Sex Abuse Priest David Rapson Jailed for 13 Years
By Adam Cooper
Former priest David Rapson will spend at least a decade in prison for the predatory sexual abuse of eight boys at a Victorian Catholic boarding school between the mid 1970s and 1990. Rapson, 60, was found guilty in August of five charges of rape and eight counts of indecent assault and on Thursday was sentenced to 13 years in jail by County Court judge Liz Gaynor, who said he had preyed on and sadistically abused boys as young as 12. "These were dreadful crimes against powerless and vulnerable victims who were entirely in your power as residents of the school, and by virtue of the enormous authority and stature granted to Catholic priests by Catholic congregations and by the parents who had unwittingly placed their sons in your entirely predatory hands," she said. Judge Gaynor said Rapson's abuse had ruined lives, and while a jail sentence might bring some victims comfort, it would not end some of their "torturous" suffering. Some of the victims in court turned to watch as Rapson was led out of the dock, and afterwards looked relieved as they hugged and spoke with supporters. Another victim told Fairfax Media that although Rapson had taken so much from the group, the jury's guilty verdict had brought closure and the sentence would bring a new stage of life. "With the vindication comes a new sense of identity, it's given me a new start. It's vindication that people have understood, and other people who have not only been victimised the way I was, but they also responded the same way," the man said. "Talking to guys I've never met outside court, they’ve all the done same s... that I have, most of them anyway. For a long time I thought I was a bad person - my conclusion is I'm a good bloke who had a rough trot." Rapson targeted some victims with offers of alcohol, cigarettes and computer games in his room and abused others after giving them drug-laced Milo or lemonade. His victims included one student with learning difficulties and another who had sought counselling because his father had cancer. One boy in his mid teens was raped on four occasions in 1990 and required surgery on a damaged testicle after he was assaulted. The school never notified his parents of his injuries or attempt to flee from the school to escape the priest. During a previous hearing, that victim outlined how he had endured years of crime, drugs, self-harm, depression and relationship problems. The victim who spoke with Fairfax Media also detailed years of rebelling, troubles with the law, drugs and alcohol, a struggle with post-traumatic stress disorder and the division his fight for justice had caused within his own family. "I became a person that I didn’t want to be, that I look back on now and think I couldn’t have been that way," he said. The court heard as a boy Rapson had been physically abused by his stepfather and sexually abused by two other men, and as a young man had joined an order and school that harboured a number of priests who were abusing students. But Judge Gaynor said he had become "an enthusiastic member of a sexually devious group of priests operating at the school at the time". Rapson was transferred from the school in the 1990s when allegations of abuse were raised, and was jailed for two years in 1992 for sexually abusing a boy in 1987. He was defrocked by the church in 2004 and had lived a crime-free life for the past 20 years, but the judge said his constant denials against allegations had been remorseless and meant his victims had to relive their trauma in court rooms.
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