The Vincentian Order C.M

 

ST STANISLAUS COLLEGE BOYS'

boarding school in Bathurst, central-west New South Wales.

Refereed to as 'Pedophile Paradise'

 

This school has become notorious because of the number of convicted pedophile clergy. In 2019 the charges continue. The Vincentians have over 280 charities across the world. Known as the VinFam (Vincentian Family).

 

Vincentian Pedophiles and the College. What has been proven so far.

 

-Father James Patrick Jennings - 1959-1962 began his priestly career, ministering at St Stanislaus College in Bathurst, New South Wales, followed by a church school in northern Victoria in 1963-68 and a parish in Queensland in the 1970s. Half a century later, on 30 April 2014, aged 81, he was jailed for child-sex crimes committed at the Victorian school in the 1960s.

 

The Victorian school was St Vincent's College, which was then situated at Bendigo, north of Melbourne.  Both the Bathurst school and the Bendigo boarding schools, for boys only, owned by the Catholic order of Vincentian Fathers (this order is officially known as the Congregation of the Mission).

 

From 1963 onwards Jennings certainly committed child-sex crimes at the Bendigo school, for which he was jailed in Victoria in 2014.

 

In 1968, after he had been molesting children at the Bendigo school for five years, the Vincentians took steps to protect Jennings and the Vincentians' public image.

Despite the Bendigo offences, the Vincentians kept him in their Order. They merely transferred him back to St Stanislaus College in Bathurst, NSW. After a while, according to court documents, he was transferred away from St Stanislaus College again "because of an undue familiarity problem with one of the students".

 

 

In 1973-76, Rev. James P. Jennings was listed at the "Guardian Angels" parish at Southport parish on the Gold Coast in Queensland.

 

-Father Murray Joseph Wilson - In 1970s, Peter was a student at St Vincent's College, Bendigo, in central Victoria, which was conducted by the Vincentian Fathers. The teachers included priests and religious brothers, as well as lay teachers. St Vincent's College was later taken over by the Marist Brothers and merged with a girls' school to become Bendigo Catholic College.

 

The Catholic order of Vincentian Fathers has finally apologised to a Victorian man ("Peter"), who was raped by a priest (Father Murray Joseph Wilson) in the 1970s when Peter was 13. This was a crime and Wilson was risking jail but, as so often happens in church-abuse cases, Wilson knew that the church culture would intimidate his victims into remaining silent. In 1979, Wilson died mysteriously at the age of 44 before any of his victims felt able to report Wilson's crimes to the police.

 

Peter's parents were friendly with the priests and brothers at the school. Father Murray Wilson, who did not teach Peter's class but was in charge of "discipline". Wilson's role was to punish students, including with a strap.

 

Father Wilson asked Peter's parents if he could take the boy to Sydney by train to visit Wilson's mother during the Easter break. Peter's parents were delighted. They trusted Wilson "because he was a Catholic priest".

 

Peter says that, in Sydney, he and Father Wilson stayed at the home of Wilson's parents. On Easter Sunday, Father Wilson took Peter to Mass in a big church. That night, at the home of Wilson's parents, Wilson raped Peter. There was nothing that Peter could do about this because Wilson was in charge of the boy. It was not possible to run away, and there was nobody to whom Peter could complain (he certainly could not tell the priest's mother).

The victim was intimidated into silence

Even when Peter and the priest returned to Victoria, reporting the crime was not an option. Peter was aware that, in the Catholic culture in the 1970s, there was a total prohibition on saying anything negative about the clergy — especially within his own family.

 

When Peter and Wilson arrived back in Victoria by train, Peter's father met the pair at the railway station to take them home by car. In the car, Peter's father was very cordial with the priest, unaware of the ordeal that the boy had suffered at the hands of Wilson.

 

 

Peter now says: "If only my father knew what Wilson was really like! Of course, he would not have believed that it was possible for a priest to do such a thing. I couldn't tell my father about the rape because I didn't get along well with him.

"I could not tell my mother either, because, if Dad found out later, he would object that I had told her and not him. I couldn't tell any of my friends because that would not be good for a 13-year-old's image."

 

If Peter had been raped by a stranger in a public park, he could have called for help — and police could have pursued the criminal. But the involvement of a Catholic priest meant that a Catholic child had to remain silent.

