Ex-Priest on Trial on Charges Relating to the 1960s

Broken Rites
February 11, 2014

http://brokenrites.org.au/drupal/node/218

A former Catholic priest, James Patrick Jennings, 80, is standing trial in the Victorian County Court in February 2014, accused of committing sexual offences against boys at a Catholic boarding school in Bendigo, Victoria, in the 1960s.

Prosecutors allege that Father Jennings indecently assaulted three boarders, aged 12 and 13, at the school while in charge of one of the dormitories there.  Jennings has pleaded not guilty to six counts of indecent assault.

Jennings' defence lawyer told the jury that his client absolutely denies the allegations.

The school was St Vincent's College, which then situated at Bendigo, 150 kilometres north of Melbourne. Father Jennings was then a member of the Vincentian religious order (this order is also called the Congregation of the Mission). He later left the Vincentian order and stopped working as a priest.

[St Vincent's College was set up in Bendigo in 1955 and was run then by the Vincentian order. In 1977, it was taken over by the Marist Brothers. In 1983 this school then became part of Catholic College Bendigo.] 

When the trial began on 11 February 2014, Crown prosecutor Susan Borg told the court that the alleged offending at Bendigo started soon after Father Jennings was sent to teach at St Vincent’s in 1963.

Ms Borg said that one complainant, to whom the first three charges related, was abused by Jennings during a five-year period.

The court heard that the first alleged incident occurred when the boy, then 13, was called to Jennings' room at the college one night.

A second boy, aged 12, was first assaulted when he woke one night to find Jennings sitting by his bed and touching him.

That boy and the third victim were allegedly indecently assaulted at the college sick bay.

Ms Borg said the Bendigo students were all in Year 7 or 8 when they were abused in similar ways between 1964 and 1968. On each occasion, Jennings allegedly fondled or masturbated the boys.

In one incident, a boy was allegedly instructed to masturbate Jennings.

Ms Borg said Jennings left the school in the late 1960s.

Ms Borg said that Jennings had previously taught at St Stanislaus College in Bathurst, New  South Wales [St Stanislaus is operated by the same religious order, the Vincentians] . She said that a former pupil from St Stanislaus would give evidence that he had been abused there. Jennings is not facing any charges in relation to any alleged assault at St Stanislaus. The Victorian charges are confined to incidents that allegedly occurred in Victoria.