that, even after the family complained to the school about the crimes, the school kept Swingler on its staff.
Br Colgan Taylor
In Brisbane District Court on 29 November 2002, Marist Brother Colgan Taylor (then aged 80 and living in Sydney) was sentenced to 18 months' jail after pleading guilty to four counts of indecent dealing with two young girls in central Queensland between 1979 and 1983. One girl was aged five or six when abused. The second victim was intellectually disabled and aged between eight and 11 when abused. The abuse was not reported until the youngest victim came forward in May 2002. Taylor was ordered to serve four months of the sentence, with the remainder suspended.
Br George Taylor, De La Salle
After one of his victims finally contacted the police, Albert Matthew Taylor (known as "Brother George") pleaded guilty in the Sydney District Court on 8 August 1995 to two incidents of indecently assaulting an 11-year-old boy. The assaults occurred in 1967 at De La Salle College, Revesby, Sydney. Taylor, aged 79 in 1995, was placed on a three-year good behaviour bond. Taylor's other schools included De La Salle College, Orange, NSW. See the Broken Rites story here.
Br Peter Toomey
Christian Brother Peter John Toomey pleaded guilty in 2005 to offences against 10 boys at Trinity Regional College in Brunswick, Melbourne, in the 1970s. He was finally sentenced to 4 years 3 months jail, with parole after 2 years 6 months. Originally the sentence was 27 months jail (with parole after six months) but this was increased after an appeal by the prosecution, on behalf of the victims. See our story here.
Fr John Treacy
Father John Leslie Treacy (born 30 October 1943) was ordained on 19 May 1972 and belongs to the Sandhurst diocese in northern Victoria, where his original parishes included Tatura, Beechworth, Tallangatta, Wodonga and Rushworth. In 1993 he pleaded guilty to indecently assaulting a boy from one of his parishes and was given a non-custodial sentence (good-behaviour bond). The Sandhurst diocese later arranged for Treacy to move to Queensland, where Queensland bishops accepted him to minister in parishes and as a hospital chaplain, while he continued to be officially listed as a priest of the Sandhurst diocese.
Fr Adrian Van Klooster
Father Adrian Richard Van Klooster, Western Australia and NSW, was sentenced in 2003 in W.A. to 8 yrs jail for offences against boys and girls. He is eligible for parole but no minimum period was specified. See our story here.
Paul Van Ruth, a former Brother
On 4 March 2011 Peter Paul VAN RUTH, of Adelaide, was jailed after he pleaded guilty to indecently assaulting two boys in 1969 while he was a religious Brother at Salesian College, "Rupertswood", Sunbury, Victoria. See the Broken Rites story here.
Br Geoffrey Veness
Marist Brother Geoffrey Sydney Veness (born 30 September 1953) was sentenced to 12 months jail (suspended) after pleading guilty to offences against a boy who was a pupil at St Augustine's College, Cairns, Queensland.
Br Keith William Weston
Christian Brother Keith William Weston, Melbourne, was sentenced to 30 months jail (suspended) for offences against boys. See our court story here. Also, see an article by a Weston victim here.
Fr Leo Wright
Father Leo Daniel Wright, Brisbane archdiocese, was jailed for 3 yrs (1995) and 18 months (1997) for offences against girls and a boy. See our story here.
The above list is confined to Broken Rites cases — that is, criminal prosecutions in which Broken Rites Australia gives support to victims either before or after the court proceedings.
For civil out-of-court cases, see Section B, below.
And Sections A and B are confined to priests and religious brothers (including trainees). For lay teachers in church schools, see some examples in Section F, at the bottom of this page.
Section B:
Out-of-court civil cases,
researched by Broken Rites
As well as the above-listed criminal prosecutions (conducted by the police), a victim can take out-of-court civil action against the Catholic Church authorities for having inflicted the offender upon the victim. This can force the church to acknowledge the harm that has been done to the victim's life (including harm done by the church's tradition of cover-up). This can give the victim a sense of empowerment. Sometimes this action can force the church to give a written apology to the victim. Perhaps, the church might even offer to reach a private settlement with the victim, as the church often regards this as a cheap way of protecting the church's public image and its assets.
Here are a few examples of cases (researched by Broken Rites), in which victims could tackle the church authorities for justice.
Fr Bert Adderley
In February 2005, the Bunbury diocese in Western Australia admitted that it was dealing with complaints that Reverend Dr Bertram Richard Adderley, Ph.D., B.A, sexually abused boys in the 1960s and '70s. According to Broken Rites research, Bertram Adderley had been a lay teacher at the Christian Brothers' Aquinas College in Perth in the 1950s before entering the priesthood. He served as a priest in the Bunbury diocese from 1959 to 1974. In the early 1960s (after working as a priest at the Narrogin parish), Dr Adderley oversaw Catholic education in the Bunbury diocese but in 1965, following complaints about sexual abuse, he was relegated, out-of-sight, to parishes at Mannup and Manjimup. In 1975, he left parish ministry, "on leave". One alleged victim from Manjimup says that Adderlely persisted in seeing him after 1975, visiting him at his Catholic high school and taking him on excursions (including nude bathing) until 1979.
Brother Pascal Alford
Christian Brother Donald Paschal Alford worked at St Augustine's orphanage, Geelong Victoria. See our story here.
Fr David Anderson
After action by Broken Rites, the Lismore Catholic diocese in northern New South Wales has apologized to two families who complained about sexual abuse committed by Father Clarence David Anderson (also known as Fr David Anderson). One complaint concerned two brothers, aged 14 and 9, who encountered Anderson while he was ministering in Macksville, including Nambucca Heads (on the mid-north coast), in 1966-68. The boys' father had died, so their mother allowed this priest to "befriend" the boys, because the boys "needed a father". Another complaint concerned two brothers, aged 9 and 15, who encountered Anderson when he ministered in the Tweed Heads parish (near the Queensland border) in 1969. These latter two brothers, likewise, were from a fatherless family; and they, too, were "befriended" by Anderson.
Fr John Ayers, Salesian order
The Catholic religious order of Salesian Fathers has made an out-of-court settlement with a former schoolboy who encountered Father Jack Ayers while attending Salesian College, "Rupertswood", near Melbourne, when aged 12 to 13. See more here.
Fr Herbert Balding
In 1997, after consulting Broken Rites, a Melbourne woman (Noreen) complained to the Melbourne Catholic archdiocese about a hospital chaplain (Father Herbert Balding, a member of the Jesuit order). In 1978, when she was a married woman aged in her thirties, Father Balding targeted Noreen sexually while she was in a vulnerable state, seriously ill, as a in-patient at Melbourne's Mercy Hospital. The abuse disrupted her recovery and her later life. The archdiocese complaints commissioner (Peter O'Callaghan, QC) accepted the complaint and ruled that Noreen had indeed been sexually abused by Balding.
Br Bede (St John of God order)
Former inmates of four homes operated by the Hospitaller Order of St John of God have complained to police or the Catholic Church and/or Broken Rites that they were sexually assaulted by Brother Bede Donnellan (real name John Joseph Donnellan). Separate complaints came from four locations -- Chelthenham, Greensborough and Lilydale (all in Melbourne) and the Granada Hostel in Ashgrove (Brisbane). Bede Donnellan died in 1995. See more about the St John of God order here.
Br. C. Beedon, Melbourne
Broken Rites is researching Christian Brother C. Beedon, who taught in the late 1960s and early 1970s at St Mary's boys' parish primary school (next-door to Christian Brothers College) in East St Kilda, Melbourne.
Br Luke Beltram, De La Salle
Two families (one in Victoria and one in New South Wales) have complained about Brother Luke Beltram, a religious teacher in the Catholic order of De La Salle Brothers. Luke Francis Beltram was born about 1947. His teaching appointments included De La Salle schools at Dandenong VIC, Dubbo NSW, Malvern VIC, East Bentleigh VIC and (finally) Castle Hill NSW. He died on 10 March 2000, aged 53. See our story here.
Br Benildus, De La Salle order
The Catholic order of De La Salle Brothers has accepted and settled complaints by former students (now elderly) who were sexually abused by "Brother Benildus" at De La Salle's Oakhill College in Castle Hill (north-west of Sydney) in the 1950s. This senior Brother was born as Laurence de Moulin but adopted the religious name "Brother Benildus Joseph" in emulation of a 19th century "Saint Benildus". At Oakhill (a boarding school), he taught primary-school boys at Year Six level or thereabouts, and he supervised the boarders, including in their dormitory. Benildus later worked at St Bernard's Junior College, "Clairvaux" (which was then a boarding school in Katoomba NSW), where (according to former pupils) he was again sexually intrusive.
Br "Bertinus"
In 2010, Australian Marist Brothers held a ceremony to "praise and congratulate" six long-serving Brothers — including a one who was formerly known as Brother "Bertinus". A few months earlier, the Marists' Australian administration had apologised to three ex-pupils for an encounter which each of them allegedly had with Brother "Bertinus" many years ago in their school days. See the Broken Rites report here.
Fr Glenn Boyd, Wagga Wagga diocese
In 2004, Father Glenn Boyd left the priesthood of the Wagga Wagga Catholic diocese in southern New South Wales after issues had been raised about aspects of his youth work. See more here.
BoysTown (De La Salle Brothers, Queensland)
In 2011 the Catholic religious order of De La Salle Brothers agreed to offer an out-of-court settlement to a former pupil, who lived in the 1960s at BoysTown (a Catholic institution for disadvantaged boys) in Beaudesert, Queensland. Similar complaints have come from others who were there in later decades. See more here.
Fr John Byrne, S.J.
The Catholic Jesuit order in Australia has acknowledged that a Jesuit priest, Fr John Byrne, engaged in "problematic behaviour" against pupils while he was teaching at Xavier College, Melbourne, in 1971. See more from Broken Rites here.
Fr Joseph Caldwell
Two women, who do not know each other, have complained in Western Australia about being molested by Father Joseph Caldwell. He was a member of the Salvatorian order of Catholic priests, which is also known as the Society of the Divine Saviour. One complainant said she was abused in 1977, aged 8, and the other said she was abused in 1984 and 1985, aged 9 and 10. Both women told Broken Rites that the abuse (and the secrecy about it) adversely affected their personal development into their adolescence and adulthood. Born in Ireland, Caldwell had worked as a priest in many countries before coming to Australia. His parishes in Western Australia in the 1970s and '80s included Greenmount, Dampier, Wickham and Midland. In 1980-81 he served in Western Australia's Bunbury diocese. West Australian police have ascertained that Caldwell left Australia in the late 1980s and later died in Ireland.
Br Brendan Carroll
In 2005 and 2006, after action by Broken Rites, the Australian head of the De La Salle Brothers apologized to two women for sexual abuse by Brother Brendan George Carroll when they were young girls. See our story here.
Fr Tom Carroll, Melbourne
Broken Rites is researching Father Thomas Carroll, of the Melbourne archdiocese, after complaints by former altar boys who were at Caulfield South (Holy Cross parish) in the 1960s. Carroll's earlier parishes included Mansfield and Epping, etc. He died in 1975.
Fr Dermot Casey, Brisbane
Broken Rites is researching Father Dermot Casey, who has ministered in the Brisbane archdiocese. His parishes included Cannon Hill, Beenleigh and Salisbury. See more from Broken Rites here.
Chevalier College, Bowral, NSW
Some ex-pupils of Chevalier College (a Catholic high school near Bowral in southern New South Wales) are still recalling allegations that a Catholic priest behaved indecently towards young boys at the school in the late 1980s. This school is owned by a religious order, the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart. See more here.