 

Peter believes the he was not Wilson's only victim in Bendigo. Peter says: "Some time after my assault, Father Wilson was caught in his bedroom with a certain boy, whom I knew. This caused a scandal at the school. Some parents removed their sons from the school. Years later, after Wilson had left the school, this ex-student died unexpectedly, reportedly by suicide."

 

After leaving St Vincent's College, Wilson was transferred to New South Wales, where he joined the staff of another Vincentian school -- St Stanislaus College, Bathurst.

 

-William Stanley Irwin - who sexually abused a teenage male to whom he was providing "counselling". Despite this breach of pastoral ethics, the church authorities protected Irwin and later ordained him as a priest. The victim eventually contacted the police. Finally, in 2011, Irwin was convicted by a Sydney jury and was sentenced. Irwin was a member of the Vincentian religious order of priests and brothers. The abuse occurred at St Stanislaus College boys' boarding school, in Bathurst, New South Wales.

 

During Irwin's court hearings in 2009-2011, it emerged that:

 

• In the year of the abuse (1986), Brother Irwin was officially a church "youth counsellor" and was providing "counselling" to this Melbourne teenager — that is, a supposedly pastoral relationship.

• The teenager's parents trusted Brother Irwin to take their son (then aged 17) on a road trip from Melbourne to New South Wales and return. That is, the victim was in Irwin's custody. During the trip, Irwin sexually abused the teenager.

• After the teenager's parents complained to the church authorities about the abuse (and the breach of trust), Brother Irwin admitted his guilt. The church authorities then assured the parents that Brother Irwin would not be allowed to work with youngsters again. Relieved by this promise, the parents did not report Irwin to the police. Thus, the matter was kept quiet. Irwin’s abuse was recorded in a church file marked "".

 

 

• But the promise about Irwin's restricted future was not kept — he was allowed to continue working, unencumbered, as a teacher and "youth counsellor" in Catholic schools and parishes.

• About 1992, the church upgraded Irwin from a religious brother to a priest, making him "Father" Irwin. He was sent to minister as a priest in Western Australia and Queensland but his new congregations were not aware of his previous abuse.

• Irwin's abuse was finally exposed when the Melbourne victim spoke to New South Wales police in 2009, resulting in criminal court charges.

 

On 31 March 2011 a Sydney District Court jury found William Stanley Irwin (aged 55) guilty on two counts of "gross indecency on a male under the age of 18".

 

Irwin was a member of the Catholic order of Vincentian priests and brothers (this order is also known as the Congregation of the Mission).

The offences occurred when Irwin and the Melbourne boy stayed overnight at St Stanislaus College (a boys' boarding school, owned by the Vincentian order) in Bathurst, in New South Wales, during school holidays in 1986. Irwin was a former pupil, and former teacher, at this school.

 

The 1992 yearbook of St Stanislaus College, Bathurst, contains photographs of Father Bill Irwin, CM after his 1986 abuse of the Melbourne boy was reported to the Vincentians.

 

The Vincentians are an Australia-wide order, and "Reverend" William Irwin was later listed as working in other states:

 

• In the 1994 edition of the annual Australian Catholic Directory, found Father William Irwin listed at St Vincent's parish, Kwinana, .

• In the 1995 and 1996 directories, Fr William Irwin was listed at the "Catholic Mission", Oxenford, .

• From about 1996 onwards, Fr William Irwin evidently worked outside the Vincentians — the annual Catholic directories (until 2006) listed Rev. William Irwin as on leave from the Vincentians, care of the Vincentian national office. After 2006, Father Irwin's name was dropped from the Catholic directory.

• When police arrested him in 2009, Irwin was at , Milsons Point, Sydney (a Catholic day school for boys, run by the Jesuits), where he had been a chaplain and teacher since 2003. *Reference below

 

 

- Father Charles Alfred Barnett - the pedophile priest, who was harboured by the Catholic Church for twenty years in Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia and Western Australia. In 2010, some of his South Australian victims finally got him jailed. And in 2018 some more of his South Australian victims got him convicted again.

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• Charlie Barnett was a member of an Australia-wide Catholic religious order, the . That is, he was not a diocesan priest and was not confined to working in one particular region.

• His New South Wales activities included visits to boarding school in Bathurst, plus time spent living in the presbytery of "Our Lady of the Rosary" parish in St Marys, near Penrith in western Sydney, where was the parish priest.

• Barnett made visits to the Kwinana parish in Perth, Western Australia. And he is also believed to have spent time in , Victoria.

