Priest "a Violent Bully and Coward"

By David Marr
Sydney Morning Herald
April 20, 2012

http://www.smh.com.au/national/priest-a-violent-bully-and-coward-20120419-1xa40.html

"A major breach of trust" ... Brian Spillane, pictured in 2008, was sentenced to nine years' jail yesterday for a series of sexual assaults on young girls. Photo: Dean Sewell

THE former priest Brian Spillane has been sentenced to nine years' imprisonment for a series of sexual assaults on young girls - attacks described as "serious, planned and callous" by Judge Michael Finnane of the NSW District Court.

"The offender used his position as a priest to gain access to the homes in which each of his victims lived," said the judge. "He was very trusted and the parents of each of the victims readily gave him access to their daughters because of that trust and the esteem in which he was held."

The assaults began in the late 1970s when Spillane was on the staff of St Stanislaus College, a boys' boarding school in Bathurst. They continued when he became a parish priest in Sydney. He later returned to St Stanislaus as school chaplain.

Spillane, 69, continues to deny all the charges that have been brought against him, not only those involving these young girls but some 100 charges he has yet to face relating to assaults on boys at the school.

A heavy-set redhead, Spillane trained for the priesthood in the Vincentian Order and was sent to teach at St Stanislaus in the late 1960s. At his trial he described himself as a modern priest - joyful and enthusiastic, a hugger and kisser, a man at ease with families and their children.

In the late 1970s, he ingratiated himself into a family with boys at the school and abused their sister, then aged 11.

"This was the conduct of a violent bully and coward, done without regard to the effect it would have on the young girl," Judge Finnane said at sentencing. "It was sexual abuse carried out by a trusted priest, and was a major breach of trust."

The Vincentians posted Spillane to Sydney in the late 1970s and for a time he was acting parish priest at St Anthony's Marsfield. There he befriended another devout Catholic family and, under the guise of hearing their daughters' bedtime prayers, abused both for more than a year. The judge called this: "Predatory and a major abuse of trust."

One of those victims, known as Miss M, told the court of the devastating impact on her life of Spillane's abuse: of guilt, panic, mistrust, anger, depression, estrangement, drinking, drugs, loss of interest in study and, now, fearfulness for her daughter. She said: "It changed my fate and all that I wanted to be."

In those years in Sydney, Spillane also assaulted and wrote love letters to a 16-year-old student at a western suburbs Catholic school. Judge Finnane called the assault "predatory and heartless" and the letters "maudlin, full of false piety and completely inappropriate".

Spillane left the priesthood in 2004 and a son was born after his marriage that year. The first complaints about him were made to Bathurst police three years later. He was charged in 2008 and convicted by a District Court jury in 2010.

Sentencing was delayed until yesterday by the defence solicitor Greg Walsh attempting to have his old friend Judge Finnane disqualify himself from this and any future proceedings involving Spillane.

Mr Walsh claimed that after the swearing-in of a new District Court judge in March last year, Judge Finnane remarked over a cup of tea that paedophiles were "all guilty" and "should be put on an island and starved to death".

Judge Finnane denied saying those words and declined to disqualify himself. The dispute reached the NSW Court of Appeal in November and the decision upholding the judge's right to sit was delivered a fortnight ago.

The court found the words, if uttered, might have been incautious but couldn't be taken seriously and would not be regarded by a fair-minded bystander as prejudging the former priest's position.

Lawyers estimate about $700,000 has been spent on the former priest's defence so far. But who is footing that bill is a mystery. A spokeswoman for the Catholic Archbishop of Sydney, Cardinal Pell, says it is not the church. The Vincentian Order has refused to take the Herald's calls.

At Spillane's sentencing, Judge Finnane spoke of receiving glowing testimonials to his good character. But, he added, "it has also to be said that he used his eminence in the community and his role as a priest to gain access to his victims and to carry out sexual offences on them."

Miss M sobbed with relief when the judge sent her abuser to prison for nine years with a non-parole period of five.