By Damien Murphy, Jonathan Dart and Linda Morris
Sydney Morning Herald
September 5, 2008
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/more-men-accused-in-school-sex-scandal/2008/09/04/1220121430135.html
THE Vincentian Congregation yesterday admitted that as many as four former priests and brothers and one lay teacher at St Stanislaus' College, Bathurst, have been caught up in allegations of sexual abuse.
"I am deeply sorry for any harm that comes to anyone while they have been under our care," said the Vincentian leader, Father Greg Cooney. "It affects me very deeply, these things are not supposed to happen. As far as the Vincentians are concerned we are totally committed to the protection of young people and we have worked co-operatively with authorities to ensure this happens. I spent 20 years of my life involved in the formation of priests and honestly we did the best we could to ensure these things did not happen."
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Three of the order's former clergy have been arrested during a current police investigation, including former college president Peter Dwyer, former school captain and chaplain Brian Spillane, and dormitory supervisor John Gaven, now working as a social worker for the order among HIV-infected men.
Another former lay teacher has already served time for sexual abuse committed at the school in 1986, while victims have spoken to the Herald outlining abuse at the hands of two other Vincentians.
One of them, Brother Murray Wilson, died from gas inhalation on a visit to St Stanislaus' after he was moved to NSW in 1977. In 1993 allegations of abuse surfaced relating to his time as a teacher at another Vincentian school in Bendigo, Victoria
Three pupils accused a former priest at the school, Guy Hartcher, of assaulting them during the 1970s. Mr Hartcher was subsequently charged with indecently assaulting two of them. But a committal hearing in Bathurst in 1996 found there was not enough evidence to go to trial on one matter while he was acquitted on the other in the Downing Centre in 1997. He refused to talk to the Herald last night.
The Bishop of Maitland-Newcastle, Michael Malone,
removed Mr Hartcher from his post as parish priest of Dungog in 2004. The same year the Vincentians paid $40,000 to one of the victims. The order continues to fund his ongoing medical treatment.
Father Cooney defended the order's handling of the complaints, saying that all complaints were referred to police, and in the case of Spillane a report had been referred to the NSW Ombudsman.
He said in 2002 the principal of St Stanislaus' had referred him to a website set up by one victim in which allegations of sex abuse were made. Those complaints were referred to the Catholic Church's professional standards office and a report given to the NSW Ombudsman. Both of those bodies were unable to substantiate the allegations, he said.
Father Cooney said the Order first became aware of abuse allegations in 1994.
Meanwhile, All Saints College in Bathurst issued a statement yesterday in relation to the arrest of one of its former teachers on Wednesday.
The college head, Peter Miller, said he was aware of a police investigation into allegations of abuse at the school in 1973.
The school had put "internal and external procedures in place that serve to screen all people working with our students," he said.
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