Hundreds of child sex abuse complaints made against Christian Brothers

The Royal Commission has their work cut out for them in investigating historic sex abuse from clergy and religious institutions in Australia over previous decades.

As the Guardian reports:

In Australia, 853 people have made a claim or substantiated complaint of child sexual abuse against one or more Christian Brothers, with 75% of victims under the age of 13 at the time, a royal commission has heard.

The royal commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse has turned its attention to the Christian Brothers as the third round of its hearings into the diocese of Ballarat began on Monday. A religious community within the Catholic church, the Christian Brothers primarily worked in educational facilities for children.

In all, 281 individual members of the Christian Brothers in Australia have been subject to one or more claims or substantiated complaints of child sexual abuse, the commission heard, with 45% of that abuse occurring in Tasmania or Victoria.The commission’s data showed that the highest number of claims of child sexual abuse were against a brother identified only as Brother CCK, who had 46 complaints made against him about incidents in Victoria and Tasmania. The average age of his victims was 11 years old and the abuse occurred between 1963 and 1987, including in Ballarat.

Another Brother, Stephen Farrell, a Christian Brother at St Alpius Boys’ School in Ballarat East, had allegations of sexual abuse made against him from six people, with the abuse allegedly occurring between 1971 and 1974. In 1997, Farrell was convicted of nine counts of indecent assault against two boys aged nine and 10 at the school but his two-year prison sentence was wholly suspended.

He was convicted of a further charge of indecent assault against a 10-year-old boy, with his sentence suspended on appeal. The commission heard another Brother, Gerald Leo Fitzgerald, was forced to retire from teaching at St Alpius Boys’ School, with a report saying he had “reached that stage of life when, for some men, control of emotional impulses becomes lessened”.

He was allowed to continue to live within the St Patrick’s religious community, the commission heard. A separate report stated he went into the junior dormitory to “play with boys”. He died in 1987 and was never charged.

Reading the opening address, the counsel assisting the royal commission, Gail Furness, described a number of other Brothers who had abused or who were alleged to have abused while working within religious schools and within Ballarat’s Catholic community.

As I have reported previously, Cardinal Pell is also due to give evidence, though he has been deemed unfit to fly... It seems that such religious educational establishments were ripe picking for such ill-intentioned people.