This Christian Brother indecently assaulted boys, then punished them

Broken Rites
November 2, 2014

http://brokenrites.org.au/drupal/node/314

Helped by Broken Rites, victims of  Christian Brother "Neil" Richards have achieved justice. In the Sydney District Court in 2014, Richards has pleaded guilty to indecently assaulting four boys, aged 11, 12 and 13, at various schools.

Brother Richards (aged 75 when he appeared in court) had a long career as a Christian Brother, including as a headmaster, in Catholic schools in New South Wales. He was charged under his birth name, Desmond Eric Richards.

The court was told that, after the boys had been sexually assaulted by Brother Richards, they were regularly beaten with a strap.

One 12-year-old boy, who had never been the subject of any punishment before the indecent assault, was later strapped on more than 60 occasions at St Patrick’s Christian Brothers College in Albury, while Richards was headmaster there in the early 1970s.

Another boy was regularly singled out for punishment and ordered to stand in the corner of the classroom, while a third was strapped once a fortnight and made to stand outside class, the court was told.

One boy, then aged 11, was assaulted while on a school camp when Richards got into bed with him.

Richards pleaded guilty to the abuse of four boys aged 11, 12 and 13 at St Patrick’s Albury and Bishop Henschke school in Wagga Wagga,  and at St Patrick’s Strathfield (in Sydney).

Originally, one victim contacted Broken Rites, which advised him to have a private interview with a Detectives Office of the NSW Police. Later, another victim from a different school also contacted Broken Rites.

The detectives learned that Richard was working at the Vatican in Rome. When he re-visited Australia, police arrested him in November 2013. 

Desmond Eric Richards is scheduled to be sentenced by Judge P. Zahra in Sydney's Downing Centre district court on Friday, 7 November 2014, at 10.00am (case number 201300333667).

Brother "Neil" Richards has spent more than half a century as a member of the Christian Brothers, where he was sometimes listed (in Christian Brothers documents) as "Brother D.N. Richards".

He has been located in many parts of New South Wales. A list of Australian Christian Brothers in 1990 included "Brother D.N. Richards" at Gosford (on the NSW central coast) in 1990.