Ex-priest Committed to Stand Trial

By Mark Russell
The Standard
November 16, 2012

http://www.standard.net.au/story/1126665/ex-priest-committed-to-stand-trial/?cs=12

A former Catholic priest has today been committed to stand trial on child sex abuse charges.

Magistrate Greg McNamara late this afternoon found there was sufficient evidence to convict David Rapson, 59, and ordered him to stand trial in the County Court.

Rapson, who told the magistrate he was "not guilty" of all the charges against him, was released on bail to appear in the County Court on December 11 for a directions hearing. His trial will be held in August next year.

Rapson is charged with one count of rape, five counts of indecent assault, four counts of indecently assaulting a child under 16, and one count of gross indecency from 1973 to 1990.

He had been a teacher and former vice-principal at the Salesian College Rupertswood in Sunbury.

The final witness in the four-day committal hearing at the Melbourne Magistrates Court today told how he had been a Year 9 student at Rupertswood in 1989 when Rapson called him into his room to have a chat about the boy's father who had been diagnosed with cancer.

After giving the boy two glasses of Scotch, Rapson squatted on the floor next to him before running his arm up the boy's leg.

The alleged victim said Rapson then sexually abused him before he jumped up in shock.

"He (Rapson) asked me to stay and I said that I couldn't because I had to get home or else I would be in more trouble," the former student said in a statement.

"I rode my bike home. I remember being affected by the Scotch and feeling quite drunk, despite only having two."

The witness said he last saw Rapson early in 1990 when the priest was transferred out of Rupertswood.

"At the time it was very hush, hush, and I didn't know why this happened."

The committal hearing has been told police are continuing to investigate child sex abuse claims involving priests other than Rapson at Rupertswood.

Sexual Crimes Squad Detective Senior Constable Leigh Ross told the court police initially began to investigate one suspect who had been at the school between 1980-81 but the inquiry had since broadened to encompass 1960-1990.

Police were using Rupertswood year books to contact former students about possible physical and sexual abuse at the school.

Defence lawyer Brad Newton said he had subpoenaed Victoria Police for copies of the files on three other former priests at Rupertswood - Father Julian Fox, Father Frank Klep and Father Michael Aulsebrook.

The defence needed the files in relation to "other goings-on" at Rupertswood, he said.

Fox is the former college principal accused of abusing students during the 1970s and '80s. He has been banned from contact with children by the Salesians and now works for the order's head office in Rome, 10km from the Vatican.

Kelp is a former college principal who was moved by the Salesians to Samoa in 1998 just before he was to face court on five charges of indecent assault, having served nine months (doing community work) in 1994. He returned to Australia in 2004 and was jailed in 2006 for five years and 10 months. The Samoan government expressed outrage in 2004 that the Salesians had lied about Father Klep's conviction when they sent him there.

Father Aulsebrook was a former boarding master at Rupertswood who was sentenced to a total of two years' jail with 15 months wholly suspended in 2011 after pleading guilty to assaulting a 12-year-old victim five times.