Br Cleophas
Broken Rites is researching Marist Brother Cleophas Simmons (born on 26 March 1926), whose real name was John Edward Simmons (known to his family as Eddie). He became a trainee Brother at age 16 and spent his whole working life as a Marist Brother: at North Fitzroy, Bulleen, Templestowe and Sale in Victoria; Mount Gambier in South Australia; and Forbes, Leeton and Griffith in New South Wales.
Br A.D. Collopy
Former students of the Christian Brothers in two states — at St Bernard's College (Essendon) in Melbourne and Trinity College in Perth — have complained about being indecently touched by Brother Anselm Dunstan Collopy, who served for a time on the Provincial Council (that is, the leadership team) of the Christian Brothers in Western Australia and South Australia.
Br Colmcille, Trappist monk, Melbourne
Born in Ireland as Thomas Clifford, he adopted the Gaelic "religious" name Colmcille (pronounced Kollum-Kill) in honour of an ancient Irish missionary, Saint Columba (in Gaelic, also spelt as Colum Cille). Until 1974, Colmcille lived at Tarrawarra Abbey in Yarra Glen, east of Melbourne. This is the Australian address of the Cistercian Monks — also known as the Order of Cistercians of the Strict Observance (O.C.S.O.) or the order of Trappist monks. Two women, who do not know each other, have complained (separately) that they were digitally raped, at the age of nine, by Brother Colmcille when their families (and others) used to visit this monastery about 1969-1970. Brother Colmcille later returned to Ireland, leaving damaged victims in Australia. The Cistercian order has apologised for harm done by Colmcille.
Fr Ernie Conlan, MSC order
A Tasmanian family has recently learned that three of its daughters were sexually abused by Father Ernest Conlan, a member of the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart (MSC), when they were young girls between 1958 and 1963. Conlan was then the parish priest at Kings Meadows, near Launceston. As Conlan was a "friend" of the family, the young girls felt that they could not tell their parents about the abuse at the time, but they have disclosed the abuse in recent years, five decades after the events. In 1965, Conlan went to Adelaide (at the Sacred Heart parish, Hindmarsh). In the 1970s and 1980s, he was a chaplain at St Vincent's Boys' Home, Westmead, in western Sydney.
Monsignor Joseph Conway
The Port Pirie Catholic diocese, which includes the northern parts of South Australia, has acknowledged that Monsignor Arthur Joseph Conway sexually abused boys. Conway, who was evidently called by his middle name (Joseph), died in 1975 but victims are still feeling the hurt. Conway was given an elaborate grave and victims protested about this. Monsignor A.J. Conway's later years were spent around Quorn, Orroroo and Carrieton (all east of Port Augusta).
Ronald Conway, Catholic psychologist
This Melbourne therapist was highly regarded by Catholic Church leaders and he received many of his clients through Catholic hospitals and other Catholic agencies. He allegedly touched some of his young male clients sexually. These clients have grounds for demanding, at least, an apology from the church authorities. Ron Conway also acted for the church authorities in "screening" men who wished to become trainee priests in Victoria. See more from Broken Rites here.
Fr Peter Creede, CM
Broken Rites Australia is investigating Father Peter Philip Creede, of the Catholic Vincentian order (the "Congregation of the Mission"). Born in Ireland (with seven siblings who became nuns or priests), he was ordained in Sydney. He worked at St Stanislaus College, Bathurst (New South Wales), followed by parishes in Southport and Wandal (Queensland), Ashfield (NSW) and Malvern (Victoria).
Fr Pat Cusack, Canberra
After action by Broken Rites, the Canberra-Goulburn archdiocese admitted that Father Patrick Cusack sexually assaulted primary school girls in St Matthew's parish in Page, a Canberra suburb, in the 1970s. See our story here.
Fr Denis Daly
This Irish-born priest belonged to the Sydney archdiocese, but after he got into trouble with Sydney police, the church transferred him to Western Australia and then allowed him to roam the world, thereby putting more children at risk. One boy victim in Ireland died by suicide. See our story here.
Fr Bernard Day
Father Bernard Maxwell Day, of the Melbourne Catholic archdiocese, lived in 1961-63 in a flat at St Catherine's girls' orphanage (conducted by the Sisters of Mercy) in Geelong, where he acted as the "chaplain", giving the girls "sex education". Some of these women are still trying to repair their damaged lives. See our story here.
Br Wilfred De Cruz
The Catholic religious order of De La Salle Brothers has made amends with two former pupils of a De La Salle secondary school at Scarborough, Queensland (now called Southern Cross Catholic College). The ex-pupils have complained about being indecently assaulted by Brother Wilfred D'Cruz. See our story here.
Fr Mark Devoy
A number of women, now in mature age, have provided evidence that Fr Mark Devoy SM (from the Society of Mary religious order) committed sexual assaults on them when they were young school girls in the 1950s and 1960s. These victims lived in different parts of Australia; they did not know each other; and the attacks happened in various parishes. Devoy was protected by the Society of Mary while he worked in their parishes in Sydney, Brisbane and Perth (and also, previously, in New Zealand). One woman says some of the assaults occurred during Confession.
Br Richard Doheny, Sydney
Broken Rites Australia is investigating this member of the Catholic order of Patrician Brothers in New South Wales. He was born (real name John Doheny) on 3 September 1935 in Ireland (at Balingarry, Thurles, County Tipperary), the third youngest of twelve children. He became a Patrician Brother in Ireland (becoming "Brother Richard") and arrived in Australia in 1956, aged 21. He lived and worked (at primary and junior secondary levels) in Patrician Brothers schools in western Sydney (at Fairfield, Blacktown and Granville) until 2009.
Fr Patrick Doherty, Armidale Diocese, NSW
The Catholic Church's professional standards office in New South Wales has received a complaint from an elderly man who says he is still upset about having been sexually abused by Father P.G. Doherty when the complainant was a schoolboy in the Armidale diocese (in north-western NSW) in 1944-49. The boy was attending a Catholic parish primary school (aged seven to twelve) in Bundeera (between Armidale and Inverell). This school is closed now and the Bundeera parish (St Mary of the Angels) is administered now from Uralla. In 2008, when this complaint was being considered by the Armidale diocese, the diocese was acting evasively, which is a frequent response from church authorities. Father Patrick Doherty's other parishes included Walcha, Bingara, and Warialda. This priest died in the 1950s and is said to be buried in the Armidale cemetery. It is common for a church victim to be still upset by childhood abuse many decades many years after the original cover-up, as shown by a similar case here.
Fr Frank Donovan, Redemptorist priest
The Catholic Church's Professional Standards Office in New South Wales has "accepted the veracity" of two complaints about Father Francis Donovan, a priest of the Redemptorist Fathers (also called the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer). Two women, acting separately, had complained that Donovan molested them when they were young girls in the late 1970s in buildings attached to the Sacred Heart parish church in Campbell's Hill, Maitland. See our story here.
Fr Rex Donohoe
In 2007, after action by Broken Rites, Archbishop Adrian Doyle of Hobart gave a written apology to a former altar boy of Fr Rex Donohoe. The archdiocese accepted a complaint that Donohue abused this victim in the Kingston parish in Tasmania in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Donohue specialised in the "training" of altar boys and this victim says that he was not the only altar boy who was abused by Donohoe. Donohoe established the Australian "Guild of St Stephen", an organisation for altar boys. Donohue was later at Tasmania's Lenah Valley parish and was also the Hobart diocesan master of ceremonies.
Fr Bob Drake
Broken Rites is researching Father Robert Drake, of the Sandhurst diocese in northern Victoria. In the 1970s his parishes included Wangaratta and Wodonga in Victoria's north-east. After that, he worked outside the diocese — at a seminary in Papua New Guinea in the 1980s and at the Banyo seminary in Brisbane, Queensland, in the 1990s. Back in Victoria again, he was at the Chiltern parish in 1998 and at St Joseph's parish, Quarry Hill (in Bendigo) from 1999 to 2006.
Br K.E. Duckworth, Melbourne
Broken Rites is researching Christian Brother Keith Evin Duckworth, who touched boys inappropriately at the Parade College junior campus (for years 7 and 8) in Alphington, Melbourne, in the 1970s.
Fr Aidan Duggan
A Sydney man ("John") contacted Broken Rites and also lodged a formal complaint with the Catholic Church's "Towards Healing" office in 2002. He was a 14-year-old altar boy in the Bass Hill parish (near Bankstown) in Sydney in 1975, when he became a victim of Fr Aidan Duggan. Duggan, a priest of the Benedictine order, had previously been in Scotland. He was recruited by the Sydney archdiocese to work in Sydney parishes. John said Duggan sexually abused him (including oral and anal incidents) frequently throughout his adolescence. The abuse convinced John that he (John) was naturally homosexual and it was many years before he realized that he was really heterosexual. This confusion, he said, disrupted his adolescent development and adversely affected his two marriages. This led to a psychological crisis and the loss of his high-profile job. In 2002, through Towards Healing, the archdiocese offered John an out-of-court settlement of $30,000. John decided, instead, to sue the archdiocese in the New South Wales Supreme Court for a much larger sum for damages to cover his loss of his considerable professional earnings. In 2006 the Supreme Court granted permission for John's case to proceed in court, but the archdiocese successfully appealed to the NSW Court Appeal. In May 2007 the Appeal Court stopped John's legal action and ordered him to pay the church's legal costs. The church paid massive fees to its lawyers to win this legal victory over John but the church regarded these fees as money well spent, expecting that this precedent would help to demoralise other church-abuse victims. According to Broken Rites research, Fr Aidan Duggan's later parishes in Sydney included Gymea, Camperdown and Drummoyne before he retired in 1995. He died in 2004. John believes that he was not Duggan's only victim.
Archbishop James Duhig
Three women, who do not know each other, have complained to Broken Rites that they were sexually abused in Queensland by Archbishop James Duhig when they were young. For example, one woman said she was assaulted by Duhig when she was living in the Brisbane Cathedral parish in 1941 aged six. James Duhig was Catholic Archbishop of Brisbane for 50 years until 1965.
Br Wayne Duncan
After action by Broken Rites, the Marist Brothers in New South Wales have apologised to a victim of Brother Wayne Duncan. The victim, then aged 12, was a border at St Joseph's College, Hunters Hill, in Sydney. Duncan (born in 1956) taught there from 1982 to 1989. Duncan targeted this boy while knowing that the boy was estranged from difficult parents. Duncan's abuse seriously disrupted the victim's later life. Duncan taught previously at Marist Brothers in Parramatta and later at Ashgrove (Brisbane), Canberra and Lidcombe (Sydney).
Br Wilfred Eastmure
Christian Brother Wilfred Eastmure worked at St Augustine's orphanage and St Vincent's orphanage in Victoria. See our story here.
Br M.J. Esler
Broken Rites is researching Brother Maurice Esler, from the Victoria-Tasmania province of the Christian Brothers.
Brother Eunan or "Union"
The Catholic order of De La Salle Brothers has settled with some victims of Brother John McHugh, whose religious name was "Brother Eunan", which some of his ex-pupils pronounce as yoon-yon as in "trade union". (There was once a Saint Eunan in Ireland.) Born in Ireland, Eunan McHugh was one of a significant number of Irish-born religious personnel who surfaced in Australia. In the early 1950s, Eunan McHugh taught and supervised boys at two schools in Katoomba, west of Sydney: "Clairvaux"" (the junior school of St Bernard's College, Katoomba); and St Canice's parish primary school, Katoomba. At Clairvaux, a boarding school, Brother "Union" was in charge of a dormitory and he himself slept next to the dormitory. Later in the 1950s, he taught at De La Salle College in Cronulla, in Sydney's south (and this school, too, had boarders).
