Catholic brother a brazen offender who grossly abused his child victims, Melbourne court hears

ABC News
July 8, 2015

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-07-08/catholic-brother-a-brazen-offender-who-grossly-abused-trust/6604270

Catholic Brother Bernard Hartman pleaded guilty to a number of charges relating to the sexual abuse of three children.

Brother Bernard Hartman, who has pleaded guilty to abusing children while teaching at a Melbourne school, was a brazen offender who grossly abused the trust of his victims, the Victorian County Court has heard.

Brother Hartman, an American who taught at St Paul's College in Altona North more than 30 years ago, is now 75 years old.

He was extradited to Australia to face trial over the sexual assault of two girls in their homes and the molestation of a male student at the all boy's college.

Hartman pleaded guilty to four charges relating to the two female victims, and three charges relating to the male victim, including indecent assault, acts of gross indecency and assault dating back to the 1970s and 1980s.

The court heard one of his victims was five years old.

At his plea hearing the crown said Hartman committed a gross abuse of trust by abusing his victims in their homes, an environment from which there was no retreat.

Prosecutor Michael Hennessy described how Hartman would babysit one of his victims and would visit her family home for dinner.

Mr Hennessy said Hartman gave one of his female victims sweets from America, and she ate them in bed while he touched her genitals.

He said the victim remembered when she was nine or 10 he brought a turkey-baster with him when he was babysitting and sexually assaulted her with it.

Mr Hennessy told the court Hartman's offending was "a gross abuse of trust in an environment which allows no effective retreat".

"This can fairly be categorised as objectively very serious offending," he said.

Hartman returned to the United States in the 1980s and continued working with the Society of Mary Marianists in Cincinnati.

At a committal hearing last year, one of Hartman's former students told the Melbourne Magistrates Court that Hartman was a "Jekyll and Hyde type of person".

"He was a bit of a sadist," the man told the court.

"Mostly every time he abused me sexually, he would finish up physically belting me.

"I felt very alone and angry."

At the same hearing in a statement tendered in court, one of the women said Hartman molested her between the ages of 5 to 11 in her bedroom after he had been invited around for dinner.

She said she would try to avoid going to bed, or pretend to be asleep to deter him, but could not tell her adoptive parents, who were devout Catholics and in awe of Hartman.

"I felt vulnerable to the world. I was not coping. I felt unprotected," she said.

The woman, who said she received a love letter from Hartman years after the abuse ended, said when she complained to the Catholic organisation Towards Healing in her early 20s, she was advised not to tell anyone what happened "as it may stir up problems in other people's lives".