Seven Suicides after Sexual Abuse at Nsw Catholic School

By Dan Box
The Australian
October 17, 2015

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At least seven former pupils of a Catholic boarding school in northern NSW have killed themselves amid allegations of sexual abuse by staff that have led to one former teacher being convicted this month, while another will face court next week.

The school’s former discipline master, Richard O’Connor, was sentenced to 10 years in jail for a series of often brutal sexual ­assaults during the late 1970s and 80s, including on one boy who was raped, then caned while lying on the bed. Another former teacher at St John’s College, James Sampson Doran, will face Lismore District Court on Wednesday after being charged with about 40 offences, including sexual and indecent assaults on 10 former pupils of the school.

Mr Doran later became principal of a Catholic boarding school in Abergowrie, in far north Queensland, where many of the pupils came from remote Aboriginal communities across the state. While in that role, he employed a former pupil from St John’s College, who was himself subsequently charged with sexual abuse.

At the time both teachers were working at St John’s College, in Woodlawn near Lismore, northern NSW, it was run by the Marist Fathers Catholic order and provided boarding places to several hundred high-school boys from rural communities.

Seven former pupils who were taught there during the period O’Connor was offending have since committed suicide, with friends, family and police linking at least three of these deaths ­directly to his abuse.