BishopAccountability.org
 
  School Sex Abuse Case Widens

By Damien Murphy and Jonathan Dart
Sydney Morning Herald
September 10, 2008

http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/school-sex-abuse-case-widens/2008/09/09/1220857547392.html

ALLEGATIONS of sexual abuse at St Stanislaus's College in Bathurst are likely to widen, with two more former teachers at the school to be named to police.

A 47-year-old man who attended the school in the 1970s said he witnessed what he called "inappropriate sexual behaviour" by a priest and a brother, members of the Vincentian Order, while he was a boarder there.

He was preparing a statement for police about the behaviour of the priest and brother after reading reports in the past fortnight that three religious teachers at the school in the '70s and '80s had been arrested and charged with child-sex offences.

He said the brother used to get into bed and sleep with boarders regularly "to comfort them and stop them being homesick".

The priest, he said, had pursued him at the school and asked him to go to bed when he visited a former schoolmate at the Vincentian seminary in Sydney.

The man, who did not wish to be publicly identified because the alleged abuse took place when he was under age, said an incident at a Vincentian holiday house on the northern beaches also raised questions about the priest's standard of behaviour with students for whom he was responsible.

"I went to the Vincentian house with two other students and remember him asking us to lift him from his bed because he had a bad back," he said.

"When we lifted him up the blanket fell off and he was naked."

Now living in Tasmania, the man said he had made his concerns about the priest's behaviour known to the Catholic National Professional Standards office some years ago but nothing had come of this.

"The priest just dismissed the whole incident, telling authorities he wasn't attracted to young men," the man said.

The man later joined the Catholic Church's Good Shepherd seminary in Sydney and brought forward additional complaints against one of its instructors, Father Peter Dwyer.

The two already knew each other from St Stanislaus - Dwyer had served there as school president for eight years after 1980, and was last week arrested and charged with four sexual assault offences dating back to that period.

He described Dwyer as a bully who intimidated those seminarians who had made complaints against him.

The Herald has learnt that formal complaints were lodged with the seminary's rector, Bishop Julian Porteous, after Dwyer had asked those under his care for body massages.

"He had a way of targeting people," the man said.

"He wouldn't say, 'would you have sex with me', but there was definitely a pattern of behaviour there.

"I think it's a bit odd for a priest to have his shorts off and ask for a massage.

"If you're a Catholic, that place would destroy your faith."

The school and the Vincentian Order have been rocked by the arrest of the three former teachers.

Brian Spillane, a former school captain and school chaplain, has been charged with 93 offences; John Gaven, a former dormitory supervisor at the school, has been charged with 28 offences.

 
 

Any original material on these pages is copyright © BishopAccountability.org 2004. Reproduce freely with attribution.