Image: Marist Brothers
The Marist Brothers is a Catholic institution that was established in Australia in 1872. Over the past 150 years, the organisation has administered 74 schools and operated 21, including 12 boarding schools. Between 1980 and 2015, 4,444 allegations of child sexual abuse were made to Catholic Church authorities. From a survey completed by the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, around 20% of allegations were made against the Marist Brothers. There were two main offenders in the case of the Marist Brothers. Their names were Brother Gregory Sutton and Brother Kostka Chute. Brother Chute’s record of child abuse started in 1962 when he taught at St Anne’s Primary School in Bondi. Three claimants – ACF, ACP and AAI – have claimed Chute abused them at the school. Chute admitted to sexually abusing the children to a fellow teacher, Brother Des Phillips, who then failed to contact the police. The Royal Commission described this response as “grossly inadequate”. Brother Chute was not often supervised and was allowed to be alone with children, despite several allegations against him. Brother Chute was convicted in 2008 of 19 child sex offences against six of his former students between 1985 to 1989. Brother Sutton was arrested in 1995 in Missouri, United States, for 24 alleged sex offences in Australia. Upon returning to Australia, Brother Sutton faced a total of 67 child sex offences against 15 students in New South Wales. The offences included:
Image: ABC
The Congregation of Christian Brothers is an international Catholic group that was formed in Ireland in 1802. Since the 1950s, 22% of Christian Brothers in Australia have been alleged sexual predators. The Royal Commission has since investigated the experiences of 11 men who lived at four residential institutions run by the Christian Brothers in Western Australia, including:
Image: De La Salle Brothers
The Institute of the Brothers of the Christian Schools (otherwise known as the De La Salle Brothers) is a Catholic teaching congregation that started in France around 1651–1719. Between 1950 and 2009, there have been 492 members of the De La Salle Brothers. According to Royal Commission numbers, approximately 13.8% of De La Salle Brothers are alleged paedophiles. The order has been subject to 328 claims of sexual abuse including 219 claims from its BoysTown facility in Beaudesert in Queensland. One of the worst accounts of abuse was that of John Comerford. He was 11-years-old when he was raped by Brother Anselm Hallam at De La Salle College in Sydney. He was caught eating some communion bread and Anselm punished him by hitting him repeatedly across the head, then raping him. John has since struggled with severe depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder. When he was 18, John returned to the school with a shotgun, planning on killing his teacher. He was told Anselm was dead. It is alleged Anselm was moved from a Melbourne school to Sydney after receiving multiple accusations of sexual abuse. The school has been called a “hotspot of paedophilia in Sydney”.
Throughout the Royal Commission’s investigation, the Archdiocese of Sydney was firmly planted in the spotlight. A commonplace to send paedophile priests whose crimes had been found out in their home states, hundreds of children were abused in Catholic Churches throughout Sydney. Serial paedophile Gerald Ridsdale was moved to the Catholic Enquiry Centre CEC in Maroubra in 1982 despite his superior, Bishop Robert Mulkearns, knowing about his history of child abuse. In the years following his relocation, two allegations against Ridsdale surfaced, including child abuse of one child in Maroubra and one in Yarra Bay. The victim from Yarra Bay attempted suicide in 1989. The Archdiocese has since continued to abuse its victims. In 2002, John Ellis came forward and reported his experience with abuse involving Father Aidan Duggan in Bass Hill. Cardinal George Pell – then the leader of the Archdiocese – traumatised Ellis further by denying him compensation or acknowledgment of the abuse. In 2004, Ellis took his case to the New South Wales Supreme Court. Pell refused mediation and his lawyers attacked Ellis’ character during cross-examination. Pell succeeded in blocking Ellis’ case, creating a precedent or the “Ellis Defence” that deters victims from taking action against the Church. The current Archbishop of the Catholic Archdiocese of Sydney, Anthony Fisher, said he is ashamed of the Archdiocese and felt “harrowed” hearing stories of abuse throughout the region. “I am ashamed and I’m sorry for where we’ve failed you in the past,” Fisher said. “The Church can do better and I’m determined to play my part as a leader in Sydney.”
