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Allegations
of Abuse in Institutions |
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Memories about being
sexually abused by Catholic brothers only came back for one man after he read
about similar allegations in a newspaper, a High Court jury in Christchurch
has been told. The man says he was
aged under eight when he was sodomised once by Bernard Kevin McGrath, a Catholic
brother at Marylands boarding school for troubled boys in the 1970s. But in the witness box
at McGrath's trial yesterday, the man came up with new claims of being
sexually molested by McGrath on trips away from the school and that he was
molested by another Catholic brother. Quizzed by McGrath's
lawyer, Raoul Neave, on the new allegations, he said the first only emerged
after the newspaper article and others only surfaced in the past few months
while undergoing counselling. McGrath, 58, denies 53
charges of sodomy and indecency involving 16 boys who had been at the school
during his time as a dormitory master and teacher in the mid-1970s. In a police interview,
he denied the boy and his brother, another complainant, had been among his
victims, saying he "wasn't attracted to them because they were small
kids and he preferred them bigger than that". McGrath pleaded guilty
at the start of the trial to a representative charge of indecency against a
17th boy and the jury has been told he had been jailed for sexually molesting
boys at the school. In the witness box
yesterday, the man broke down and cried as he recalled being pushed by
McGrath into a bedroom, forced onto the bed, stripped naked, and sodomised. The court had to take
an adjournment while he regained his composure. "I just remember
the abuse. I was really astonished and it really hurt me," he said. "I just wanted to
get out of there. I felt hopeless, like there was nothing I could do. I was
told not to tell anyone. If I told, he'd come after me." He said he told his
mother that he did not want to go back to Marylands but did not explain the
reason. Later he turned his
back on his mother and brother and tried to put the alleged abuse behind him
so he could get on with his life. However, he raised the
abuse with a church worker and later contacted the police after being shown a
newspaper article about the allegations at Marylands. Neave said the first
time the man had raised the issue of being pushed into McGrath's bedroom was
in court and not in his original police statement. He said he told police
he was pushed, although he accepted it was not in his statement. "I can't read and
write properly. I tried to explain it as best I could," the man added. The trial continues
today. |
