Complaints about Marist Brother Kostka Chute Allege 31 Years of Abuse

By Dan Box
The Australian
July 1, 2014

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/complaints-about-marist-brother-kostka-chute-allege-31-years-of-abuse/story-fn59niix-1226972956857

Marist Brother John Chute, known as Brother Kostka, leaves an ACT court in 2008. Source: News Corp Australia

A CATHOLIC brother allegedly abused at least 48 children at six ­schools over 31 years before being jailed for his crimes, a royal commission has heard.

At one of the schools, Marist College Canberra, two other members of the religious order and one lay teacher also allegedly abused children.

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse is investigating the Marist Brothers’ handling of child sexual assault allegedly committed by two of the order, Brother Kostka Chute and former brother Gregory Sutton.

Documents presented to the inquiry show the order received complaints from 48 children ­allegedly abused by Chute bet­ween 1959 and 1990 while Sutton allegedly abused at least 21 children over 16 years at several different schools.

The former head of the order, Brother Alexis Turton, told the commission he first heard of complaints against Chute in 1993, although other evidence suggests that the church may have been warned decades before.

Minutes from a meeting of the order’s provincial council in 1969 include a reference to Chute’s ­behaviour, the commission heard, while one of his victims also claimed to have told his headmaster a decade before. A 2012 email detailing a phone conversation with the victim, who cannot be named, said Chute abused him in his “3rd, 4th and 5th class”.

Chute, who was jailed in 2009 after pleading guilty to abusing six boys, has since been released from prison. He is still a member of the Marist Brothers order.