AUSTRALIA
Courier-Mail
Marist brother Alexis Turton told royal commission he wasn’t sure if touching children was a crime
A MARIST brother who held high positions in the order up to 2012 has said he would have had to get expert advice about whether intimately touching a child was a crime.
Alexis Turton who has been vice-provincial, then provincial and was until 2012 head of the orders’ professional standards office has told the Royal Commission into Institutional Handling of Child Sexual abuse, he knew sexual intercourse with a child was a crime in the 80s.
He was giving evidence in the case of former brother Gregory Sutton who was jailed in 1996 for 67 counts of sexual abuse against boys and girls in NSW, Queensland and the ACT.
Br Turton became involved in 1985, when as vice-provincial he visited St Carthage’s school in Lismore where the principal had raised concerns about Sutton’s behaviour with primary school girls. He told the commission he was not aware in 1985 that Sutton had a history of abuse at other schools, specifically at a primary school in far North Queensland where the principal had told the order Sutton was interfering with boys.
As far as he knew, there were no files the order had that would record his history.
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