 

A resident of Bathurst, in central-west New South Wales, says that, in the 1970s and '80s, Fr Charles Barnett used to visit (and have extensive stay-overs at) Bathurst's St Stanislaus College, which was staffed by Barnett's religious order, the Vincentian Fathers. Priests lived on the school premises. The judge told Barnett: "You knew what you were doing was legally and morally wrong, not the least because you were a Catholic priest."

 

The judge took into consideration Barnett’s guilty plea and the time that he had spent in custody in Indonesia.

 

Man at the centre of an unholy scandal

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He was the Superior at St Stanislaus College, Bathurst (that is, the leader) of the Vincentian clergy living at this school.

 

-Father Brian Spillane - In the 1960s, he began training towards a career in the Catholic priesthood. In 2019, he is in jail in New South Wales for sexual crimes which he committed against boys (and also some girls) during his religious career.

 

While he is in jail, police have investigated some additional allegations about Spillane. Now, in 2019 (aged 75), he is awaiting another court appearance, where he is to be charged with having raped a ten-year-old boy in Sydney in 1964.

 

The new case involves one offence of buggery allegedly committed against the ten-year-old boy in a public toilet.

 

Vincentian priests and brothers were living in bedrooms on the St Stanislaus College premises. From 1984 to 1991, where the NSW Police also used the College for accommodation purposes during bike race weekends at Bathurst. Spillane was again at St Stanislaus College as the school chaplain. He was the Superior (that is, the leader) of the Vincentian clergy living at this school.

 

 

Spillane's legal costs (to 2016) are estimated to have exceeded a million dollars. It would be interesting to find out where these dollars came from. Did the defence funds include money placed on the collection plate in parishes? Or from school fees paid by parents? Did a friendly bishop or archbishop make a contribution from diocesan funds?

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Spillane's legal team tried to obstruct, or delay, the process. For legal reasons, the boys were eventually divided into several groups, with each group being handled by a different jury. These trials were to be held one-at-a-time.

 

In Sydney in November 2010, a New South Wales District Court jury found Brian Joseph Spillane (then aged 67) guilty of indecently assaulting three girls aged between six and seventeen.

 

The jury convicted Spillane on nine counts of indecent assault against three girls.

 

The alleged events occurred in the 1970s and early 1980s in various circumstances:

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• Some of the offences against girls allegedly occurred when Spillane visited a family in a rural area in north-western New South Wales. Spillane had become acquainted with this family as a result of his work in Bathurst.

• Other offences against girls allegedly occurred while Spillane was working (in 1979 onwards) from a Vincentian base in Marsfield, a Sydney suburb. He became the leader of a group of Vincentian priests and brothers at Marsfield and he also carried out duties in the local Catholic parish (which was staffed by Vincentians) and at the local parish primary school.

 

The court was told that Spillane gained access to children through his role as a Catholic priest. The prosecutor, Brad Hughes, told the court that Spillane "would not have been within a bull's roar of these girls if he hadn't been a priest."

 

The court was told that, while hearing Confession of children in his parish, Spillane would invite children as young as eight to sit on his lap. Spillane told the court that this “was my pastoral approach to break down the barrier between the fearful God and the loving God."

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Attempt to stop the proceedings

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Meanwhile, in 2010, Spillane's legal team raised certain objections regarding the proposed sentence proceedings (involving the female victims) and also regarding subsequent proposed court proceedings (involving a number of male victims).

 

These objections needed be debated at length in the courts, including the New South Wales Court of Appeal, and this caused a delay in the proceedings.

Finally, in early April 2012, the NSW Court of Appeal cleared the way for the Brian Joseph Spillane proceedings to resume.

 

On 19 April 2012, after Spillane had been in custody for 17 months, Judge Michael Finnane sentenced him in the Sydney District Court regarding the female victims.

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In his sentencing remarks, the judge called each assault "serious, planned and callous". He said Spillane's position as a priest and his "standing in the community" allowed him to gain access to the homes of his victims, many of whom came from devout Catholic families.

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Some of the offences occurred when Spillane was alone with his victims in their bedrooms for night-time prayers. One happened in a car after he had said Mass at a memorial service.

 

"He was very trusted and the parents of each of the victims readily gave him access to their daughters because of that trust and the esteem in which he was held," Judge Finnane said.

 

"The victims in this trial were all girls to whom he got access when he was conducting parish missions or ... when he was visiting a country town.

