A 75-year-old man with leukaemia, heart disease, and diabetes is seeking aggravated damages against the Christian Brothers for the child abuse he experienced at the Clontarf and Castledare institutions in Perth’s southeastern suburbs.
John Thomas Lawrence was a nine-year-old child migrant from the UK when he arrived at Castledare. He was raped repeatedly by Brother Lawrence Murphy at Castledare, then later at Clontarf.
“When I first saw him come to Clontarf, my heart fell,” Mr Lawrence told the court in January 2020.
Brother Murphy would enter the dormitories at night and choose boys to take back to his room. According to Lawrence, the boys would hide under their blankets and if they refused or begged him to stop, Murphy would slap them.
By the time John left school at 16 years old, he was completely illiterate.
“In the classroom, you’ve got Murphy trying to teach you and that’s the same man that raped me the other night. I used to look out the window… I didn’t want to look at him.”
John also testified that he was sexually abused by Brothers Francis Marques and Alonzo Angus, as well as a lay teacher, Joey Jackson, who made him wear lipstick and a skirt while he was abused.
John suffered “catastrophic” psychiatric harm from the abuse. He made multiple suicide attempts and struggled to keep a job.
While the Christian Brothers accept liability for John’s abuse, they are trying to minimise John’s compensation. They claim John would have had poor financial and educational prospects regardless of child abuse because he was a UK child migrant.
Millionaire businessman Sir Ron Brierley expected to plead not guilty to child pornography charges
Sir Ron Brierley was once considered one of the most admired and feared corporate raiders in Australia. He targeted poorly run and undervalued companies.
In the 1980s, he was worth $200 million.
In December 2019, the 82-year-old was arrested at Sydney International Airport and charged with six counts of possessing child exploitation material. Detectives seized his carry-on bags, laptop and electronic storage units.
It is alleged the detectives found more than 200,000 images and 512 videos featuring young girls between two and 15-years-old in sexually suggestive poses. Detectives also found typed stories about children being raped.
The investigation into Brierley was prompted by an anonymous tip to New South Wales Police in August 2019. He was arrested after a travel alert was issued by police.
Brierley appeared in Downing Centre Local Court in early February 2020. He will remain on strict conditional bail in his Point Piper mansion until the matter returns to court on April 2nd 2020.
He has been excused from attending the court hearing.
Melbourne paedophile jailed for sexually abusing 47 boys across four countries
Supreme Court of Victoria Justice John Champion described him as “a child abuser of appalling proportions”.
In late January 2020, Boris Kunsevitsky of Melbourne pleaded guilty to 59 offences, including sexual intercourse with a child and producing child pornography material while outside Australia.
Between 2002 and 2017, Kunsevitsky produced 35,000 photos and 4800 videos of child sexual abuse across the Philippines, Singapore, Indonesia and Australia.
The paedophile chose locations where he had ease of access to underage boys. Kunsevitsky would make the boys perform sexual acts on themselves and each other while he filmed and photographed them.
Most of the videos were filmed in the Philippines. The victims were never identified.
Kunsevitsky also had a Melbourne-based victim who he abused between 2004 and 2005. German police found a folder on Kunsevitsky’s computer called “Jailbait” and featured 55 photographs of the boy, but at the time, Kunsevitsky wasn’t charged for distribution or possession of child pornography.
The victim went on to suffer from anxiety and depression, fell into $100,000 of debt due to an uncontrolled drug habit, and experienced a marriage breakdown due to the abuse.
Justice Champion said Kunsevitsky’s appetite for child sexual abuse was “insatiable” and the worst offending he had ever seen.
Kunsevitsky was sentenced to 35 years in prison.
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