AUSTRALIA
Broken Rites
By a Broken Rites researcher (article updated 21 April 2015)
This Broken Rites article tells how the Marist Brothers harboured a child-sex offender (Brother John William “Kostka” Chute) for more than 40 years, giving him access to Australian Catholic schoolchildren. Broken Rites has ascertained that the Marist Brothers appointed “Brother Kostka” to at least 12 Catholic schools in Australia between 1952 and 1993, ranging from Lismore in northern New South Wales to Marcellin College in Randwick, Sydney, as well as at least one school in Queensland. His final school was Marist College in Canberra, and it was some Canberra pupils who finally got him convicted and jailed in 2008. However, this Canberra court case was confined to crimes committed within the Australian Capital Territory. Now, in 2015, John William Chute is scheduled to face an additional charge in New South Wales, regarding an alleged offence at Lismore.
The new charge in 2015
On Wednesday 18 March 2015, John William Chute was arrested by New South Wales detectives attached to Richmond Local Area Command, near Sydney. He was charged at Burwood Police Station with one count of indecent assault. The police allege that, at a school in Lismore between 1967 and 1969, this religious Brother indecently assaulted a boy who was in year six. Chute was granted conditional bail to appear at Lismore Local Court on a later date. This court hearing would be a brief administrative procedure, for the charge to be officially filed before a magistrate, with a further hearing to follow later.
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