A Marist Brother Expresses "No Remorse" for His Child-sex Crimes (including Buggery)

Broken Rites
June 12, 2015

http://brokenrites.org.au/drupal/node/230

A Marist Brother — Francis William Cable (known by his religious name, Brother "Romuald") — is not expressing any remorse for the damage he has done to the life of his victims, a Sydney court was told on 12 June 2015. Brother "Romuald" Cable is currently being sentenced for child sex crimes (including indecent assault and buggery) committed against 19 of his victims, who were young schoolboys in the 1960s and 1970s, when Brother Romuald was aged in his thirties and forties. During Romuald's life of crime, his Marist colleagues and superiors looked the other way. Finally, one of Romuald's victims (now middle aged) consulted a Detectives Office in the New South Wales Police. The detectives then found more victims. The 19 victims in this court case were not necessarily Brother Romuald's only victims — these are merely those who have spoken to the detectives.

Francis William Cable was born on 3 May 1932. He has been a Marist Brother since the 1950s, when one of his first roles was on the staff of a Marist-operated boys' orphanage in western Sydney. On becoming a Brother, he was assigned the name "Brother Romuald", in honour of an ancient saint. It was customary then to give each new Marist Brother a saintly name of this kind.

But, as shown in this court case, Francis Cable was no saint. And the same could be said about the colleagues and superiors who made it possible for Brother Romuald's crimes to be concealed.

How the court case began

On 29 January 2013 Brother "Romuald" Cable appeared in Newcastle Local court, where the first charges were officially filed. This brief hearing was in Newcastle, rather than Sydney, because the first victims were being interviewed by the Newcastle Detectives Office. After finding more victims, the detectives increased the number of indecent assault charges to 23, and added two buggery charges. The number of alleged victims increased from two to six.

After this court appearance, more former students contacted "Strike Force Georgiana" detectives in Newcastle. Some of the new allegations were from Sydney. The subsequent court dates (spread over the next two years) were regularly mentioned in the Newcastle Herald, and this prompted more Newcastle-Maitland victims to contact the detectives. At this stage, Brother Romuald's ex-students from Sydney were less likely to hear about the Newcastle court proceedings.

On 13 March 2013 the case came up for mention again in Newcastle.The number of charges against Cable was increased to 33 and the number of alleged victims was increased to 12.

When the case came up for mention again in Newcastle on 3 July 2013, the prosecutor told the court that another 13 charges would be laid against Cable, bringing the total to 46.

In mid-2013 a brief of evidence against Brother Romuald, which was then already eight centimetres deep, was served to Romuald's lawyers, the court was told.

When the case was mentioned in court in Newcastle again on 13 November 2013, there were 60 alleged offences committed against 22 boys.

During the 2013 proceedings, the prosecutors alleged that the offences occurred at several schools in the Newcastle and Sydney regions between 1959 and 1974. The allegations included:

Indecent assaults at Marist Brothers schools at Hamilton, Maitland and Pagewood between 1959 and 1974, at Bar Beach and New Lambton, and at Myall Lakes in 1973 (these places are all in the Newcastle/Hunter region, except for Pagewood which is in Sydney); and

Incidents of buggery in the 1960s.

Victims' statements

Statements tendered to the Newcastle Local Court during the November 2013 proceedings alleged that Brother Romuald indecently assaulted students behind his desk after calling them out in front of class or ordering them to stay behind alone after lessons.

Police alleged that Brother Romuald indecently assaulted one student during a sex education class when the boy was 13.

"He did this [sex education], one-on-one, in his office," the former student said in a police statement.

"I remember about halfway through the year [1972], it was my turn to have sex education with him."

Another former student alleged that Brother Romuald indecently assaulted him behind his desk after calling the boy to the front of the class. The student did not tell anyone because (he says) the incident allegedly occurred shortly after his father died and while his mother was struggling to cope.

By January 2014, Cable indicated that he would plead "not guilty" to all charges. Magistrate Robert Stone decided to commit Brother Francis William Romuald Cable for trial on more than 50 of the charges, involving 21 victims.

District Court case: GUILTY

The case then went to the New South Wales District Court in Sydney, to be conducted by a judge. The case was listed for 2014 but there was some legal argument about how to proceed. There were 21 victims and the defence wanted a separate jury for each victim (a total of 21 juries), meaning that each jury would believe that Cable had only one victim. The court eventually decided to have three juries (with a group of victims for each jury). The first jury trial was scheduled to begin on 9 March 2015, with the other trials to follow that.

On 17 March 2015, the first jury found Cable guilty of 13 indecent assault and buggery charges against two students who were grouped together in the first trial.

Two days later, on 19 March 2015, Cable made a brief appearance in court, where he entered guilty pleas to offences against another 17 students from the scheduled jury trials. This made it unnecessary to hold any furfther jury trials.

Francis William Cable was then locked up in remand prison to await the sentence proceedings.

"No remorse"

On Friday 12 June 2015, pre-sentence proceedings began in Sydney's Downing Centre District Court (case number 2012/393036). This is a process in which the prosecutor and the defence make submissions about what kind of sentence should be imposed.

Cable's defence barrister told the court that Cable was not making any submission of remorse to the court.

Also, during this pre-sentence procedure, any victim has an opportunity submit a written impact statement, telling the court how his later life was affected by the abuse and by the church's cover-up. These statements are read out to the court.

The 83-year-old Brother Romuald Cable, wearing prison greens, sat in the dock as the court heard the victims' impact statements.

One victim stated that he turned into an alcoholic, as the bottle was the only way he could stop thinking of Cable's abuse. He wrote: “I would just lay in the park wishing I was dead, still hating my father for not taking me out of that school."

A man wept in the witness box, and his wife wept in court, as he spoke of his impatience, intolerance, and need for perfection in all aspects of his life as a result of being sexually abused by Romuald at age 13, after his father’s sudden death.

A victim wept as he spoke about Romuald hosting father/son camps that included a keg of beer. This victim said: ‘‘By laying on a keg he was feeding our fathers’ addictions so he could feed his own."

Francis Cable did not show any emotion as the victim impact statements were read out.

On a later date, the judge will announce the exact sentence that is to be imposed on Cable.

The police investigator for the Francis William Cable case was Detective Simon Grob, of the Newcastle Detectives Office.

Other schools

Broken Rites research indicates that, as well as working at the above-mentioned schools (Hamilton, Maitland and Pagewood), Brother Francis William "Romuald" Cable also worked in other schools, including (and this is not a complete list):

St Vincent's Boys Home, Westmead (late 1950s);

Marist Brothers Parramatta (in the early 1960s before transferring to Pagewood);

Marist Brothers Kogarah (from about 1969 into the 1970s);

Marist Brothers Dundas (mid-1970s).