Two decades of child abuse examined after teacher loses identity protection

By Helen Davidson
Guardian (UK)
June 10, 2014

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jun/10/two-decades-child-abuse-examined

Jennifer Coate dismissed the application to suppress the identity of Greg Sutton.

A suppression order hiding the identity of Greg Sutton, a convicted paedophile and former Marist brother and teacher, has been lifted after nearly 20 years, as the royal commission begins examining how the religious order failed to prevent two members sexually abusing young children in their care for decades.

The royal commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse began its 13th public hearing in Canberra on Tuesday, focusing on the cases of two former Marist brothers – Sutton and John Chute.

The two men were shifted from school to school across Queensland, NSW and the ACT throughout their teaching careers, despite – and in some cases because of – multiple complaints against them alleging child sexual abuse and inappropriate behaviour.

Sutton was convicted in 1996 after pleading guilty to 67 charges of sexual assault against 15 children. He was sentenced to 18 years in prison, with a minimum term of 12 years, and was released in 2008.

On Tuesday the commission heard an application by Sutton's legal representative, Greg Walsh, to continue a suppression order placed on Sutton's identity at the time of his conviction, and which had been left in place by his parole board in 2009.

"If his identity is revealed and his whereabouts is revealed it's obvious that it's likely his safety will be compromised," said Walsh, citing the circumstances of the convicted paedophile Dennis Ferguson, who was "hounded" from place to place upon his release, as an example of the danger. Ferguson took his own life in 2012.

However the presiding member, Justice Jennifer Coate, dismissed the application, which was disputed by counsel assisting, and not supported by the Catholic church's Truth, Justice and Healing council.

"It is incumbent upon this royal commission to ensure that public confidence is maintained in its work and that includes maintaining the open justice principle of this commission when and wherever that is possible," Coate said.

After the suppression order was lifted, the commission heard that concerns about Sutton’s behaviour began to surface at the first school he taught at, in North Queensland, when he was 21. Complaints and concerns followed Sutton at numerous schools during the 1970s and 1980s.

On Tuesday the commission heard evidence from two women abused as young girls by Sutton. The first, known as ADM, told the hearing Sutton abused her when she was a year five student at St Thomas Moore primary school in Campbelltown, NSW, in the mid 1980s. She said Sutton would get her to sit on his lap while he marked her work, and would touch her thighs, and insert his finger into her vagina. The sexual assault escalated over multiple incidents.

She detailed Sutton sexually assaulting her in a theatre at school after sending other students away. When Sutton was done he sent ADM to get another student, ADQ, and send her back to him.

ADQ later told the commission Sutton made her touch his penis through holes in the pockets of his religious robes, and forced her to kiss his penis, threatening to kill her family if anyone saw them. "I was only 10 years old and I believed that he would kill my parents if I told them,” she said.

After another assault inside a storeroom, ADM told the commission Sutton said "words to the effect, 'ADQ is a better kisser than you, but you are better at the other stuff'." Sutton then undid his pants and made ADM masturbate him.

Sutton also allegedly told her they had to be more careful as "one of the teachers suspects something is going on". On another occasion he admitted he also treated other students the same way, ADM said, adding that Sutton told her he "wasn't sure" if he would do it to any other children when he moved to a Lismore primary school, St Carthage’s.

Sutton did go on to abuse children at the Lismore school, and despite numerous complaints, an investigation by a senior Marist member and the signing of a “letter of undertaking about his behaviour” Sutton returned to the school in 1987 to teach after a "personal renewal course" in New Zealand.

The commission would hear that in 1989 Sutton admitted abusing one victim to a superior, counsel assisting Simeon Beckett told the hearing, and that he was shortly thereafter sent for sexual offender therapy and counselling in Southdown, Canada.

That same year ADQ went to the police about the abuse by Sutton, and ADM gave a statement. But ADM did not hear from police again until 1998, when they contacted ADM to tell her they had found Sutton in the US and were going to extradite him to Australia.

ADQ said she thought Sutton might have been tipped off that her parents had taken her to the police, as it was "basically straightaway after we'd made statements" that she learned Sutton had been sent to Canada.

Police had issued 24 warrants for his arrest in 1992 and 1993. Meanwhile Sutton was teaching in Southdown, and later became a headmaster at a school in Missouri until 1996.

Sutton was convicted a year later.

After a successful class action ADM was awarded $93,000, eventually receiving $58,711, after $9,300 went to the health insurance commission to pay for counselling and almost $25,000 went on legal fees.

She told the commission she found the compensation scheme with the church's lawyers "more confronting than the criminal trial".

"I know ADQ got more than what I did," she told the commission.

"I remember my legal representative telling me the Catholic solicitors said if I wanted more money they would see me on the stand."

ADQ told the commission she received around $170,000 after legal costs.

Beckett also told the commission 48 claims had been made against Chute, of which all but two were settled financially at a total cost of $6.84m. Of the 19 claims made against Sutton, 16 have resulted in payments totalling $1.82m.

ADQ said she still suffered nightmares and flashbacks, and could not trust anyone to look after her children. She had suffered through further abusive relationships, self-medicated with alcohol, and made several suicide attempts, she said.

"I felt like I was robbed of my childhood, teenage years and the best part of being an adult. But most of all I was robbed of being a woman."

ADQ told the hearing she felt her brother might have had an idea that Sutton was abusing her, and some guilt may have contributed to him taking his life eight years ago.

Under questioning both women told the commission they had received no apology from the Marist brothers or Sutton.

However on Tuesday afternoon, Sutton's lawyer, Greg Walsh, told the hearing he had called his client during the lunch adjournment. Sutton, who was not present at the commission, wanted to convey his "frank acknowledgement and apology".

Walsh asked ADQ if she remembered being forwarded an apology from Sutton, through Walsh and via the office of the DPP. She did not.

Walsh told the hearing that when he spoke to Sutton in the lunch break, Sutton had asked to extend an apology for "an outrageous breach of trust".

"I want you to understand that he should never, ever have acted that way to you, and to the extent that it's of any comfort to you, he apologises to you, and I would like you to understand that."

Walsh went on to express the same sentiment to the previous witness, ADM. Coate suggested ADM might like to retake the witness box to hear the apology. She did.

She also told Walsh she recalled Sutton approaching her father in court at the time of Sutton's sentencing to extend an apology.

Among the evidence prefaced by Beckett, the commission heard the Marist Brothers order, which operates nearly 100 schools across Australia, had no child protection policies or procedures until 1994, despite at least six complaints against Chute in the 1960s and early 1970s alone.

The hearing continues.