Pedophile Worked in US after Sent for Counselling by Marists

By Jared Owens
The Australian
June 10, 2014

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/in-depth/pedophile-worked-in-us-after-sent-for-counselling-by-marists/story-fngburq5-1226950013503

Confessed pedophile priest Gregory Sutton was allowed to teach in US schools despite facing child sexual abuse charges in Australia. Picture: Thinkstock Source: Supplied

THE Marist Brothers repeatedly failed to remove pedophile teachers from classrooms, flying one self-confessed offender to north America where he subsequently worked as a Catholic school headmaster despite facing 24 charges of sexual abuse back in Australia, a royal commission has heard.

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse has turned its attention the Marist Brothers, examining the Catholic order’s failure to act on repeated warnings about brothers Gregory Sutton and John Chute, who are collectively suspected of molesting 69 children at numerous schools between 1960 and 1991.

The commission yesterday heard Sutton — who allegedly abused 21 children in Sydney, Canberra, Lismore and north Queensland between 1973 and 1987 — admitted pedophilia to the order’s then head, Alexis Turton, in 1989 after receiving a “tip off” from a local family that two teenage girls had reported him to police.

The girls, now middle-aged, told the commission Sutton molested them on countless occasions in private and in full view of their Year 5 class while sitting on his lap. They were forced to perform sex acts on him, and on each other.

One of the victims, now 40, said the teacher told her: “If someone sees us I will kill your parents and brother and sister and then you will have no one to love.”

The other woman recalled: “He used to wear this crucifix around his neck with Jesus on it. I remember (him) turning it around so Jesus couldn’t see what was going on.”

Counsel assisting Simeon Beckett said Sutton was “sent for counselling” to the Southdown Institute for sex offenders in Ontario, Canada. Although NSW Police issued 24 arrest warrants for Sutton between 1992 and 1993, Sutton left the institution in 1992 and worked as headmaster of a Catholic school in St Louis, Missouri, between 1994 and 1996.

The commission is examining “what assistance, if any” the Marist Brothers provided in extraditing Sutton back to NSW, where he was sentenced to 18 years jail.

The 40-year-old victim recalled being told Sutton had been “tipped off by a family” about her decision to make a police report, but could not provide any further details.

Former Marist College Canberra student Damian De Marco told how Chute groomed him with junk food and then “trapped” him in a school store room in 1981, attempting to fondle his genitals.

Mr De Marco, fearing Chute was abusing others, said he obtained assurances from Turton the teacher would be barred from working with children.

The Marists’ barrister Peter Gray SC suggested De Marco’s memory might be affected by “heavy use” of cannabis, which the witness admitted using to cope with the trauma of Chute’s abuses.

Mr De Marco insisted his memories of Brother Turton were “very, very clear” and his solicitor, Peter O’Brien, accused Mr Gray of a “vicious and nasty assault” on his client.