By Dan Proudman
The Herald
August 20, 2009
http://www.theherald.com.au/news/local/news/general/priests-card-game-turned-to-sex-court-told/1600944.aspx
CATHOLIC priest Peter Julian Brock used a ruse of playing cards to lure a boy into naked sex trysts which lasted several years, a court heard yesterday.
The alleged victim told a committal hearing yesterday of how Brock had introduced the card game "strip jack" where players lose pieces of clothing depending on what they are dealt in a "counselling room" of a Hunter presbytery before sexually abusing him.
The man, who was a young teenager at the time of the alleged abuse in the 1970s, also told the court how his mother had slapped him and told him "you don't make comments like that about priests" after he had confided in her that Brock was abusing him.
Brock, 63, faces 22 child sex charges involving two alleged victims during the 1970s.
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| Peter Julian Brock |
Brock has not been required to enter a plea.
In the first day of a committal hearing expected to last until tomorrow, the man told Newcastle Local Court yesterday of the ongoing abuse he had allegedly suffered at the hands of Brock after the well-known priest had befriended his family.
The court was told Brock had drunk alcohol and socialised with the man's father and often visited the family home.
He had introduced the alleged victim to "strip jack" and regularly played it at the family home, where the pair only got down to their shorts.
But it was when Brock began asking the boy to a presbytery, sometimes by ringing the family and telling the boy's mother that he wanted to play cards after having a "bad day", that the abuse allegedly began, the court heard.
The man told the court that once naked, he and Brock would sit opposite each other and Brock would push the boy's knees apart "so he could look at me" before abusing him.
"He would be drinking and having a smile on his face and drank more and more," the man said.
"He would keep encouraging me to keep my knees apart."
The alleged victim said he began putting more clothes on before visiting Brock in the hope that he would still be dressed when the priest was naked and "that once he had his clothes off I wouldn't have to go any further".
The man told the court of one occasion when Brock drove him home after abusing him.
"I went and had a shower. I am pretty sure I threw my underpants out and went to bed and cried," he said.
"[Brock] was having drinks with dad, laughing."
The man told the court he had once confided in his mother that he didn't want to visit Brock any more and that they were "doing more than just strip jack naked".
He said his mother slapped him.
"She did comment to me that you don't make comments like that about priests and that you should shut your mouth," he told the court.
The alleged victim said he had also once told his father and that his father replied: "Are you some kind of poofter or something."
During cross examination, defence counsel Peter Hamill, SC, questioned the alleged victim about discrepancies in statements he gave police about where he had been abused.
The man denied he had changed the locations after discovering that Brock was at another area at the time of the alleged abuse.
Mr Hamill also questioned the alleged victim about whether he had told a "deliberate untruth" about discrepancies in the age at which he stopped having "sexual activity" with Brock, asking why the man had once said it was when he was a teenager and later changed it to when he was in his late 20s.
The committal hearing, before magistrate Elaine Truscott, continues today.
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