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	Priest Admits Indecency against a Schoolboy Broken Rites December 4, 2010 http://brokenrites.alphalink.com.au/nletter/page199-phillips.html By a Broken Rites researcher An Australian Catholic priest, Father Kevin Fracnis Phillips, was convicted in Sydney on 3 December 2010 of abusing a 16-year-old boy at St Stanislaus boys' boarding school at Bathurst in central-west New South Wales. Father Kevin Phillips, 60, pleaded guilty to four counts of gross indecency with a child under the age of 18. Several other charges against the priest were dropped. After his conviction, the court released Phillips on bail. Sentence proceedings were scheduled for early 2011. In 1990, Father Phillips spent a few months as assistant chaplain at St Stanislaus College, working with the school's senior chaplain, Fr Brian Spillane. The school was run by the Catholic order of Vincentian Fathers. The court was told that Phillips began to invite students to his room to drink and smoke. According to an agreed statement of facts (submitted in court), Phillips was a mentor to a 16-year-old boarder whom he abused on several occasions in 1990. Phillips disappeared from the school in November that year after complaints were made to another teacher about Phillips supplying whisky and cigarettes to the students and parading naked in front of them. A notice put up at the school said that Father Phillips had ''left to take care of his seriously ill mother'' and would not return. At the time of his arrest in 2009, Phillips was in charge of several parishes in Mackay, central Queensland. Broken Rites research Father Kevin Phillips began his career as a priest in the Vincentian religious order (this order is officially called the Congregation of the Mission). Broken Rites has researched Fr Phillips' address in the annual editions of the Australian Catholic directory. In the late 1980s, he was listed at the Guardian Angels parish (which was staffed by the Vincentians) in Southport on the Queensland Gold Coast. He worked at St Stanislaus College, Bathurst, for a few months in 1990. As well as being a chaplain was also a part-time teacher and sports coach. In an edition of the Australian Catholic Directory for 1991, he was listed at St. Joseph's Parish (staffed by the Vincentians) in Malvern, a suburb of Melbourne. From the early 1990s onwards, he worked in parishes of the Rockhampton diocese in central Queensland: * He was listed at St Therese's parish at Dysart in the Rockhampton diocese, central Queensland, until 1998. * From 1999 onwards, he was listed as the Parish Priest in charge of St John's parish at Walkerston, in the Rockhampton diocese. * By 2009, he was in charge of St Mary's parish, 46 Juliet Street, South Mackay, in the Rockhampton diocese. He was still there when he was charged by New South Wales police in May 2009. In the next edition of the Australian Catholic Directory in mid-2010, he was listed as "on leave". When his case first came up for mention in a Sydney magistrate's court on 5 May 2009, his lawyer indicated that Phillips would contest the allegations. The eventual guilty plea means that his case does not need to go to trial.
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