TWO Australian Monks Accused of Sex Abuse at Scottish Catholic Boarding School

7 News
July 30, 2013

http://au.news.yahoo.com/latest/a/-/article/18218314/two-australian-monks-accused-of-sex-abuse-at-scottish-catholic-boarding-school/

An investigation is underway into a retired Australian priest who is alleged to have sexually abused a student at a Scottish Catholic boarding school.

Father Denis Alexander has been identified in a BBC documentary as one of two Australian monks who allegedly abused pupils at Fort Augustus Abbey School in the Highlands.

The Catholic Church in Australia has confirmed a police investigation into the former priest, who is now living in Sydney, is underway.

But the church has not confirmed the nature of the allegations.

The BBC investigation outlines an allegation from a former student who says he was abused by Fr Denis, then known as Fr Chrysostom, in 1977.

The BBC reports that the boy's parents made a complaint at the time to the school, but it was not referred to police.

Fr Denis returned to Australia and went onto become a priest at the Campsie Parish in Sydney. He has since retired.

The Catholic Church in Sydney says it was informed of a Scottish police inquiry in mid-May and then referred the matter to New South Wales Police.

Fr Denis is not attached to a parish but has been stripped of his powers to carry out any priestlyA activities pending the outcome of an investigation.

When confronted by the BBC at his home in Sydney, he refused to respond to the allegations.

The BBC spoke to 50 former students of the now-closed Fort Augustus Abbey School, near Inverness, and its feeder school at Carlekemp in East Lothian.

Its investigation contains accounts from five men who say they were raped or sexually abused in separate incidents by another Australian, Father Aidan Duggan, a monk who taught at the schools between 1953 and 1974.

Donald MacLeod, who attended Fort Augustus, on the banks of Loch Ness, from 1961, alleges he was groomed by Duggan during piano and photography lessons.A

Mr MacLeod, who was 14 at the time, alleges he was seriously sexually assaulted by Duggan, and despite raising the alarm about the alleged rape, he was not believed.

Duggan returned to Australia in 1974 and became a parish priest in Sydney, but the BBC says no warnings were given by the Benedictines to the authorities, and he continued to abuse children. He died in 2004.

The head of the English Benedictines, Dom Richard Yeo, has apologised to any victims.