"It was sexual abuse carried out by a trusted priest and was a major breach of trust."

 

The judge said Spillane had shown no remorse and no contrition for his offending "which means that there can be little hope of rehabilitation".

 

The cases regarding St Stanislaus College were held between 2013 and 2016, using separate juries (hence the need for a non-publication order during these trials, so that the cases would not be jeopardized by the media).

The boys' cases resulted as follows:

 

• After a trial in 2013, Spillane was convicted of assaults on five St Stanislaus College boys.

• In 2015 he pleaded guilty to assaults on four St Stanislaus boys, committed in the late 1980s.

• During 2016, he was convicted of assaults on five St Stanislaus boys, committed between 1974 and 1990.

• In early December 2016, a jury found him guilty of 11 charges, including sexual assault, indecent assault and buggery on four St Stanislaus boys between 1976 and 1988. He was acquitted of one charge of buggery.

 

The media-suppression order was finally lifted on 5 December 2016 after the final St Stanislaus trial was finished. Spillane was already in jail, still serving his sentence for his crimes against the girls.

 

On 3 February 2017, Judge Robyn Tupman held a pre-sentence procedure for Spillane regarding the boys. This was an opportunity for any victim to submit an impact statement showing how Spillane's crime (and the church's cover-up) affected this victim's life. The Judge takes these impact statements into account when preparing Spillane's sentence.

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On 16 February 2017, Judge Tupman sentenced Spillane to at least nine years in jail (with a maximum of 13 years) for 16 offences (including buggery) against the male victims. As the sentences (for the girls as well as the boys) will run partially concurrently, Spillane's eligible release date has been extended by five years to November 2026.

 

The judge said Spillane abused his position of trust as a teacher and chaplain and "used religious rituals to increase his power over his victims".

 

"Most of the complainants were boarders [at St Stanislaus College], a long way from home and in many cases away from home for the first time," she said.

 

"Many of the complainants didn't realise what was happening was inappropriate, in large part because he was a priest.

 

"They didn't tell anyone for many years. Perhaps more insidiously, they didn't expect to be believed.

 

"He knew that he could act with impunity and there was almost no chance his offending would be revealed."

 

"It is unlikely that there was not one person at St Stanislaus' that had not noticed what this offender had been doing for almost 20 years," Judge Tupman

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A victim speaks out, 2017

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Outside the court, after the sentencing on 16 February 2017, one St Stanislaus College victim (Damien Sheridan) was interviewed by television, radio and newspaper reporters.

 

He authorized the media to publish his name and photograph. Damien also released copies of the typewritten Victim Impact Statement that he had submitted to the court's February 3 pre-sentence hearing.

 

Damen said: "I was a shy, well-mannered boy from a small country town of Forbes with very little wisdom in the ways of how the world works. I was raised a Catholic with strict catholic morals, although no one ever told me to be aware that there are wolves dressed as sheep out there."

 

Damien said that Spillane's abuse (and the church's cover-up) devastated his later development, leaving him with post-traumatic stress disorder.

 

In 2019, Spillane is in jail but police have charged him in 2018 regarding a ten-year-old boy who was allegedly sexually abused by Spillane in a public toilet in Sydney

 

 

-Brother John Francis Gaven - has had a long career working as a Brother in the Catholic order of Vincentian priests and brothers in Australia, including at St Stanislaus College boys' boarding school in Bathurst, New South Wales. In recent years, he has been involved in proceedings in the New South Wales District Court. The court has not yet released the details of those proceedings.

 

A Vincentian website has stated that, after a brief period in Fiji, John Gaven spent the next thirty or so years working with the Vincentians in Bathurst and Adelaide.

 

In Bathurst, he was a member of the support staff at St Stanislaus College, with duties including grounds maintenance and being a dormitory supervisor. He eventually became a senior administrator of the school. He was a rugby referee at St Stanislaus and in the NSW central west for many years. At St Stanislaus College, a rugby refereeing award was named in his honour.

 

In July 2008 (the month of the World Youth Day celebrations, when Pope Benedict visited Sydney) Brother John Gaven was one of six organisers for a Vincentian Fathers' trip to Bathurst with 300 young pilgrims - mainly from the South Pacific - who spent four nights at St Stanislaus College. In its article about Brother John Gaven in 2008, the Vincentian Family website stated: "John has always been passionate about youth".

