Sex-Abuse Teacher Was Molested As a Child, by Victor Violante, Canberra Times, May 10, 2008

Sex-Abuse Teacher Was Molested As a Child

By Victor Violante
Canberra Times
May 10, 2008

http://canberra.yourguide.com.au/news/local/news/general/sexabuse-teacher-was-molested-as-a-child/767570.aspx

A former Marist College teacher who sexually abused six boys at the Canberra Catholic school in the 1980s was molested as a child while under the care of the Marist Brothers, the ACT Supreme Court was told yesterday.

An agreed statement of facts also revealed that at least one victim's parents reported Brother Kostka Chute's abuse to the headmaster in 1986, but Kostka remained at the school until the end of 1993.

This portion of the statement of facts was not objected to by Kostka's solicitor, Greg Walsh, who is being paid by the Marist Brothers and has represented several other Marist teachers charged with similar offences around the country.

The court also heard Kostka, 75, whose legal name is John William Chute, taught at 11 other Marist Brothers schools between 1952 and 1975 before moving to Marist College in 1976.

At sentencing proceedings yesterday, the retired brother pleaded guilty to 19 counts of indecently touching the six teenage boys between 1985 and 1989. This included 11 counts, relating to four boys between 1986 and 1987, he had pleaded guilty to in February. It did not include seven other charges the prosecution was forced to drop because they had allegedly happened before 1985, when a statute of limitations of one year applied in the territory for such offences.

The court heard Kostka, the youngest of 10 children, had been separated from his parents in Lismore when he was 11 to attend a Marist Brothers "juniorate" a secondary boarding school for boys aspiring to become brothers in Mittagong.

A psychiatrist, Dr Chris Canaris, who has been treating Kostka since 2002 for what he called a "psychosexual disorder", told the court Kostka had disclosed he had been sexually abused by an older boy while at the juniorate between the ages of 11 and 13 and also before attending the juniorate by "a member of a religious order".

Dr Canaris said people who had been sexually abused had a much higher likelihood of becoming abusers, and that Kostka had been unusually young to have been put into the religious order.

The 19 admitted charges represented only a fraction of the sexual encounters he had had with the six boys, according to the statement of facts.

One victim told police Kostka had abused him on a daily basis when he was in Year 7, often in the presence of other students. "I started Marist College in 1985 and the touching started almost straight away," the victim told police last year.

"This became very normal to me and Brother Kostka would touch me daily, sometimes two, three or four times in a single day."

Another victim told police Kostka had befriended him during his first year at the school in 1989, at a time when he was unhappy and had no friends.

The abuse started towards the end of the first term and continued until late in the year, always in Kostka's office.

"I knew that I should not see Brother Kostka and that what he was doing was wrong but at that time I felt that he was the only person that knew me, understood me and made time to talk and listen to me," the victim told police last month.

The other victims told police the abuse happened in various places around the school, including the theatrette where Kostka hosted movie nights, his residence on the school grounds, a gardening shed and even in a food van that sold pies at footy games on weekends.

Kostka, who walks with the aid of a cane, remained silent throughout proceedings, except when he pleaded guilty to the 19 charges read out to him.

The sentencing proceedings were adjourned for the preparation of a pre-sentence report, though Justice Malcolm Gray declined to remand Kostka in custody.