A Christian Brother abused this boy, police allege

Broken Rites
July 28, 2014

http://brokenrites.org.au/drupal/node/298

Police allege that a Christian Brother, William Edwin Marchant, sexually abused a seven-year-old child who was visiting  a Catholic school in Western Australia in the 1970s. Marchant, who is no longer a member of the  Christian Brothers, made a brief appearance in Broome Magistrates Court on 28 July 2014. 

Marchant, now aged 77, is accused of indecently dealing with a boy at the Christian Brothers Agricultural School near Tardun in Western Australia's mid-west.

The offences are alleged to have occurred between 1970 and 1971 when the seven-year-old boy regularly attended social events at the school.

Police allege that, during these events, the boy was indecently assaulted by Marchant, who was a Christian Brother at the time.

Marchant is facing  two counts of indecently dealing with a boy under 14 years.

Marchant  now lives in Broome (2,100 kilometres north of Perth).

The case is scheduled to come up again in Broome Magistrates Court on a later date for the next step in the prosecution process.

Tardun is a township 360 kilometres north of Perth.  There the Christian Brothers operated an orphanage-type institution called St Mary's Agricultural School, which closed in 2009. This institution has been mentioned in several public inquiries that have investigated church-related sexual abuse, the most recent being Australia's national Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse in 2014. To see more from Broken Rites about the Tardun institution and the Royal Commission, click HERE.