Catholic Brother Defends Response to School Abuse

By Thomas Oriti
The West Australian
January 23, 2014

http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/a/20967793/catholic-brother-defends-response-to-school-abuse/

Brother Gerald Burns has told the inquiry he had a "simplistic and incomplete view" of a colleague's abuse of boys at the Cairns school he ran.

A Marist Brother has denied accusations that he failed to act when a boy at the Queensland Catholic school he ran was sexually abused.

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse last month examined the experiences of four victims who have participated in the Towards Healing program established by the Catholic Church.

After a two-week public hearing in December, senior figures of the Marist Brothers Catholic order are now giving evidence in Sydney.

Brother Gerald Burns was the principal of St Augustine's College in Cairns between 1976 and 1981.

During the same period a man known only as DK has told the inquiry he was abused by three other Marist Brothers at the college.

DK has accused Brother Burns of being aware of the situation but failing to act.

Brother Burns was present at DK's Towards Healing mediation session in March 2010, where he denied knowing anything about the abuse.

But today he conceded there was a complaint made against a colleague at the college, Brother Ross Murrin, on behalf of two other boys in June or July 1981.

Murrin was accused of touching the boys on the chest and stomach in their dormitories at night.

Brother Burns told the commission because the contact was "non-genital" he did not view it as sexual abuse at the time.

"I think I had a much more simplistic and incomplete view of the situation," he told the hearing.

Brother Burns told the hearing he did not understand how serious the situation was and took Murrin for his word.

"I know that I didn't hear about the DK business until 2010," he said.

DK says he was also abused by Murrin.

Brother believes he did 'the right thing'

Gerald Burns told the commission he only became aware of the full extent of the problem of sexual abuse involving the clergy in the early 1990s, which he described as an "enormous shock to the system".

"I have a big regret about the fact that our understanding of the whole issue of abuse in those days was not what it is now," he said.

"I regret that was the situation."

The sentiment was echoed at the Commission by the NSW/ACT director of professional standards for the church, Michael Salmon, who acted as mediator in DK's Towards Healing session.

"I think there was a sense of - overstating it a bit - a cup of tea, a Bex and a good lie down and you'll get over it," he told the hearing.

Brother Burns told the inquiry that given the "environment" when the initial allegations against Murrin surfaced in 1981, he feels he did "the right thing".

Murrin is now behind bars after he pleaded guilty to separate incidents in 2008 and 2010.

DK was paid $88,000 in compensation under the Towards Healing scheme, but labelled the process a "scam" and one of the "biggest scars" of his life.

The inquiry continues.