 

The Catholic order of Vincentian priests knowingly harboured a pedophile priest, Father Hugh Edward Murray, for 50 years while he remained a danger to young boys in schools and parishes around Australia. These boys were forced, by the church's holy image, to remain silent for many years -- and this silence disrupted their later lives. In recent years (with help from Broken Rites), some of Murray's victims have finally extracted settlements from the Vincentian Order to compensate them for their damaged lives. Compared with other Catholic religious’ orders in Australia, the Vincentian priests and brothers have included a higher-than-average number of offenders against children.

 

Father Murray's schools included the notorious St Stanislaus College at Bathurst, New South Wales. Father Hugh Murray ministered at various Vincentian addresses, mainly in Sydney (at Eastwood and Marsfield). He also spent time in Bathurst, ministering at St Stanislaus College (a boys' boarding school, which was a haven for paedophiles). His other appointments were in Victoria (at Bendigo and Malvern) and in Western Australia (at a parish in Medina, Perth)

 

 

-Father Guy Hartcher - A former Australian Catholic bishop has confirmed that he appointed a priest (Father Guy Hartcher) to administer a parish after the church had paid a $40,000 settlement involving the priest. The payout went to a former pupil on condition that he not tell the police about the alleged abuse.

Bishop Michael Malone, who was the head of the Maitland-Newcastle diocese in New South Wales until he retired in 2011, has played a prominent role in supervising the Australian church's professional standards. In the late 1990s, he became a member of the church's National Committee on Professional Standards (that is, sexual abuse). So it is interesting to see how Bishop Malone, with his special interest in professional standards, managed professional standards in his own diocese.

 

In 1999, Bishop Malone appointed Father Guy Hartcher, then aged 52, to be in charge of two parishes, Gresford and Dungog, in rural areas north-west of the city of Newcastle.

 

• In 1994 the Vincentian Fathers signed a financial settlement with a former pupil of St Stanislaus College

 

-Father Kevin Francis Phillips - was sentenced to jail in Sydney for sexually abusing a 16-year-old boy at St Stanislaus College boys' boarding school at Bathurst in central-west New South Wales. Father Kevin Phillips, 60, had pleaded guilty on 3 December 2010 to four counts of gross indecency with a child under the age of 18. Father Phillips spent a few months as assistant chaplain at St Stanislaus College. The court was told that Father Phillips began to invite students to his room to drink and smoke. Phillips disappeared from the school in November1990 after complaints were made to another teacher about Phillips's behaviour.

 

The court was told that a notice put up at the school said that Father Phillips had "left to take care of his seriously ill mother" and would not return.

At the time of his arrest in 2009, Phillips was in charge of several parishes in Mackay (within the Rockhampton diocese), central Queensland.

 

When the Kevin Francis Phillips case first came up for mention in a Sydney magistrate's court on 5 May 2009, his lawyer indicated that Fr Phillips would contest the allegations. The eventual guilty plea meant that his case did not need to go to a jury trial. A judge merely had to conduct the sentencing proceedings. In the 1980s, Phillips was listed in the Catholic directories as "Rev. Kevin Phillips, CM", identifying him as a member of the Congregation of the Mission (the Vincentians).

 

 

-Father Dominic Phillips - complaints made of a senior Catholic priest from the Vincentian Fathers religious order.

Phillips worked in several Australian parishes that were staffed by the Vincentian order.

He also taught trainee priests at seminaries in Australia and New Zealand.

 

-Father Glenn Humphreys - a priest in the Australia-wide Catholic order of Vincentian Fathers, has had a long career ministering in three Australian states. From the outset, at his first postings in New South Wales and Western Australia, Humphreys committed sexual offences against boys. He later became the priest in charge of the Townsville cathedral in North Queensland. Eventually some of his earlier victims spoke to police, resulting in Humphreys being convicted in two states: in 2014 he was jailed in Western Australia; and on 21 June 2018 he was jailed in New South Wales.

His NSW case includes offences committed at St Stanislaus College, a boys' boarding school in Bathurst.

 

Father Humphreys was listed as teaching here in the late 1970s.

 

• : Broken Rites has found that Rev. G. Humphreys has been listed at various times at the Vincentian Community in Eastwood, as well as St Anthony's parish in Marsfield and St Vincent's parish in Ashfield.

• WESTERN AUSTRALIA: In 1983, Humphreys moved to a Vincentian Fathers parish (called St Vincent's) in Kwinana, Perth.

