UNITED STATES
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Marianist brother who taught at North Catholic gets 2-year term for sex abuse in Australia
July 25, 2015
By Peter Smith / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
A two-year prison sentence cannot repair the lifelong trauma of being sexually abused from age 8, but an Australian survivor of abuse by an American Roman Catholic religious brother says his incarceration is a sign of progress.
“Although two years is a very short amount of time in light of the gravity of the crimes, it is a much better result than for many survivors of historical crimes,” Mairead Ashcroft said via email. “My hope is that survivors of crimes of this nature might be given the positive message that childhood abuse, sexual, physical and psychological, is taken much more seriously than in the past.”
Bernard Hartman — a Marianist brother who also allegedly sexually abused a student at North Catholic High School during his tenure here from 1986 to 1997 — received a three-year sentence, with one year suspended, in Victoria County Court in Melbourne on Friday following his convictions earlier this year of sexually abusing three children.
He pleaded guilty to four counts of indecent assault on two girls who were sisters of students at the all-boys Catholic school where he was teaching. Ms. Ashcroft, of suburban Melbourne, told the court she was abused from ages 8 to 11. He had befriended the families and gained their confidence.
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