AUSTRALIA
The Age
May 5, 2016
Adam Cooper
Boys who were sexually assaulted by a Christian Brother at a Victorian orphanage were strapped by other men of religion after reporting the abuse, a court has heard.
When one boy reported William Stuart Houston, the head Brother declared: “This is what we do to boys who fabricate stories about us”, and strapped the child every morning for five days in front of the entire St Augustine’s orphanage.
That victim, now in his 60s, told the County Court on Thursday of the anger that still consumed him at being accused of lying and punished by the two Brothers he had approached separately about Houston.
“I am still angry to this day and the anger will be there because as a ward of the state I was let down by the system. I will never forgive William Houston for what he did to me,” he said. The court heard another victim was also punished after reporting Houston.
Houston, 77, was last month found guilty at trial of four charges of buggery, one of attempted buggery and three of indecent assault, related to attacks on three boys at the Geelong orphanage in the 1960s.
He was to face three more trials, but on Thursday pleaded guilty to 12 charges of indecent assault, related to assaults on three other boys.
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