• : In 2002 Father Humphreys went on loan from the Vincentian order to the Townsville diocese in north Queensland. The Vincentian national headquarters in Sydney provided a Letter of Clearance to Townsville Bishop Michael Putney, claiming that Father Humphreys was clear of complaints about behaviour. After a short stay at Kirwin parish (in a suburb of the city of Townsville), he was appointed to the Sacred Heart Cathedral parish in Townsville, where he became the administrator, running the cathedral parish on behalf of the bishop.

 

-Richard John McPhillamy - has been a prominent layman in Catholic Church affairs in the diocese of Bathurst, in central-west New South Wales. He was formerly listed as an "acolyte", assisting in various matters at Bathurst's Cathedral of St Michael and St John. Also, he worked as an assistant dormitory master at St Stanislaus College — a Bathurst boarding school for boys. In 2011 he was jailed for committing sexual crimes against two of the boys who were under his control. In February 2015 he was convicted again regarding a third boy. On another occasion, when the boy fell asleep during a massage, he woke to find his penis being sucked by McPhillamy. The boy jumped up and left the room, and thereafter he avoided McPhillamy. The court heard that when police searched McPhillamy's home in December 2008, they found photographs of the two victims.

 

 

On McPhillamy's computer, the police found four images of child pornography. The prosecution argued that these images indicated McPhillamy's sexual interest in young boys.

 

For sentencing purposes in 2011, the court dealt with the six charges in two batches

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Ex-priest acquitted of charges regarding St Stanislaus College, Bathurst, NSW

In Sydney's Downing Centre District Court on 4 March 2016, a former Catholic priest (now aged 73) was acquitted on charges of indecently assaulting a male student. The alleged victim was a student at St Stanislaus College boys' school in Bathurst, New South Wales, in the 1970s. The defence lawyer has obtained a court order, prohibiting the publication of the ex-priest's name

 

-Stephen Joseph Wade - Teacher from St Stanislaus College. Wade served 15 months for his own sex attack on a then Year 7 student in 1986,

A convicted paedophile, from St Stanislaus College. Wade is assisting police with an investigation into a child sex ring at the school.

 

-Peter John Ryan - was the 11th man to be charged over a series of sexual assaults committed at Saint Stanislaus College and All Saints College, both in Bathurst. Peter John Ryan, 71, arrived with his wife to face Burwood Local Court after being arrested and granted bail in January on 10 charges of aggravated indecent assault.  He has faced a Sydney court after being arrested as part of a six-year investigation into an alleged pedophile ring at two New South Wales boarding schools.

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-Hugh Edward Murray OAM, a former priest awarded an Order of Australia medal in 1994 for service to people living with HIV/AIDS and their families, Murray was teaching at the St Stanislaus college in 1978. He faces one charge of assaulting a young male that year. Another charge relates to assaulting a young male at Ryde a decade earlier. Three further charges relate to another young male he is accused of assaulting between 1967 and 1972. The case came up in the Sydney District Court in September 2010. Murray's lawyer told Judge Greg Woods that Murray, then aged 81, was suffering from serious health problems and dementia. The lawyer claimed that, therefore, Murray was unfit to stand trial. A medical witness, appearing for the defence, said that because of the dementia, Murray's "capacity to give evidence under the stress of cross examination about matters from several decades ago ... would be deemed to be seriously compromised."

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The defence doctor said: "To ask Father Murray about events that had occurred previously is, in terms of my view ... entirely inappropriate."

 

 

On 9 September 2010 Judge Greg Woods concluded that Hugh Edward Murray was unfit to face the proposed trial, which would have been a lengthy one. The Crown case involved three separate cases and it was proposed to call evidence from possible "tendency and coincidence" witnesses.

 

"The possible Crown witnesses alone may total 43," the judge said. The trial could run from one to three months.

 

While Murray may be fit to appear for a quite short trial, the judge concluded he was unfit for the proposed hearing, even if the court sat for only an hour or two each day.

 

"Let me make plain my view that this is a regrettable and frustrating outcome," Judge Woods said. "It is, nonetheless, an outcome which the evidence and the law requires."

 

While it was not his role to explore how or why the claims were not raised decades earlier, Justice Woods noted material showing the "numerous transfers and movements" of Murray during his career.

 

"I emphasise, however, that nothing in this judgement is a criticism of the complainants in relation to the long delay," he said.

