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Allegations
of Abuse in Institutions |
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A man says former St
John of God brother Bernard Kevin McGrath tricked him into getting into a
coffin and then shut the lid when he was a pupil at Marylands school in
Christchurch. McGrath was dressed in
a long black cloak when he let him out, and he undressed and sexually assaulted
him, the witness told the trial before Justice Lester Chisholm and a jury in
the High Court at Christchurch. He also said that after
he had run away from the school three times, McGrath had kept him in a locked
room for a month. When he was released, no one remarked on his absence from
class. "There was a real
fear factor." The witness was giving
evidence on the fifth day of a three-week trial in which 58-year-old McGrath
denies 53 charges of sexual abuse against 16 complainants who were at the
school in the 1970s. Defence lawyer Raoul
Neave challenged the times in the witness' evidence. His allegations of
sexual offending began a year or more before the Crown said McGrath arrived
at the school, and there was insufficient time for other alleged offending to
have taken place in the months before McGrath's departure, said Mr Neave. The man replied:
"It was only a rough estimate. I don't remember exact times." The witness
acknowledged that he had convictions for dishonesty and was serving a prison
term for burglary. He had been in Lake Alice psychiatric hospital, and other
mental institutions. He denied a suggestion
that he had made his earlier statements after discussions with others about
what had happened at Marylands. He said McGrath had
approached him one day and said he had a job he wanted help with in the
church. He took the boy to a
room under the bell-tower where coffins were stored, and pointed out one that
was half-open. "He said to go in
and clean it, but he shut the lid down on me. I don't know how long I was in
there. When he opened the coffin there was a big smile on his gob and he told
me to get out and get undressed." The witness said he
refused to obey McGrath, who was wearing a black cloak, but he was
"slapped around a bit". He told the court his
pants and underpants were pulled down and he felt pain in his anus. He could
feel the cloak and McGrath's body rubbing against him. The Crown alleges
McGrath indecently assaulted the boy by penetrating his anus with his finger,
his penis, or a cane, a sodomy charge, and a second representative sodomy
charge alleges the act occurred more than once. Cross-examined, the
witness said he had received $95,000 as a goodwill payment from the Catholic
Church. |