Br P.T. Farrell, St Virgil's College, Hobart
In 2006, the Christian Brothers made a civil settlement with a former student of St Virgil's College in Hobart, Tasmania. This ex-student had told Broken Rites in 1993 that, when he was a boarder at St Virgil's (aged seven to eight) in the mid-1950s, he was sexually assaulted by Brother Patrick Timothy Farrell. This Brother, who was nicknamed "Jacky" Farrell at St Virgil's, was in charge of the junior dormitory for several years until mid-1957. After that, he worked in various Christian Brothers institutions in Sydney.
Marist Brother Stephen Farrell
The Marist Brothers head office in Sydney has settled complaints about child-abuse involving Marist Brother Stephen Farrell who died in 2004, aged 81. He taught for many years in New South Wales and Queensland. See more here.
"Father F", New South Wales
The church authorities covered up for "Father F" in the Armidale diocese (in northern New South Wales) from the early 1980s onwards after receiving complaints about him abusing children, and in 1989 the church authorised him to transfer to parishes in the Parramatta diocese (near Sydney), giving him access to more children. According to a church document, Father F has admitted that he committed sexual acts upon children. The church has paid compensation to two of these complainants for their damaged lives but the victims' families are still feeling the hurt. The cover-up continued for 30 years until it was exposed by the media in 2012. Read more here.
Br Fintan, De La Salle schools
Brother Fintan Dwyer worked in De La Salle schools around Australia. Various ex-pupils have complained that Brother Fintan touched them sexually. His birth name was Louis Victor Dwyer. "Brother Fintan" was his "religious" name. Brother Fintan (not to be confused with a colleague, Brother Finian Allman) toured De La Salle schools, recruiting boys as future Brothers. He died in 1990. See our story here.
Fr Gerry Fitzgerald, Melbourne
Broken Rites Australia is researching Father Gerard Fitzgerald, who spent 51 years as a priest in the Melbourne Archdiocese before retiring in 2006. In one of his early parishes (Coburg in 1964), there was a police investigation into sexual offences against children. See more here.
Fr Dominic Fitzmaurice
After action by Broken Rites, the Australian head of the Dominican Fathers apologised to a woman for sexual assaults committed by Father Dominic Fitzmaurice in Our Lady of Graces parish at Carina in Brisbane in 1972, when she was aged 12. See our story here.
Fr Bill Fleming, Boys Town, NSW, 1979
During the trial of Father Paul Raymond Evans in Sydney District Court in July 2008, one of Evans's victims (from Boys Town school near Sydney) told the court that, after he was molested by Evans in 1979, the assault was reported to the school administration. The boy said he was later told by the school's head, Father William Fleming (a member of the Salesian order) to forget about the incident because "men have urges". The court heard that Father Fleming allegedly assaulted another boy, who had also made allegations against Evans. Fleming was the rector of Boys Town during the 1970s.
Fr Leo Flynn
The Melbourne archdiocese has apologized to a woman for sexual abuse committed by Fr Leo Flynn, a priest of the Jesuit order. At the time of the abuse, Flynn was working in a parish which the Jesuit Fathers were staffing on behalf of the Melbourne archdiocese. At first, the woman complained to the Jesuit order (the Society of Jesus) but the Jesuit administration ignored her. Broken Rites then helped the woman to present her case to the Melbourne archdiocese. The archdiocese accepted the woman's account and apologised (this was reported in the Melbourne "Herald Sun" on 8 May 2000).
Br Greg Fogarty
Broken Rites is researching Christian Brother Leo Gregory Fogarty (known as Brother GREG Fogarty) who worked at St Augustine's boys' orphanage (in Geelong, Victoria) from 1978 to 1985 inclusive; he became the superintendent there in 1979. See some background about St Augustine's orphanage here.
Fr Julian Fox
In 2000, a Catholic order of priests in Australia (the Salesians of Don Bosco) made a settlement with a Melbourne man (Luke, born in 1964). According to the settlement deed (of which Broken Rites has a copy), Luke alleged that "over a period of time between 1978 and 1979, whilst a student at Salesian College, Rupertswood, Sunbury [Melbourne], he was unlawfully sexually and/or physically assaulted by Fr Fox". In 2006, six years after the settlement, Luke died, aged 42. Father Fox now has a position at the Salesian headquarters in Rome. See our story here.
Fr Laurie Gallagher, Marist Fathers
Broken Rites is researching Father Lawrence Gallagher, S.M. (a member of a religious order, the Society of Mary), who taught at Marist College in Burnie, Tasmania, in the 1970s and early 1980s. In the late 1980s he was at St John's College, Woodlawn, in Lismore New South Wales. He was also a relieving minister in parishes around Australia. For example, in 1991, he was the Parish Priest in charge of St Thomas More's parish at Margaret River (in the Bunbury diocese) in Western Australia. It is believed that he formerly served as a missionary in Japan. This Laurie Gallagher is not to be confused with a former diocesan priest of the same name in Victoria.
Fr Kevin Glover, Western Australia
Broken Rites is researching Father William Kevin Glover (known as Kevin Glover) who worked in the Bunbury diocese in Western Australia from 1959 to 1979 (including parishes at Esperance in the 1970s and Margaret River in the 1980s). In the 1990s, he worked at a Catholic Mission on the Pacific Island of Niue, situated to the north of New Zealand.
Fr Gerald Goss
Women in several parts of Australia have complained to Broken Rites that they were indecently assaulted by this priest, who was a member of the itinerant Redemptorist order, visiting countless parishes throughout Australia. His victims included housekeepers in parish presbyteries, as well as women parishioners.
Br Julian Hackett
Christian Brother Vincent Julian Hackett was the superintendent of St Augustine's orphanage, Geelong, Victoria. See more from Broken Rites here.
Br "Anselm" Hallam
This member of the De La Salle Brothers was born as Tom Hallam and adopted the "religious" name Anselm (sometimes also spelt Anselem), which was the name of a medieval "saint". "Brother Anselm" Hallam taught in the late 1960s at St Joseph's parish primary school, Malvern, in Melbourne, and also taught middle-school students at the neighbouring De La Salle College. According to numerous victims, he was a notorious molester. He invasively mauled the genitals of his pupils. He gave "sex lessons" (really just "dirty talk"), while masturbating under his clerical frock. A female teacher, who knew what Anselm Hallam was doing, complained to the school's head Brothers but they were not interested. Anselm Hallam died in the early 1990s, aged 92. One of his victims, who became a successful professional, has contributed an interview to the oral history collection at the National Library of Australia about his own professional career, and he included an account of his experiences at the hands of Brother Anselm Hallam.
Fr John Harcombe
Broken Rites is researching Father John J. Harcombe, who was ordained, about 1972, from St Paul's Seminary for Late Vocations, in Kensington, Sydney. He ministered in the Sydney archdiocese (and also in the Broken Bay diocese, north of Sydney) at parishes in Lewisham, Gosford, Auburn South, Lakemba, Epping, Asquith and Kincumber.
Fr Guy Hartcher
In March 1994, the Catholic order of Vincentian Fathers (officially called the Congregation of the Mission) signed a civil settlement with a former student of St Stanislaus College in Bathurst, New South Wales. This student was at the school in 1971, when he was aged 14. In the settlement Deed of Release, the Trustees of the Vincentian Fathers state that this agreement is "in full and final settlement" of all or any rights and actions that the ex-student may have "against the Trustees, Father Guy Hartcher or any servant or agent of the Trustees." See our story here.
Br Bernard Hartman
A member of the Marianist religious order, Brother Bernard Hartman (born about 1939), has written an apology to an Australian woman (born 1964) who alleged that he sexually abused her when she was a child in Melbourne in the 1970s. In 1985 Hartman moved to the USA, where the Marianists have allowed him to remain in this religious order.
Br Bernard Hayes
A man, "Roger", contacted Broken Rites in 2004, stating that he had been sexually abused by Brother Bernard Robert Hayes at the Christian Brothers College preparatory school in Alphington, Melbourne, in 1969. Roger described how the abuse had damaged his psychological development and wrecked his marriage. Broken Rites advised Roger about how to deal with the Catholic Church professional standards office ("Towards Healing"). After much evasiveness, the Christian Brothers' Melbourne headquarters accepted a report by a church psychologist and gave Roger a letter of apology and eventually (in 2006) signed a civil settlement with Roger. Brother Hayes's previous schools were: St Monica's Boys' School, Moonee Ponds VIC, 1942-44; St Kevin's College, Toorak VIC, 1944-55; Rostrevor College, Adelaide, 1955-60; and St Joseph's College, Pascoe Vale VIC, 1960-66. When Roger was abused at Alphington in 1969, Brother Hayes was aged 47. The Alphington campus, which comprised Grades 7 and 8, was a preparatory school for Parade College, Bundoora, Melbourne.
Br P.R. Heslin, Melbourne
The Christian Brothers have acknowledged sexual offences that were committed against boys by Brother Robert Heslin in Melbourne. Heslin's various schools included: Our Lady of Mount Carmel College, Middle Park; St Joseph's, Pascoe Vale; and St Bernard's College, Essendon.
Br "Callixtus" Hogan
Broken Rites has helped three former schoolchildren (two males and one female) to extract a settlement from the Marist Brothers regarding incidents that allegedly occurred in New South Wales in the 1960s while Brother Kevin "Calixtus" Hogan was the principal of St Francis de Sales College (in Leeton) and Red Bend Catholic College (in Forbes). See more here.
Marist Br. "Crispin" Hopson
Broken Rites is investigating Marist Brother Kevin Nicholas Hopson (religious name Brother "Crispin", called after Saint Crispin). Born on 6 February 1933, he worked at Marist Brothers schools in Sydney (Mosman, Daceyville, Lidcombe, Hunters Hill and Kogarah), as well as at Marist College, Canberra.
Marist Brother Edward Hosey at Coogee NSW
The Marist Brothers in New South Wales have made a small civil settlement with a former pupil ("Max"), who was at Marcellin Junior College (a primary school for boys in years 5 and 6) in 1973. This campus, which was then at 160 Coogee Bay Road, Coogee (Sydney), was a feeder school for the secondary-level Marcellin College at Randwick. Max made a formal, signed statement to the NSW police on 24 June 2003, alleging that he was mauled sexually by Brother Edward (his mathematics teacher) almost daily during 5th Grade, when he was aged 10. Brother Edward John Hosey (born 4 February 1911) has died and therefore the police cannot charge him. Max says the corrupt circumstances of this church-abuse disrupted his education and his adolescence, leaving him with serious difficulties in adulthood. In August 2003 the Marist Brothers promptly accepted Max's complaint and arranged a civil settlement, although this does not make up for the disruption to Max's life. Other victims of Hosey have contacted Broken Rites.
Fr Cuthbert Hoy, MSC
In early 2002, a woman ("Anne") contacted Broken Rites, complaining that, when she was aged six in 1963, she was sexually assaulted on several occasions by Father Cuthbert Hoy, in the sacristy of "Our Lady of the Sacred Heart" church at Henley Beach in Adelaide. Hoy was a priest of the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart order, which conducted the Henley Beach parish, plus some other parishes around Australia. By 1966, Hoy had moved to a Hobart parish, also conducted by the MSC order. Broken Rites advised Anne about preparing a case for the Catholic Church's "Towards Healing" process. The MSC order gave Anne a written apology and, in 2003, it made a settlement with her.