 

But the judge spoke of the possibility that the Catholic Church and "those who have directed Father Murray's movements over the years" may bear some responsibility for this "frustrating impasse".

 

Nonetheless, said the judge. the fact was that "at this point, the opportunity to conduct a fair trial of these allegations has passed".

 

Finally, on 29 July 2011 (by which time Murray was a year older), Judge Greg Woods granted Hugh Edward Murray a permanent stay (that is, a permanent stoppage of the case) on account of his age and health.

The process to have his OAM removed was ignored.

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Phillip Hopson, John Power, James Keane and John Frederiksen have signed a letter to Governor General Quentin Bryce saying their lives had been destroyed by the alleged abuse.

“We therefore ask that Murray be stripped of this award as he is an unworthy recipient,” the letter says.

“Australians hold recipients of this prestigious award in high regard.

“For a person who is a perpetrator of evil to hold this honourable award is abhorrent to the Australian psyche and trivialises the honour to those worthy to hold it.”

The Governor General’s office confirmed they had received the letter and took the issues raised very seriously, but would not comment further.

A spokesperson said “further correspondence will be entered into with the concerned parties”

 

An official investigation into Bathurst and the Institutions in Bathurst has yet to be announced.

 

- Brother Peter Dwyer ‘The President’ and old boy, Dwyer returned to the college as a Vincentian brother to teach music in about 1972. By the end of the decade he was the school’s headmaster.

Known as “The President of the College”. He faced a dozen charges of abuse, most with a 13-year old boy in 1982. Police allege Dwyer “fondled and masturbated” the boy’s penis and had intercourse with him without consent. After leaving the college in 1992, Dwyer worked at the main Catholic seminary in Sydney and became a priest with a parish in Armidale. One witness alleged Spillane took part with him in anal intercourse and ''group rape''.

 

However, when he reported it to the school's then priest and college president, Peter Dwyer, he was sent for a psychiatric assessment at Rivendell, an adolescent mental health ward attached to Concord Hospital, the court heard. With all this been said and there is evidence suggesting that he knew what was going on in the College at the time of President of the College. Mistrial.

 

-Father Phil Robson ‘Dean of Discipline’ Fr Robson, the master of discipline and a member of the school’s board, Robson was charged with five counts of sexual abuse of a 15-year-old boy in the last months of 1991. When arrested he was living in a Vincentian home for retired and semi-retired priests in Sydney.

 

Philip John Robson has been cleared of five sex offence charges dating back to 1991. Mistrail.

 

- Catholic Bathurst The first public reference to “Catholic Bathurst” was from the now deceased, the honourable local court magistrate Tom Hodgson who for the first time in his 25-year history asked to be excused from sitting on the bench for the Stannies trials as the “Catholic Bathurst was all too powerful”.

 

I believe it was the first time in legal history in Australia that a magistrate asked to be excused for religious reasons, as a fear of the power of the Catholic Church in Bathurst and government, ‘Catholic Bathurst’, ‘Catholic Government’.

 

 

This is just one of the colleges in Bathurst.

There have been convictions of pedophilia at Scots College and All Saints College, Bathurst.

 

-SCOTS COLLEGE, BATHURST - Former housemaster and teacher Raymond John Woods was convicted of 21 offenses he committed at The Scots School in Bathurst between 1983 and 1989.  

Judge slams The Scots School for failing to sack pedophile teacher Raymond John Woods and for ‘glowing reference’ - Judge Toner said that an expert had described Woods as a pedophile.

 

The victim’s lawyer, Jason Parkinson, said: “The school gave this pedophile a green light to molest children”.

 

-ALL SAINTS COLLEGE, BATHURST also have had sexual abuse claims and convictions against children in there care as well

 

Senior Police believe the 10nyear ‘probe’ into the Catholic boys’ school is the biggest child sexual abuse of an Institution in Australian

 

 

*Reference

 

Jesuit priests and brothers operate some of Australia's most prominent schools, with famous ex-students such as former prime minister Tony Abbott who trained with the Jesuits from 84-87. After Brother Victor Higgs committed sexual offences against boys at one of these schools (St Ignatius College, Adelaide), the Jesuits kept Brother Higgs as a member of the Jesuit Order and moved him to their famous Sydney school (St Ignatius College Riverview), thus putting Sydney boys in danger. One of the Adelaide victims finally reported Brother Higgs to the South Australian police and, in 2016, Higgs was jailed for some of his Adelaide offences. In November 2018 a Sydney court jailed Higgs (aged 81) for seven and a half years for sexual offences at the Sydney school. Since then, Broken Rites has learned that Brother Higgs later worked at the Jesuits' elite Melbourne school, Xavier College, where the Jesuits used him as a "spiritual director" (wink-wink) of young boys and as a boarding-house supervisor.

