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	Ex-private School Boy Denies Lying to Claim Sex Abuse Compensation Cowra Community News April 15, 2011 http://cowracommunitynews.com/viewnews.php?newsid=6964&id=47 A MAN who says he was sexually abused by the headmaster at Bathurst’s St Stanislaus College in the 1980s has been accused of making up lies to claim compensation from the church. The complainant alleges Peter William Dwyer, 68, assaulted him when he was in Year Eight at the boarding college, and threatened to expel him if he told anyone about “their secret”. Jurors in the New South Wales District Court trial in Sydney heard yesterday (Thursday) the complainant had also made other allegations of a sexual nature against Dwyer, which he now admits are false, Sydney media report. The complainant said he “set right the wrongs” by correcting the mistakes in a police statement “You were prepared to make up fantastic stories to get compensation out of the Catholic Church?” Dwyer’s barrister, Stephen Hanley, SC, suggested to him yesterday. “No, that’s not correct,” the witness replied, adding that he had made errors in his statements to the church, but they were not deliberate. “I did not concoct something for my own personal benefit.” The complainant also denied including in his police statement for the purpose of “dramatic flair” that he was watching a crucifix above Dwyer’s bed during the incident. Dwyer, a former Vincentian brother and an Order of Australia recipient, has pleaded not guilty to 10 charges including indecent assault and having sexual intercourse with a person under the age of 16. The crimes were allegedly committed between 1977 and 1992 against four boys at the school. In his evidence yesterday, the complainant said the attack occurred in Dwyer’s room, where he’d been sent to be disciplined for drinking alcohol. Under cross examination, he said he had no recollection of telling staff at a Sydney hospital after a suicide attempt in 1999 that he had been raped by a priest at the age of 12. He denied a suggestion by Mr Hanley that he had repeated the allegation over the years for sympathy. The trial, before Judge Deborah Sweeney, is continuing.
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