Fr James Hughes
This priest (also known as Fr Jamie Hughes or Fr Jim Hughes) was born in Ireland on 15 May 1920 and was ordained in 1946. Father James Hughes ministered briefly in Hobart in 1947-49 and then in the Maitland-Newcastle diocese in New South Wales from 1949 until 1990. In 1977-81, he was a chaplain at the Mater Misericordiae Hospital, Waratah (a suburb of Newcastle, NSW). In August 2002, a woman notified the New South Wales police that she had been indecently assaulted by Hughes while she was a patient at this hospital in March 1981. After beginning an investigation, detectives found that Hughes had died in 1996 and he therefore could not be prosecuted. Backed by Broken Rites, the woman then approached the Catholic Church's "Towards Healing" office. A private investigator, hired by the church, confirmed to Towards Healing that evidence "exists to support the complaint." See our story here.
Fr Kevin Johnston, Western Australia
Born in Ireland, Father Kevin Daniel Johnston served as a priest in Western Australia's Bunbury diocese from 1959 until 1997, when he retired to Ireland. The West Australian newspaper (February 16 and 26, 2005) revealed that Johnston was facing child-sex allegations. A man (Alan) alleged that at the age of nine or 10 in the early 1970s, when he was serving as an altar boy in morning Masses at Bunbury's St Patrick's Cathedral, the cathedral parish priest Kevin Johnston indecently mauled him on several occasions in a dressing room. The priest also allegedly forced the boy to indecently touch the priest. Unable to tell his devout parents, the boy became a grumpy and rebellious teenager, ending up with a hard-drug addiction. In his thirties, trying to mend his life, Alan finally complained to the Bunbury diocese. Fr Johnston then gave Alan a written apology, dated 26 August 1997, and soon retired to Ireland. In November 2004, the Bunbury diocese offered Alan a small payout to settle the complaint but Alan rejected this amount as insufficient to help his recovery. After the February 2005 publicity about Johnston, two more men reported that they were molested by Father Johnston, one during confession and the other more than 20 times as he served as an altar boy at the Bunbury cathedral. Broken Rites research indicates that during the last stages of his career, from the mid-1970s to 1997, Johnston ministered in parishes at Boyup Brook, Manjimup, Narrogin and Leschenhault/Australind.
Monsignor Penn Jones
After action by Broken Rites, the Melbourne archdiocese apologised in 2005 to two men who were sexually abused by Monsignor Penn Harold Jones (of the Melbourne cathedral parish) while they were schoolboys in the 1960s. Jones, who was an accountant before entering the priesthood, became the Chancellor of the Melbourne archdiocese. See our story here.
Fr Charles Joyce, OFM
Broken Rites is researching Father Charles Joyce, a member of the Order of Friars Minor (Franciscans), who was working at Padua College (a secondary school conducted by the Franciscan order) in Kedron, Brisbane, in the late 1960s.
Fr Clem Kilby, Tasmania
The Hobart Archdiocese has accepted and settled a complaint from a woman who said that she was sexually assaulted by Fr Clement Kilby. This priest had enjoyed a prestigious ranking in Tasmania. In the late 1970s, he worked in St Mary's Cathedral parish in Hobart (where the priest in charge at the time was Rev. Geoffrey Hylton Jarrett, who eventually became the bishop of Lismore, New South Wales). Later, Kilby was given the rank of Episcopal Vicar for Welfare and was director of the Catholic Church's Centacare Family Services in Hobart during the 1980s and 1990s. Ironically, Kilby also participated in a church committee that dealt with professional standards, including issues of sexual abuse — an obvious conflict of interest. He died in early 2009.
Br Clim Kissane
The Victoria-Tasmania province of the Christian Brothers has signed a civil settlement with a male former pupil of Brother Clim Kissane. Brother Kissane taught at various schools including: St Joseph's College in Geelong; St Virgil's College in Hobart; St Joseph's College in Pascoe Vale (Melbourne); Warrnambool Christian Brothers College (now called Emmanuel College) in Victoria; and St Joseph's Technical College, South Melbourne.
Br P.N. Lennox, Sydney
In June 2012 the Christian Brothers organisation in Australia signed a settlement with a former pupil of Christian Brothers College, Manly (in Sydney), who attended this school as a 13-year-old boy about 1973. According to the settlement deed, this ex-pupil alleges that he was "unlawfully assaulted by Brother Peter Norman Lennox, the principal of the school" and that consequently he "has sustained loss, damage and injuries that may require specialist counselling and/or other therapy". [The former CBC Manly is now called St Paul's Catholic College, Manly.]
Marist Br. Leon Mackey
The Marist Brothers harboured "Brother Leon" (real name Noel Mackey, born on 31 July 1922) while he was sexually abusing Catholic schoolboys in Sydney and Newcastle until he suddenly left the Marist Order in 1955. He then went to Queensland and changed his surname. By 2012, the Marist Brothers had issued private apologies (plus financial settlements) to five of Brother Leon's victims.
Fr Bernard Mackin
After action by Broken Rites, the Melbourne archdiocese has apologized to a female victim of this priest. She encountered the priest in the 1970s when she was 16.
Marist Brothers Hamilton, Newcastle, NSW
In 2011 the Marist Brothers signed a settlement with a former pupil who complained about sexual abuse by Brother Leon in the junior classes at Marist Brothers Hamilton, Newcastle, NSW, in the early 1950s. Brother Leon (real name Noel Mackey, born 31 July 1922) left the Marist Order in late 1955, changed his name to Noel Desmond Dowling and worked in administration for Mount Isa Mines, Queensland, until 1983.
Br "Norbert" Mathieson
This Marist Brother (real name Joseph Eric Mathieson), who last taught at Marist schools in Parramatta and Eastwood (in Sydney), died in 1954 but, half a century later, former students still remember him as a sex-abuser. His victims were intimidated into silence but some of the victims (now elderly) have finally told their sons and daughters about this abuse. Thus, these sons and daughters are dismayed and angry that their fathers were secretly harmed in this way. See our story here.
Fr Patrick Maye
The Melbourne Catholic archdiocese promised to ban this priest after accepting sexual-abuse complaints from several women but it failed to enforce the ban on him completely. See more from Broken Rites here.
Br L.C. McAllen
Former pupils, now advancing in age, still feel the injustice of having been abused by Christian Brother L.C. McAllen at St Patrick's College, Strathfield, Sydney, in the early 1960s. See more from Broken Rites here here.
Fr Patrick McCarthy, Wollongong NSW, 1960s
Broken Rites Australia is researching Fr Patrick Thomas McCarthy, who ministered in the Wollongong diocese in New South Wales until the early 1970s. He was one of a significant number of Irish-born clergy who have surfaced, often unaccountably, in Australia. McCarthy's parishes included: Corrimal (St Columbkille's parish); Thirroul (St Michael's parish), West Wollongong (St Teresa's); and Helensburgh (Holy Cross parish).
Fr Peter McCudden, Western Australia
In 2002 the Perth archdiocese accepted (and settled) a well-documented complaint from a female victim ("Wilhelmina") who reported that she was sexually abused in 1964 at the age of 12 by Father Peter McCudden in St Cecilia's parish in Floreat Park, Perth. McCudden was at this parish throughout the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. Evidently, the Perth church authorities were not surprised to receive this complaint about McCudden. "Wilhelmina" says she is still distressed by the abuse and by the church's code of silence. Broken Rites has received similar reports about other young women who were molested by McCudden at this parish.
Fr John McCulloch, Sydney region
Broken Rites is researching Fr John McCulloch, who ministered around Sydney (e.g., Katoomba parish in the 1980s). At Toukley and Gwandalan (on the coast, north of Sydney) he conducted "family camps for families in need."
Br Thomas McGee
After action by Broken Rites, the Victorian province of the Christian Brothers has apologised to victims of Brother William Thomas McGee. Brother McGee worked at several Christian Brothers' orphanages: in Bindoon and Castledare in Western Australia; St Augustine's orphanage, Geelong, Victoria; and St Vincent's boys' home, South Melbourne. He also worked at St Vincent's hostel, South Melbourne. See our story here.
Daniel McMahon (Christian Brother, later a priest)
Broken Rites has learned that the Catholic Church has made settlements with several former pupils who encountered Brother Daniel John Virgil McMahon while he was working with the Christian Brothers in Catholic boys' schools in Western Australia (from the 1960s to the 1980s). In the early 1990s, Brother Dan McMahon was elevated to the rank of "Father" Dan McMahon and was allowed to minister as a priest in parishes in Tasmania. See more here.
Br "Laetus" Mennie
Former residents of St Vincent's Boys' Home at Westmead (in western Sydney), which was operated by the Marist Brothers, have complained about this Marist Brother (his birth name was Joseph Michael Mennie). Brother Laetus worked at this home in 1947-49 and was the director there in 1965-67.
Fr Gerard Monaghan
The Canberra-Goulburn Catholic diocese has been forced to apologise to a woman who was sexually abused by a priest (Fr Gerard Monaghan) immediately after the death of her husband. See the Broken Rites story here.
Fr Peter Moore, Wollongong NSW
Broken Rites is researching Father Peter Moore, who was the vicar-general of the Wollongong Catholic diocese in New South Wales in the 1980s and 1990s, while he was also in charge of St John Vianney's parish in Fairy Meadow. In the 1970s he had been at St Paul's parish, Albion Park.
Fr Brian Moran, Toowoomba diocese
Two women, who do not know each other, have complained that, when they were young girls in the early 1960s, they were sexually abused by Father Brian Anthony Moran, of the Toowoomba diocese, which covers an extensive region in western Queensland. Father Brian Moran, who was born about 1929, was sometimes nicknamed Mick Moran. He ministered until 1995 throughout an area bounded by Toowoomba city, Dalby, St George, Cunnamulla, Mitchell and Miles.
Fr John F. Moran, Rockkhampton & Sydney
A man ("Tom") reported to Broken Rites in 1994 that, as a 15-year-old in 1981, he was indecently assaulted by Father John Fabian Moran in the Sacred Heart parish at Yeppoon, in the Rockhampton diocese, in central Queensland. The boy's parents were away from home and they understood that Father Moran would be supervising him. The parents had been led to believe that their child would be safe under the supervision of a Catholic priest. Father Moran visited the boy and took him on outings. After beginning with playful "wrestling", Father Moran allegedly mauled the boy's genitalia on several occasions, and Tom allegedly was required to masturbate the priest. The boy felt intimidated into silence and was not able to tell his Catholic parents about the assaults until he was aged 26 (he contacted Broken Rites at age 27). According to the Crimes Act, an adult who sexually mauls a young person is committing "indecent assault of a child" and the perpetrator is not allowed to claim, as a defence, that the child consented. This crime is regarded as being particularly aggravated when it is perpetrated by a person supposedly in a position of trust, such as a priest. Later in the 1980s and early 1990s, Fr John Moran was a chaplain at Rockhampton's Emmaus College (a secondary school). About 1994-95, he was on the staff at St Paul's Seminary for Late Vocations in Sydney and was a part-time school chaplain in Sydney.
Fr Syd Morey
Father Sydney Morey, a priest in the Ballarat diocese in western Victoria, sexually abused young boys in the 1960s and '70s, including in the Horsham and Terang districts. However, the police are unable to do anything about Sid Morey now because he has died. Morey (born 9 August 1913) was originally a Marist Brother (in New South Wales) before becoming a priest. See our story here.