 

Sydney's St Ignatius Riverview has a long list of well-known ex-students who have gone on to carve out distinguished careers in politics, law and professional sport. Apart from former Prime Minister Tony Abbott, other Riverview students include federal minister for agriculture Barnaby Joyce and former NSW Premier Nick Greiner. Others include Chief Justice Tom Bathurst of the Supreme Court of New South Wales and an Australian Test fast bowler.

 

 

Likewise, St Ignatius College Adelaide has some famous ex-students, including former federal Coalition leader Brendan Nelson and federal Coalition minister Christopher Pyne.

Former students of Xavier College Melbourne include federal politician Bill Shorten.

 

The Jesuits were finding it wise to pay compensation to victims of Higgs. Each victim was given the impression that the payment would require the victim to keep the matter confidential. These settlements were expected to protect the public image (and the assets) of the Jesuits. Each settlement was a modest amount of money — much less than a victim would achieve if he sued the Jesuits but an agreed settlement was much easier than suing.

In 2001, when Brother Higgs was in his mid-sixties, the Jesuits arranged for him to retire from his Jesuit duties. This retirement would help to protect the image and assets of the Jesuits.

 

However, eventually an Adelaide victim spoke to the South Australian Police (instead of merely speaking to Higgs's colleagues in the Jesuit Order) about Higgs's crimes. And Sydney victims began speaking to the New South Wales Police. Thus, the public finally learned about Higgs' career of crime and about the church's culture of cover-up.

In a Sydney local court in early-2017, NSW Police filed charges against Victor Higgs (then aged 79) for indecently assaulting a number of children during his time at Sydney's St Ignatius College Riverview in the 1970s. This first court-mention was a brief preliminary procedure, with a magistrate, to enable the charges to go on the waiting-list for the next steps in the judicial procedure.

 

Eventually, in Sydney's Downing Centre District Court in 2018, Higgs faced 16 charges of indecent assault committed against six teenage students at St Ignatius Riverview. Higgs pleaded not guilty, thus necessitating a jury trial.

 

The court was told that Higgs would summon boys into his office, or a bedroom, or other private locations at the school and at a beach house at Gerroa on the New South Wales south coast. At those locations he would make them strip and perform sexual acts.On 9 October 2018, the jury returned a verdict of guilty on all the charges.

 

 

- Jesuit, member of the Society of Jesus (S.J.), a Roman Catholic order of religious men founded by St. Ignatius of Loyola, a Spanish soldier turned priest, in August 1534. The first Jesuits–Ignatius and six of his students–took vows of poverty and chastity and made plans to work for the conversion of Muslims.

 

 

- Vincentian, also called Lazarist, member of Congregation of the Mission (C.M.), a Roman Catholic society of priests and brothers founded at Paris in 1625 by St. Vincent de Paul for the purpose of preaching missions to the poor country people and training young men in seminaries for the priesthood.

They are popularly known as Vincentians, Paules, Lazarites, Lazarists, or Lazarians.

 

Some of the most horrifying, disgusting and disturbing things involving the Vincentians and the College is people know about it. Reports go back to early 90’s of the Vincentian pedophiles and the danger children were in but it was concealed, covered up and the priests were just moved to another parish to continue the sexual folly on trusting children.

 

Parents paid for their children to be sexually abused and for the pleasure of the Vincentian Order. The Government knows about Bathurst. The Royal Commission know. Police Know. Media Know. Everyone knows but no one will do anything about.

Was the magistrate Tom Hodgson who for the first time in his 25-year history asked to be excused from sitting on the bench for the Stannies trials as the “Catholic Bathurst was all too powerful” right? It seems to be.

 

The Government are also responsible for not holding these institutions accountable. They have given them more time to liquidate their assets and therefore enter redress scheme broke, really any good business would do the same. This one is also tax free.

The banking Royal Commission has had more of an impact the Royal Commission into Institutional child sex abuse.

You can comfortably say now that the Government supports the Church and its appalling behaviour of the clergy.

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