In Australia, the largest hotspot of paedophilic abuse is Victoria. Some of the worst stories of institutional abuse have come from the Archdiocese of Melbourne. Throughout the Royal Commission’s investigation, Catholic Schools and the Catholic Education Office of Melbourne were scrutinised for their response to rampant sexual abuse in the state. The hearings surrounding the Diocese of Ballarat, in particular, were among the longest and drew the largest webcast audience. Serial paedophile, Gerald Ridsdale, is a former priest of the Diocese of Ballarat. He faced 100 charges of sexual abuse and in 2017, he pleaded guilty to 20 historical abuse charges including 14 counts of indecent assault, two counts of buggery, two counts of rape, one count of attempted rape and one count of taking part in an act of sexual penetration of a child. Ridsdale is one of the most prolific paedophiles in Australian history. Another Melbournian paedophile priest was Monsignor John Day. He walked free despite the 16 sworn statements from 14 boys and two girls from Mildura detailing how the Monsignor had committed sexual crimes against them in the 1960s. Bishop Robert Mulkearns knew about Monsignor Day’s sexual abuse of children. His response to the stories of abuse?“The Church is bigger and more important than the activities of one or another Church member, even should that member be or have been in the past a priest. The Church is made up of both saints and sinners.”
The Anglican Diocese of Newcastle was scrutinised during Royal Commission proceedings for their consistent failure to acknowledge and respond to claims of abuse made by children throughout the region. Newcastle and surrounding areas including the Hunter Valley, Central Coast, and Maitland were rife with child sexual abuse. Some of Australia’s worst paedophiles have come from Newcastle and surrounds including Father Peter Rushton who raped a 10-year-old boy regularly for years. Rushton was at the centre of a paedophile ring in the Hunter. One of his victims, Paul Gray, witnessed a number of boys being forced to lie on beds as groups of men would file through and choose a boy, take them into another room, and rape them. Rushton died in 2007 without ever being charged for his crimes. The trend of abuse in the Hunter region goes higher than Father Rushton. The Anglican Dean of Newcastle, Graeme Lawrence, is one of an accused “gang of three” priests who are believed to have covered up Rushton’s crimes. Lawrence himself has also been accused of abusing a 15-year-old boy. The Newcastle Diocese has a dark past of cover-ups, paedophile sex rings, and child abuse. Countless children had their lives ruined in the Hunter region, going back as far as the 1960s.
The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse investigated the crimes of paedophiles and child abusers for five years. In this time, the Commission achieved justice for thousands of people and shed light on the disturbing culture of child abuse in Australia. However, the Commission failed to look into foster parents. Australia has a disturbing past of child abuse in orphanages, children’s homes, and foster care. The Parramatta Girls Training School was one of the worst cases on record. Girls who lived at the school would steal pins and needles from the sewing room to self-harm because their treatment at the home was so harsh. The “Parra Girls” had numbers, not names, and were often locked in a dungeon where the girls would be raped. The girls were forced to do manual labour and were sometimes beaten so hard their teeth would shatter. Parramatta abuse witness, Robyne Stone, described the school as being “run like a concentration camp.” Further west in Windsor was the Daruk Boys Home which was the scene of ongoing sexual abuse throughout the 1970s and 1980s. Boys as young as thirteen would have their genitals mutilated and were forced to give oral sex to their carers. The Government doesn’t want to deal with the problem of abuse in foster care. Kelso Lawyers, however, do. Over the years, Kelso Lawyers has represented 120 women who lived at the Parramatta Girls Training School and 30 from the Daruk Boys’ Home in Windsor.74-84 Tudor Street
Hamilton NSW 2303
Mail: PO Box 1016 Hamilton NSW 2303
t: (02) 4907 4200
Freecall: 1800 650 707 (outside Lower Hunter)
f: (02) 4929 1188
e: pkelso@kelsos.com.au
Liability limited by a scheme approved under Professional Standards Legislation. Legal practitioners employed by Kelso Lawyers are members of the scheme. Click here for our Disclaimer and Privacy Policy.