Br. "Organ" Morgan, Monivae College, Victoria
Leaders of a Catholic religious order — the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart — have apologised for sexual acts committed by Brother G.M. Morgan on boys at Monivae College at Hamilton in western Victoria in the 1960s. Students nicknamed this Brother as "Organ" Morgan because of his indecent assaults on boys' genitals. Broken Rites possesses a written apology , which the MSC leadership gave to one ex-student, dated 22 February 1994. Morgan was not the only such offender on the Monivae College staff.
Fr Gerald Moylan, northern Victoria
Women have complained that Father Gerald Leo Moylan (of the Sandhurst diocese in northern Victoria) harassed them verbally about "sex" when they were schoolgirls in Wodonga, Victoria, in the 1960s (or when women were interviewed by Moylan before a church wedding ceremony). In the 1970s and '80s, Moylan was in charge of the Numurkah parish and was appointed as the "spiritual director" of the Catholic Women's League in the diocese. He was promoted to the rank of monsignor.
Br Berchmans Moynahan
Brother Martin Joseph Moynahan (alias Brother Berchmans), St John of God order, died during prosecution (indecent assault at an institution in Melbourne for boys with intellectual disabilities). See our story about the St John of God Brothers here.
Fr Noel Murphy, Sydney
The Sydney archdiocese has accepted a complaint from a woman about being indecently assaulted in 1974 by Father Nolan Joseph Murphy (known as Fr "Noel" Murphy), a Sydney-born priest, who was the parish priest in charge of St Augustine's parish, Balmain, in inner-Sydney. Murphy was in that parish from the 1960s until 1988.
Murrumburrah parish, NSW
A man ("Peter"), born in 1961, made a lengthy, detailed written statement to a clinic of the New South Wales Health Department in 2002, stating that in 1968-69 he was sexually assaulted by a senior parish priest (a Monsignor) in the "Our Lady of Mercy" parish at Murrumburrah, near Cootamundra, southern New South Wales (within the Canberra-Goulburn diocese). Shortly after the period of alleged abuse, the monsignor died in a road accident. Peter says his devout parents would not let him tell them that this Catholic clergyman had assaulted him. Forced into silence, Peter became estranged from his family. His later life was seriously affected. Peter is wondering if there were other victims in this parish in the late 1960s.
Fr "Jerome" Myszkowski
A South Australian woman ("Mandy", born in 1945) says she is still feeling upset about having been sexually assaulted repeatedly by a Polish-born priest, Father Hieronim Myszkowski, when she was a young child in the St Francis Assisi parish in Newton, Adelaide, in 1950-54. This priest, who was known in Australia as Fr Jerome Myszkowski, was a member of the Capuchin Franciscan Friars (the Order of Friars Minor Capuchin). He befriended Mandy's family and, from when the girl was aged 5, he made weekly visits for meals at their home, where (Mandy says) he would secretly touch Mandy's genitalia (i.e., the crime of indecent assault). Mandy was unable to tell her parents because they believed that priests could do no wrong. Father Jerome also molested Mandy inside the church (while parishioners, including her father, were attending choir practice) and in his bedroom in the presbytery. On the church premises, the sexual assaults of Mandy became more invasive and more criminally serious. The attacks continued for four years until Mandy was aged nine, in 1954, when Myszkowski left Adelaide to become a chaplain for the Brisbane Polish community, which was based at "Our Lady of Victories" parish in Bowen Hills, Brisbane. Mandy contacted Broken Rites in October 1993. She had written to the church authorities about Myszkowski but, she said, they were evasive. Broken Rites does not know if Mandy has achieved a successful outcome since then.
Fr Martin Newbold
Women in Western Australia and Victoria have complained that they were indecently assaulted by this diocesan priest when they were young girls. Newbold began in the Perth diocese but, strangely, was transferred to Melbourne, then to the Bunbury diocese in W.A., leaving victims in various parishes.
Br Nicholas, Marist Brothers, 1948-50
A man ("Brian", born in 1938) complained to the Catholic Church "Towards Healing" process in 2003 that he was sexually abused by a Brother "Nicholas" at a Marist Brothers school in Rosewater, South Australia, about 1948 when he was aged 10. Brian said he was forced to remain silent about the abuse at the time but he now realises that this code of silence was unfair, putting more children at risk. The Marist Brothers administration in Melbourne acknowledged to Brian that Brother Nicholas (real name Kevin Stanton, born 6 September 1922) taught at the Rosewater school in 1948, and he transferred to a Marist Brothers school in Thebarton (Adelaide) in 1949. In 2005, the Marist administration in Melbourne apologised to Brian for his unhappy experiences at the Rosewater school, and it made a relatively modest "ex gratia" payment to Brian to settle his complaint. Brian was not Nicholas's only victim — in 1994 Broken Rites received a complaint from another man ("Daryl", born 1942), saying that he was sexually abused by Brother Nicholas at the Marists' Thebarton school, before Nicholas left there in 1950. The Marists say that Brother Nicholas left the Marist order in the early 1950s and has since died.
Br Peter E. Noonan, Victoria
The Christian Brothers Order has acknowledged that Brother Peter Eymard Noonan (born about 1949) used to sexually abuse young schoolboys who were in his custody. Despite this, it allowed Noonan to remain a Brother until he died in 2004, aged 55. This Noonan (not to be confused with other Noonans in the Order) was offending from the very start of his teaching career — at St Mary's boys' school, St Kilda (in inner-Melbourne) in the late 1960s. He later taught at St Kevin's College (Toorak). In 1985 he went to CBC St Kilda, where he became the headmaster in 1987.
Fr John O'Callaghan, Adelaide
After action by Broken Rites, the Adelaide Catholic diocese has made civil settlements with former altar boys of this priest. The incidents occurred in 1969-71 at St Monica's parish, Walkerville, where O'Callaghan ministered from the mid-1960s till about 1981. Previously, O'Callaghan had been at Adelaide's Salisbury parish.
Fr John O'Callaghan, Melbourne
Several people have complained about being abused (when they were youngsters) by Father John Ignatius O'Callaghan, of the Melbourne archdiocese. See more here. O'Callaghan was once a chaplain for the girls' section of the Young Christian Workers (YCW) movement. He later worked in Melbourne suburban parishes and was a military chaplain. Father O'Callaghan observed the church's rule of priestly "celibacy" (that is, he did not get married to anybody); instead, in the 1980s, he had a private relationship with a woman, who gave birth to Father O'Callaghan's two children.
Fr Bill O'Connor, Parramatta diocese, NSW
A woman ("Kerry"), born in the 1940s, has complained that she was sexually assaulted, aged 13, by Father William G. O'Connor (then an assistant priest in the Sydney archdiocese) in the presbytery at Springwood (St Thomas Aquinas parish) in the Blue Mountains in the late 1950s. The Catholic culture prevented the girl from telling her mother about having been sexually abused by a Catholic priest. All this disrupted the girl's development, and Kerry is still suffering the damage today. Subsequently, O'Connor was the Parish Priest in charge of the Seven Hills parish (Our Lady of Lourdes) for thirty years to 1989. Springwood and Seven Hills were originally in the Sydney diocese but by 1989 they became a part of the new Parramatta diocese. William O'Connor rose in the church ranks in the 1970s and was given the title "Very Reverend". Kerry went through the church's Towards Healing process. At first the church officials behaved evasively but eventually they signed a settlement with her.
Fr Thomas O'Keeffe
After action by Broken Rites, the Melbourne archdiocese has apologized to former altar boys of Fr Thomas O'Keeffe (sometimes spelt as O'Keefe). He ministered at parishes in Sandringham (early 1960s), Preston East, St Kilda West and Brighton (late 1960s), Doveton and Thornbury (1970s). See the Broken Rites story here.
Br J. A. O'Neill
The Catholic Church's "Towards Healing" office has accepted some complaints about Christian Brother John Anselm O'Neill, who taught at Catholic schools including: St Gabriel's school for the deaf, Castle Hill, NSW, in the 1950s; St Joseph's primary school, Rozelle, Sydney, in the 1960s; and St Patrick's primary school, Launceston, Tasmania, in the 1970s and 1980s.
Br Theodore O'Shannessy
The De La Salle Brothers have apologised to (and signed a settlement with) a victim of Brother Theodore O'Shannessy. This Brother, who was born about 1940 (real name Patrick O'Shannessy ), taught in De La Salle schools at Haberfield, Bankstown, Dubbo and Cootamundra (all in New South Wales) and Scarborough (in Queensland).
Padua College, Kedron, Brisbane
A former pupil of Padua College (a Catholic boys' school at Kedron, Brisbane) has complained that he was sexually abused in the 1960s by a priest from the Franciscan order (the Order of Friars Minor — OFM).
Brother Paschal, a Franciscan
This Brother was in charge of the altar boys at the Mary Immaculate Catholic parish in Waverley, Sydney, in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The parish, conducted by the Franciscans (the Order of Friars Minor), had a large number of altar boys, some of whom were pupils at the Christian Brothers' Waverley College. In 2002 a former altar boy, "Pierre" (not his real name), notified the Catholic Church's professional standards office ("Towards Healing") in New South Wales that Brother Paschal used to touch Pierre's genitals when he was aged from 8 to 13; and Brother Paschal used to make Pierre touch Brother Paschal's genitals. Pierre said that he finally revealed the molestation to his parents when he was 22. Pierre said that three other young male relatives of his were also molested by Brother Pascal. Pierre said he was concerned that this child-abuse had occurred and that it had been hidden from parents and the public. The Franciscans' Australian headquarters agreed to hold a mediation meeting with Pierre (who was then in his forties) to address his concerns. Brother Paschal's real name was Ernest Joseph Bartlett. Paschal was his religious name (there was a "Saint Paschal" in the Franciscans in Spain in the 16th century). Paschal Bartlett died in Sydney on 27 April 1994.
Br Mark Payne, a Marist
Former pupils have complained about sexually abusive behaviour by Marist Brother Mark Donald Payne (born 5 December 1957) who taught at St Augustine's College in Cairns, Queensland, about 1985.
Fr Leo Perry
Broken Rites is researching this priest in Australia and New Zealand. Originally, from 1948 to 1956, he was a member of the Jesuit religious order in New Zealand, where he taught young boys at high-school level in the Holy Name minor seminary (staffed by Australian Jesuits) at Riccarton, Christchurch. At this seminary, he invasively mauled the genitals of boys in their dormitory, in his private room and during car trips. In 1957 the church authorities covered up this problem by transferring Perry to the Townsville diocese in north Queensland, where he ministered (as a diocesan priest, not a Jesuit) in unsuspecting parishes: Mundingburra parish in the late 1950s; Ayr parish about 1960-61; and Townsville cathedral parish until 1967.
Fr Dominic Phillips, Vincentian priest
Some Australian adult women are still complaining about having been abused (when they were children) by Father Dominic Phillips, of the Vincentian Fathers order. See more from Broken Rites here.
Br J.M. Podger, Sydney, 1953
Broken Rites is researching Brother Ronald John Podger (this surname rhymes with "Roger" or "lodger") who taught at Christian Brothers Lewisham in 1952-53, using the religious name "John Maximus" Podger (called after an ancient "Saint" Maximus). Podger later left this religious order. A pupil ("Basil", who was aged eleven in 1953) is still deeply concerned about Br Podger half a century later. The Christian Brothers have accepted (and settled) a complaint from Basil.
Fr Peter Quirk, Maitland-Newcastle diocese
Broken Rites is researching this priest (born 1 April 1957), who ministered from 1986 to 1991 at: Maitland cathedral; Toronto parish; and Taree parish. He targeted teenage boys. He died on 27 September 1991, aged 34. This Father Peter Quirk is not to be confused with any other priest of the same name in another diocese.
Fr Graham Redfern
The Melbourne Catholic archdiocese's Independent Commission into Sexual Abuse found in November, 1997, that Father Graham Redfern had sexually abused a youth in 1976, after conducting the funeral of the youth's mother. The then archbishop of Melbourne, George Pell, formally apologised in a letter to the complainant in May, 1998, for the "wrongs and hurt you have suffered at the hands of Father Redfern". The archdiocese then signed a civil settlement with the complainant. See more here.
Br Neil Richards, New South Wales
After action by Broken Rites, the New South Wales province of the Christian Brothers has made a settlement with a former student, who had lodged a complaint about a Brother Richards. The settlement deed identified the Brother as "Desmond Eric Richards", but he was known in the Christian Brothers as Br Neil Richards. He taught in Catholic primary schools in Sydney and country New South Wales until he retired.
Br Bernie Ring
Broken Rites is researching Christian Brother Bernard Ring (born 22 May 1934). As a child, he lived at St Vincent's boys' home in South Melbourne (until 1951) and then, like some other orphanage boys, he became a Christian Brother. Brother B.A. Ring worked in schools at Geelong, Ballarat (St Patrick's College), East Melbourne and Fiji, and at St Vincent's boys' home, South Melbourne.
Fr Robert Rippin
Broken Rites is researching Father Robert Frederick Rippin, a priest in the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart order, who taught at MSC secondary schools around Australia: Chevalier College (Bowral, NSW), Downlands College (Toowoomba, Queensland) and Monivae College (Hamilton, Victoria).
Fr A. Kevin Ryan, Melbourne
In 2003, following action by Broken Rites, the Melbourne archdiocese's commissioner on sexual abuse (Mr Peter O'Callaghan, QC) accepted a complaint by "James" (born in 1954) that Father Arthur Kevin Ryan (known as Fr Kevin Ryan) sexually abused him as an 11-year-old pupil at St Matthew's parish school, Fawkner North, about 1965. Ryan's other Melbourne parishes included Yarraville, Thornbury and Glenhuntly. Mr O'Callaghan ruled that "James" was also sexually abused by a prominent Catholic layman, Robert Charles Blunden (known as Bert Blunden), who lived at Fr Ryan's Fawkner North presbytery.
Br Innocent Schofield
The Australian Christian Brothers have accepted a complaint from a man, now elderly, that he was sexually abused by Brother Aloysius Innocent Schofield at St Augustine's boys' orphanage in Geelong, Victoria, in the late 1940s. Schofield adopted the "religious" name Aloysius Innocent when he joined the order (there have been "saints" with those names). Brother A.I. Schofield rose to become the principal of Christian Brothers schools in Queensland: Christian Brothers College in Warwick (1952-57); St Mary's College in Toowoomba (1964-69); and St Edmund's College in Ipswich (1972-77).
Fr Peter Searson
In 1997 the Melbourne Catholic archdiocese finally removed Father Peter Lloyd Searson from parish work, following years of complaints about him touching and sexually harassing boys, girls and women. See more from Broken Rites here.
Fr Bill Shanahan, Victoria, 1960s
Broken Rites is researching Fr William Shanahan regarding one of his earliest parishes — St Joseph's parish, Warragul (100km east of Melbourne), in the 1960s, when this priest was aged in his thirties.
Fr Manny Spiteri, Sale diocese, Victoria
The Catholic Church has settled a sex-abuse complaint involving a Maltese-born priest, Father Emanuel Joseph Spiteri, who spent 35 years ministering in the Sale diocese in the state of Victoria. See more from Broken Rites here.
Fr Patrick Stephenson, Jesuit
Broken Rites is researching this priest, who worked at Xavier College, a Jesuit school for boys in Melbourne, in the 1970s and 1980s.
Fr John Stockdale, Victoria
Father John Peregrine Stockdale used to molest young boys in his parishes in the Sandhurst diocese in northern Victoria. On 31 December 1995, Stockdale died while celebrating New Year's Eve in a sex-cubicle at a males-only club in Melbourne. See the Broken Rites story here.
Br Loyola Sullivan, Sydney
Broken Rtes is researching Marist Brother "Loyola" Sullivan, who worked at St Vincent's Boys Home in Westmead, Sydney, in 1943-1948. He is still remembered by former residents of this institution. This Brother Loyola also taught at Marcellin College, Randwick.
Fr Terence L. Sullivan, Sydney, 1960s
This Father Terry Sullivan (not to be confused with other priests with a similar name) had numerous victims among boys in their early teens. Many have complained to Broken Rites and to the Catholic Church's Professional Standards Office in New South Wales. The church has made civil settlements with a number of these victims who demonstrated that Sullivan (and the church's harbouring of him) had disrupted their adolescent and adult development. Fr Terence Sullivan's parishes included: Kingsgrove (Our Lady of Fatima parish) in the early 1960s; Penrith (St Nicholas's parish) and Asquith (St Patrick's parish) in the mid-1960s and Gosford (St Patrick's) in 1967. Sullivan targeted boys at Catholic schools, including De La Salle College at Kingsgrove, St Leo's College at Wahroonga (this was then was a Christian Brothers boys' school) and St Edward's Christian Brothers school at Gosford. He left the ministry "on leave" about 1968 and never returned.
Fr Joseph Sultana, Queensland
A former altar boy has launched a civil lawsuit against the Catholic Church, alleging years of abuse by a priest, Father Joseph Emmanuel Sultana, in the Australian Catholic diocese of Cairns. See more here.
Br Laurie Sweeney
An order of Catholic priests, the Salesians of Don Bosco, confirmed in 2004 that it has made a civil settlement with two victims of Salesian Brother Laurence Sweeney — a boy and his sister, who have complained about being sexually abused by Sweeney at a Salesian club in Oakleigh, Melbourne in 1975.
Br Brian Mark Thomas
The Christian Brothers have settled a complaint about Brother Brian Thomas. This Brother (born 1938) adopted the religious name "Brother Mark Thomas" when he joined the order. He worked in various Catholic institutions including: at St Augustine's orphanage in Geelong VIC in 1969; at schools in Box Hill VIC, Albury NSW and Balmain NSW in the 1970s; at Chatswood NSW, Strathfield NSW, Toorak VIC and Canberra in the 1980s; and at Waverley NSW in the 1990s.
Br Aubrey Tobin
In separate incidents, two men committed suicide in the year 2000 after complaining that their lives had been damaged after sexual abuse by Brother Aubrey Tobin while they were pupils at the Marists' Assumption College in Kilmore, Victoria, in the mid-1980s. The Marist Brothers head office has confirmed that the two complaints were made. See the Broken Rites story here.
Monsignor Maurice Tully
Broken Rites is investigating this priest who had a long career (until 1975) in the Armidale diocese in northern New South Wales. While working in a parish, he also acted as the diocese's vicar-general (chief administrator) and this high status protected him from complaints. See more from Broken Rites here.
Br Frank Webster
The Christian Brothers Australian administration has accepted complaints from victims who were abused, when they were young boys, by Christian Brother Aloysius Francis Webster (also known as Frank Webster or "Lou" Webster) while he was the superintendent (principal) at St Augustine's orphanage, Geelong, Victoria, from 1954 to 1959. See the Broken Rites story here.
Fr Adrian Wenting
A number of ex-students have complained that Father Adrian Wenting committed offences of indecency against them at the Salesian College boarding school in Brooklyn Park, South Australia, where he was the principal until 1979. Wenting also worked at the Boys Town residential institution in Engadine NSW and at Salesian College Chadstone in Melbourne.
Westmead Boys' Home, NSW
Broken Rites is investigating complaints from former inmates of St Vincent's Boys' Home, Westmead, in Sydney's west. This orphanage was operated by the Marist Brothers until it closed in 1991. Broken Rites possesses a printed list, compiled by the Marists, of all Brothers who worked at this institution. The Westmead site is now a campus of the University of Western Sydney.
Fr Dennis Whelan, NSW
Broken Rites is researching Father Dennis R. Whelan, who ministered in the Bathurst Catholic diocese in north-western New South Wales, notably St Brigid's parish in Dubbo and St Mary's in Dubbo North. Dennis Whelan's middle name was either Redmond or Raymond.
Fr Ray Whitehouse
After action by Broken Rites, the Melbourne Catholic archdiocese has apologised to (and signed a settlement with) a man who complained that, as an altar boy, he was sexually assaulted by Father Raymond Whitehouse on several Sundays after Mass. See more here.
Fr John Whiting
Broken Rites is researching Father John Thomas Larmer Whiting. Originally a member of the Redemptorist order, he founded a small Australian society of priests and brothers called the "Confraternity of Christ the Priest". He established a small seminary at Scoresby, in Melbourne's east. A man who inquired about joining the order in 1981 (aged 19) says that, during the interview, Father John Whiting inspected the young man's genitals. Another young aspirant says that he was required to bathe naked, with Fr Jack Whiting, in a pool. In later years, Whiting's society also provided seminary training in Wagga Wagga in southern New South Wales.
Fr Murray Wilson
In 2006, after action by Broken Rites, the Vincentian Fathers' Australian office apologized to a Victorian man for a serious sexual assault committed by Fr Murray Joseph Wilson in the 1970s, when the victim was aged 13. See our story here.
Bert Zeelen, sacristan, Adelaide cathedral
Broken Rites is researching Hubertus Zeelen (a Dutch name), who was the full-time sacristan, caretaker and chief altar-server at St Francis Xavier Cathedral, Adelaide, in the 1960s and 1970s. He was in charge of altar-boys. He lived in a dwelling at the cathedral.
Section C:
Current court cases
Here are some examples of cases that are currently scheduled to come up in the courts:
Armidale court, NSW, re an ex-priest
A former Catholic priest (now aged 59), who used to work in parishes in north-western New South Wales (comprising the Armidale Diocese), appeared in Armidale Local Court on 18 October 2012 on multiple child-sex charges dating back to two or three decades ago. The case will come up in court again in early 2013 for a further mention in the next step in the prosecution process. For legal reasons, the court prohibited any publishing of the man's name. See more from Broken Rites here.
Brian Dennis Cairns
After beginning in the early 1970s as a Christian Brother, Brian Cairns worked as a lay teacher ("Mister" Cairns) in Catholic schools in Queensland. In 1985 he was jailed for sex-crimes against boys. In October 2012, after more of his former male pupils contacted police, the Brisbane Magistrates Court ordered that Brian Cairns must face a judge in the Brisbane District Court (in 2013) on multiple charges involving alleged offences against these additional boys.
Fr John Denham
Father John Sidney Denham (of the Maitland-Newcastle Catholic diocese, New South Wales), who is in jail for child-sex crimes, is scheduled to be charged again in Newcastle Court in early 2013 with offences against more boys. See a background article by Broken Rites here.
Fr Finian Egan
This Catholic priest, who belongs to the Broken Bay diocese in Sydney's north, appeared in court in 2012, charged with multiple sexual offences against young persons, allegedly committed in the 1970s and 1980s. Further court proceedings are sheduled for 2013. See more here.
Fr Lewis Fenton
A retired priest, Father Lewis Fenton, aged 81 (from the Maitland-Newcastle diocese, New South Wales), has become the second Catholic clergyman in Australia charged with concealing someone else's child-sex crimes. On 4 January 2013, Fr Fenton was ordered to appear in a magistrates court on a later date. See more here.
Br John Gaven
Brother John Gaven, of the Vincentian religious order, is awaiting court proceedings in Sydney in 2013 regarding sexual offences that were allegedly committed when he worked at St Stanislaus College, Bathurst, NSW. See more here.
Br Bill Houston, Victoria
In the 1960s, Christian Brother William Stuart Houston worked at St Augustine's orphanage, Geelong, Victoria. In 2010, he appeared in the Geelong Magistrates Court and was ordered to stand trial at the Victorian County Court regarding incidents of buggery and indecent assault, allegedly committed while he was at St Augustine's in the 1960s. The County Court process (indictment number Y.03305021) has not yet been completed. See more from Broken Rites here.
Fr Jim Jennings
James Patrick Jennings was once a Catholic priest in the Vincentian order. In 2012 a Victorian magistrate ordered Jennings to stand trial in the Victorian County Court (in 2013) on child-sex charges relating to when Jennings was a priest working at St Vincent's College (a boys' boarding school) in Bendigo, Victoria, in the 1960s. Police investigations (under Senior Sergeant Grant Morris, of Bendigo Police) are continuing. See more Victorian material from Broken Rites here, plus some New South Wales background here.
Ex-Brother Edward Mamo
In 2013 the Victorian County Court is scheduled to announce the details of its sentence for former religious Brother, Edward Mamo, who has pleaded guilty to sexual offences, which he committed in the late 1970s and early 1980s against boys at Monivae College, a Catholic secondary school in Hamilton, western Victoria. The investigation is continuing, by detectives at the Sexual Offences and Child Abuse Unit in Warrnambool, telephone 03 5560 1333. See more from Broken Rites here.
A Marist Brother in Newcastle court
New South Wales detectives have charged a retired Marist Brother with having indecently assaulted two students at a school in the Hunter Valley, north of Sydney, during the 1960s and 1970s. He has been ordered to appear in Newcastle Local Court in 2013. The detectives (from Strike Force Georgiana, at Charlestown police station, Lake Macquarie) are continuing their investigations and expect to lay further charges.
Fr David O'Hearn
Legal proceedings are scheduled in the New South Wales District Court for Father David Anthony O'Hearn, of the Maitland-Newcastle Catholic diocese in New South Wales, who is charged with child-sex offences. See more from Broken Rites here.
Fr David Rapson, Salesian Fathers
David Edwin Rapson (born 30 July 1953), who used to be a Catholic priest (in the Salesian religious order), appeared in the Melbourne Magistrates Court in November 2012, charged with child-sex offences allegedly committed when Fr Rapson was a teacher at Salesian College "Rupertswood", in Sunbury (in Melbourne's north-west). A magistrate ordered Rapson to face a trial in the Victorian County Court (in 2013). The Victoria Police investigation is continuing (being conducted by detectives of the Sexual Crimes Squad, Flinders Street, Melbourne). See more from Broken Rites here.
Fr Brian Spillane
In the 1970s and 1980s Father Brian Joseph Spillane was a priest in the Vincentian Fathers religious order in New South Wales and Queensland. In the Sydney District Court in 2012, Spillane (then aged 69) was sentenced to nine years jail (with a non-parole period of five years) for indecently assaulting three girls aged between six and seventeen. He is also facing future court proceedings regarding alleged offences against boys. See more here.
Section D:
Cases where church people failed to help the police
Here are some examples, researched by Broken Rites:
Fr Tom Brennan, Newcastle, NSW
In August 2012, in what is believed to be the first such prosecution in Australia, Father Thomas Brennan (former vicar-general of the Maitland-Newcastle diocese) was charged with failing to report the alleged child-sex crimes of another priest who was under Brennan's supervision. Brennan was ordered to appear in court on 25 September 2012 but he failed to appear and he died five days later. See more from Broken Rites here. Also see an earlier conviction of Brennan here.
Monsignor Patrick Cotter
Cotter was formerly the vicar-general (chief administrator) of the Maitland-Newcastle diocese in New South Wales. In 1995, detectives discovered that, 20 years earlier, Cotter knew that one of his priests, Father Vincent Gerard Ryan, was sexually assaulting boys in parishes. According to a letter written by Cotter in 1974, Cotter admitted covering up the crimes. Cotter wrote: "I decided to do nothing [about Ryan's crimes]." This meant that Cotter became complicit in Vince Ryan's continuing crimes. In 1995-6, police investigated Cotter with a view to charging him with the crime of misprision of a felony — that is, wilfully concealing a serious crime committed by another person. However, as Cotter was aged 82 when police found this letter in 1995, the prosecution did not proceed. See our Cotter story here.
The Monsignor John Day case
Church people, including a police sergeant, discouraged the Victoria Police from prosecuting Monsignor John Day, who sexually abused many boys and girls in the Mildura parish. See the Broken Rites story here.
The "Father F" cover-up
Bishop Henry Joseph Kennedy administered the Armidale diocese in northern New South Wales in the 1980s, assisted by his deputy, Monsignor Francis Joseph (Frank) Ryan. This pair protected a certain priest (Father F) after receiving complaints about him committing child-sex offences. Furthermore, Kennedy and Ryan later arranged for Father F to transfer to parishes in the Parramatta diocese in western Sydney, thereby giving him access to additional children. According to a church document, Father F has admitted that he indeed committed sexual acts upon children. The cover-up continued for 30 years until it was exposed by the media in 2012. Read more here.
The Father Ridsdale case
Catholic church authorities in western Victoria knew that Father Gerald Francis Ridsdale was indecently assaulting children but the church continued giving him access to more victims, until victims (not the church) finally brought him to justice. See the Broken Rites story here.
Section E:
Court cases ending with no conviction
Sometimes, for various legal reasons, a court case might fail to result in a conviction. For example:
Fr Bernie Connell
In November 1995, news media outlets in southern New South Wales reported that a Local Court magistrate committed Father Bernard Connell to stand trial on charges of sexual offences allegedly committed against boys. However, the subsequent trial proceedings did not result in a conviction. Born in 1938, Father Connell was ordained in 1963 as a priest of the Wagga Wagga diocese in southern New South Wales. His postings from early 1964 to late 1991 included: parishes at Junee and Albury in the 1960s; South Wagga Wagga parish in the early 1970s; working as a chaplain at army bases in Puckapunyal (Victoria) and Holdsworthy (NSW) in the 1970s; Lockhart parish in 1978; Albury and Tocumwal parishes in the 1980s; and Leeton parish in 1990-91. In early 1992, he left the Wagga Wagga diocese to minister in the Pacific nation of Kiribati for several years, after which he returned to New South Wales to live at a private address, with no further parish postings.
Fr Dennis Corrigan
On 9 February 2012 Father Dennis John Corrigan, 68, who worked in the Maitland-Newcastle diocese, north of Sydney, was acquitted in the New South Wales District Court on charges of indecent assault on a boy. See more from Broken Rites here.
Br John Coswello
Christian Brother John Francis Coswello, then 70, was sentenced to jail on 22 June 2009 after a jury found him guilty of committing sexual offences against a 12-year-old boy in a Melbourne orphanage. Later, the Victorian Court of Appeal granted him a re-trial, at which another jury (in October 2010) found him not guilty. See more here.
Br Brendan Crawford, Passionist Order
A Catholic religious brother, Vincent Crawford (a.k.a. Brother "Brendan" Crawford), of the Passionist Order, appeared in court in 2009, charged with sexual offences against a girl in the late 1970s. The charges were withdrawn after the court was told that Crawford (aged 77 when charged) was medically unfit to undergo the court proceedings. See more here.
Fr Peter Dwyer
In the New South Wales District Court on 9 May 2011, a jury found Father Peter William Dwyer not guilty of alleged sexual offences, between 1977 and 1992, against four students who attended St Stanislaus College, Bathurst NSW (where Fr Dwyer had been a music teacher and later a headmaster).
Fr Ray Garchow
Raymond Garchow became a religious brother in the St John of God order in 1964, aged 17, and was upgraded to a priest in 1987, aged 40. In New South Wales in the early 1980s, he worked at "Kendall Grange" boarding institution for educationally disabled boys in Morisset, north of Sydney. In 2006, after he had been living and ministering around Sydney for several years, the Federal Court of Australia ordered that Garchow be extradited to face charges of child-sex abuse in New Zealand, where he had worked at an institution (Marylands special school for educationally disabled boys) in Christchurch in the 1970s. A trial was scheduled for Garchow in Christchurch. On 23 July 2008, the New Zealand prosecutors decided not to proceed with the trial for several reasons: Garchow, aged 61, was too ill; furthermore, one of the two complainants was also unwell; and the second complainant had trouble with a disability, which made the prospect of a trial difficult. The prosecutors entered a permanent stay of proceedings. Garchow's counsel said afterwards that Garchow maintains his innocence. See our story about the extradition proceedings here.
Br Bill Houston
On 17 June 1997, a magistrate ordered that Christian Brother William Stuart Houston, then aged 58, should stand trial in the Victorian County Court on charges relating to a twelve-year-old boy at St Augustine's orphanage, Geelong, in 1969-70 (reported in the Melbourne Herald Sun, 18 June 1997). This trial has not yet been held. See more here.
Fr Jim Jennings
James Patrick Jennings was once a Catholic priest in the Vincentian order. In the Sydney District Court, in July 2010, he was charged with indecent assault on four boys (aged about 12) at St Stanislaus College, Bathurst NSW, during 1961. On 5 August 2010 the jury returned a verdict of "not guilty" on all charges See more here.
Br Bill Lebler
In 1951, aged 29, William John Lebler became among the first Australian-born recruits to join the St John of God Brothers, taking his vows at the order's "Kendall Grange" institution for intellectually handicapped boys at Morisset, north of Sydney. He later worked with SJOG in New Zealand and Papua New Guinea. In 2003, prosecutors sought to extradite him from Australia to face trial in New Zealand on child-abuse charges there, dating back as far as 1955. However, a Sydney magistrate released William Lebler because of his age (82 years) and health and because of the delay in reporting his alleged offences. See our story about the extradition proceedings here.
Br John Maguire
By July 2004, Marist Brother John Dennis Maguire had faced eight jury trials in the New South Wales District Court, charged with multiple sexual offences involving six boys at St Joseph's College in Hunters Hill, Sydney. In all, he faced 17 counts of assaulting boys aged between 11 and 13 while he was the year 7 dormitory and form master (in charge of fifty boarders) in the early 1980s. Maguire had a bedroom adjoining the dormitory. The alleged offences ranged from indecently touching the boys through to anal and oral penetration. Unlike in many other similar cases, Brother John Maguire (born 13 December 1943) was not required to face his accusers jointly in a single trial. The church lawyers succeeded in obtaining a separate jury for each complainant, so that each jury was unaware of the other charges. Two juries failed to agree on a verdict and were discharged. The other six juries each returned a verdict of "Not Guilty". Despite this, any complainants are still able to take civil action against the Marist Brothers regarding Brother Maguire. See "We saw it coming, say ex-students" article in the 2 July 2004 edition of the Sydney Morning Herald.
Br Eddie Mamo, Sacred Heart order
A Sydney newspaper reported that the Bankstown Local Court on 23 August 1994 dismissed two charges of aggravated indecent assault that had been laid against Edward Mamo, then aged 49. Mamo had been a religious Brother in the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart order, and was associated with the Nguon Song Group Homes, which provided accommodation for Indo-Chinese teenage males in Sydney's Canterbury-Bankstown area. (In the 1970s and 1980s, Brothers in the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart worked as support staff — such as dormitory supervisors — at prominent Australian boarding schools operated by the MSC order, including Chevalier College in Bowral, New South Wales, and Monivae College in Hamilton, Victoria.) See more here.
Fr Hugh Edward Murray
This Catholic priest (from the Vincentian order) appeared in court in Sydney in 2010, charged with indecently assaulting boys in the 1960s and '70s. In July 2011, a judge granted Murray a permanent stay because of his advanced age (81 years) and health problems. See more here.
Br John Parker
Various news media outlets reported that Christian Brother John David Parker appeared in the Melbourne Magistrates Court on 22 March 1995, charged with sexual assault of a nine-year-old boy in Grade 4 at Parade Christian Brothers College junior school in Alphington (in Melbourne's inner north-east) in 1958. Brother Parker contested the charge. Magistrate Phillip Goldberg committed Brother Parker (then aged 60) for trial and listed the matter to go to a judge in the Melbourne County Court for 19 June 1995. However, the County Court case did not proceed. The complainant was satisfied with having succeeded in getting his allegation aired in the Magistrates Court. In the Christian Brothers, Parker adopted the religious name John "Neri" Parker (there was once a Saint Neri) and was listed as Brother J.N. Parker. Brother Parker has also taught at other Catholic schools in Victoria, including Ballarat (St Patrick's primary school, Drummond Street) in the 1970s and Mill Park (St Francis of Assisi primary school) in Melbourne's north in the 1990s. He also taught with the Christian Brothers in Tasmania.
Fr Phil Robson
In early 2010, a Sydney magistrate ordered Father Philip John Robson (a member of the Vincentian order of Catholic priests) to stand trial at the Sydney District Court, charged with five sex offences against a 15-year-old boy who was a pupil at St Stanislaus College, Bathurst, New South Wales, in 1991. Robson was accused of one count of attempting to have sexual intercourse with the boy in circumstances of aggravation, and four counts of aggravated indecent assault. On 14 September 2010, a District Court jury found Robson not guilty of all charges. See more here.
Br Lambert Wise, Adelaide
A South Australian court ruled in 2008 that an elderly former Christian Brother, Francis Lambert Wise, was medically unfit to stand trial on alleged incidents of child-sexual abuse, dating back to 1964 and 1965. However, in 2009 a judge held special hearings, enabling two of Wise's former pupils to have their allegations aired in court. Thus, the South Australian public was able to learn of the allegations. See more from Broken Rites here.
Section F:
Lay teachers in church schools
The above lists (Sections A to E) on this website all relate to priests or religious brothers, as distinct from lay teachers.
Many victims have contacted Broken Rites about offences committed by lay teachers in Catholic schools or school youth camps.
The teachers' cases are too numerous to be all listed on this website. Here are just a few examples to demonstrate the range of cases:
Yvo Gulien Cleyman, at Gosford, NSW, 1970s
In the New South Wales District Court at Gosford (New South Wales) on 20 April 2004, Yvo Gulien Cleyman (then aged 59) was sentenced to a maximum of six years' jail over a series of sex offences against two schoolboys in the late 1970s. The case was reported next day in the Central Coast Herald (and the preliminary proceedings had been reported in the Central Coast Express on 26 February 2003). The boys, aged 13 and 14, were attending St Edward's Christian Brothers School in East Gosford (north of Sydney), where Yvo Gulien Cleyman was a lay teacher of languages and social studies in the late 1970s. The court was told that, on school camps, on drives to isolated places and out fishing, he forced anal intercourse on the boys as well as forcing them to give and receive oral sex. Cleyman pleaded guilty to six counts of buggery and two counts of indecent assault on the two victims. When charged in 2003, Yvo Gulien Cleyman's address was given in court as Buccan, Queensland. He was extradited to New South Wales for the court proceedings. After the conviction, the Christian Brothers headquarters in New South Wales began having mediation meetings with victims of Cleyman.
John Coogan, teacher, Geelong, Victoria
John Patrick Coogan, then aged 61, was sentenced in 1994 to five years jail (minimum of three years) after pleading guilty to seventeen charges of indent assault of boys while he was a lay teacher at St Joseph's College (Christian Brothers) in Geelong. Outside the court, one of the victims said the St Joseph's College administration had known that Coogan was a child-molester but it did nothing about him.
Mark Dean, northern Victoria
Mark Christopher Dean, a Catholic lay teacher, pretended to be a priest during role-playing sessions with children while he sexually abused them, the Bendigo Magistrates Court was told in July 1992. Dean, then aged 33, of Rochester and Bendigo, who taught in north Victorian Catholic schools, pleaded guilty to indecently assaulting eight schoolboys in three towns during the 1980s. Dean was sentenced to a six-months suspended jail term. The victims' families told police that Dean had been protected by the church authorities.
John Gahan, lay teacher, NSW
On 30 October 2007 in the New South Wales District Court, John Stephen Gahan was sentenced to 13 months jail (with a non-parole period of six months), on three charges of indecent assault of a boy, aged 11 to 13, while Gahan was a lay teacher at St Mary's Catholic parish primary school in Scone (in the Maitland-Newcastle Catholic diocese), in the late 1970s. Gahan befriended the boy's family. Gahan admitted that the abuse (masturbating the boy) occurred on a number of occasions during two years — in Gahan's car and on overnight trips. The victim said in his impact statement that, as a child, he did not understand what was happening — "only that here was a man that took an interest in my future and this was a small sacrifice to maintain his friendship". The victim said that the abuse caused problems in his adult life, including in his marriage.
Mato Karapandzk, cathedral caretaker
On 11 March 2008 in the South Australian District Court, a 37-year-old woman gained justice for sexual abuse that she experienced while she was a pupil at Adelaide's St Aloysius Catholic girls' school. At age 12 in the early 1980s, the girl was told to wheel a disabled elderly nun over to the Adelaide cathedral (opposite the school) for church services. There, the girl was befriended by Mato Karapandzk (then over 50), a Croatian-born caretaker at the cathedral. Over the next five years, he sexually abused the girl in and around the cathedral building, "under the noses of the cathedral staff and the school", sometimes giving her $20 after the abuse, the court was told. He continued as the cathedral caretaker until the victim came forward with her complaint in 2004. Karapandzk, aged 77 at sentencing, was given a nine-year jail sentence (with four years behind bars before parole).
Willi Kovac, sports teacher
In Melbourne County Court in December 2005, Kovac (then aged 73) was jailed for a maximum of nine and half years' jail, with a non-parole period of 5½ years, after pleading guilty to indecently assaulting three boys (aged between nine and fourteen) in the 1960s and 1970s. German-born Kovac was an athletics coach at Melbourne's Xavier College and Marcellin College and other Catholic schools and worked as a co-ordinator at summer camps for Catholic school children. Judge Pamela Jenkins said that, since the offences, Kovac's three victims had struggled with life, including drug and alcohol abuse and relationship breakdowns, and had under-achieved in their work-life. These three boys were not Kovac's only victims. He also had victims from other Catholic schools. Some victims have contacted Broken Rites. According to information given in court in 2005, Kovac was also jailed in 1970 for indecent assault. One prominent Catholic school sacked Kovac for his behaviour but it then breached its duty of care by allowing him to work at other Catholic schools, putting more boys in danger.
Paul John Lyons, Canberra
In 2006 and 2007, Daramalan College, a Catholic co-educational school in Canberra (run by the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart), finally began making civil settlements with victims of a former teacher, Paul John Lyons. Lyons taught at Daramalan from 1989 to 2000. He took dozens of students to his home overnight or away on sporting trips. In 2000, police caught up with Lyons who admitted indecently assaulting a 15-year-old schoolboy. Police charged Lyons but, a few days later, he committed suicide. His police interview indicated that Lyons had many other victims, meaning that more charges would have been likely.
John Marsden, solicitor, school sports coach
John Marsden was originally a trainee for the Catholic priesthood but he left the seminary and later became a prominent lawyer and president of the New South Wales Law Society. In a crimes compensation case on 6 July 2001, NSW District Court judge Ken Taylor found that, "on the balance of probabilities", Marsden had sexually abused an eight-year-old schoolboy in the late 1960s when Marsden was a swimming and football coach at a Catholic school, St John's, Campbelltown, in Sydney's south-west. The court was told that, on three occasions, the boy was forced to engage in mutual genital fondling with Marsden and on the third occasion he was forced to perform oral sex on Marsden. The boy then complained to school authorities but was not believed over the respected local solicitor and former trainee priest, the victim told the court. The victim took his allegations against Marsden to Mr Justice Wood's royal commission into corruption in 1996, but Marsden was never charged by police. The victim then began a civil action in the NSW Supreme Court, but said he was "threatened with financial ruin" by the rich and powerful lawyer. On legal advice, he sought victim's compensation instead. Judge Taylor awarded the plaintiff the then maximum amount of $40,000 in victim's compensation, plus $5078 for psychiatrists' fees and $8000 in legal costs. This finding could not be revealed in 2001 because it was subject to a court suppression order. Marsden died in May 2006, aged 64, and the Weekend Australian published the court documents on 3 June 2006.
Former Test cricket umpire Steve Randell
He was jailed in 1999 for sexual offences against young girls while he taught at Marist College in Burnie, Tasmania, in the early 1980s (after the school became co-educational). Randell also taught at St Virgil's College in Hobart. He also allegedly had male victims. See our article about a different offender at Marist College here.
St Mark's College, South Australia
Jenny Christall, who was an education support officer at St Mark's College in Port Pirie (South Australia) in 2001, learned that a male religious education teacher, Sunil Francis Clark, was sexually abusing female students. Mrs Christall alerted the school administration and the Port Pirie Catholic diocese but, she says, these authorities failed to contact police. Ms Christall contacted the police herself but this meant losing her job because of a workplace confidentiality agreement. After this, she says, she was banned from working at more than 100 Catholic schools in South Australia. The male teacher, Sunil Clark, was charged in the South Australian District Court in 2006 with sexual offences against two schoolgirls, including two charges of unlawful sexual intercourse by a teacher. He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to four years and nine months in prison, with a non-parole period of three years.
Stephen Stockdale-Hall, Adelaide
In the South Australian Supreme Court in December 2005, Stephen John Stockdale-Hall (aged 56) was sentenced to 10 years' jail (with parole after eight years) after admitting that he sexually abused nine boys, aged between eight and 16 years, between 1977 and 1989, while he was a Catholic schools lay teacher. His crimes started while he was a teacher at Adelaide's Blackfriars Priory School and went on for a decade after he resigned when he continued to take students on camping expeditions. Stockdale-Hall also encouraged some of his Catholic school victims to drink alcohol and take drugs. See our story here.
Darren Tector, former lay teacher
In 1994, Darren John Tector was jailed for sexual offences against boys while he was a teacher at a Catholic primary school (Our Lady of Lourdes) at Seven Hills, near Parramatta, west of Sydney. He was jailed again in 2007 (aged 41) for using the internet and a telephone to procure a child (a 12-year-old boy) for sexual activity. See our story here.
The Broken Rites database contains many similar cases of teachers in church schools. Some of these are teachers of "religion", which indicates hypocrisy as well as a crime.
