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Allegations
of Abuse in Institutions |
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A Catholic brother on
trial for sexually abusing boys has been cleared of seven charges on the same
day the jury trying him was told details of how he had sexually molested boys
at the same school in the past. Bernard Kevin McGrath,
58, had faced 54 charges of sodomy and indecency with 17 boys at Marylands
school while he was a teacher and dormitory master in the 1970s. He admitted one charge
of indecency at the start of the High Court trial last week and the
prosecution abandoned another seven charges yesterday after several complainants' evidence failed to support
the charges and, in one case, the complainant did not give evidence. However, the jury was
also told McGrath, a member of the St John of God order, was jailed in 1993
on 10 indecency charges relating to boys aged 16 and under. The charges included
sexually abusing two Marylands boys in the mid-1970s, the same era of the
charges for which he is now on trial, as well sexually abusing four others in
the 1990s. Prosecutor Chris Lange
and McGrath and his lawyer, Raoul Neave, had agreed for the summary of facts
from the 1993 charges to be read to the court. Lange said one boy was
eight years old when he went to Marylands in 1974 and put in McGrath's dorm. "One night between
January and the end of February, McGrath woke (the boy) up and got him to
stand in the hallway of the dormitory. He then offered the complainant
lollies if he followed him into his bedroom,” he said. “In the bedroom,
McGrath told the complainant what he was going to do was OK and he was not
going to hurt him." Lange outlined
indecencies carried out by McGrath on the boy who was sent back to his
dormitory with the warning to tell nobody of what had happened or he would be
in serious trouble. Similar abuse happened
at Easter that year when McGrath took the boy to his bedroom and again in the
middle of 1976, when McGrath took 24 boys to a bach at Waikuku for the
weekend. "The boys stayed
in two dormitories at the rear of the bach but the complainant was instructed
to share a room with McGrath at the bach. During that night, McGrath came
over to the complainant's bed," Lange said. The boy began to cry
during the indecencies that followed. Another boy, aged 13
when he was sent to Marylands in the mid-1970s, had only been at the school
for a short time when he was told to go to McGrath's room. It was the first
of numerous occasions when he would be sexually molested by McGrath. The
abuse ended only when McGrath left the school to return to Australia. The four other boys
molested by McGrath had attended residential life skills courses run by him
in Christchurch in the early 1990s. All said they had been touched indecently
by him. "McGrath was
spoken to by the police in December 1993 and in explanation stated he was
sorry for the concern caused to the complainants and admitted the facts as
outlined," Lange said. The summary
stated that McGrath was
"undergoing treatment" for a year. Neave told the jury at
the start of the trial last week that the previous sexual offending against
young boys was admitted. However he claimed McGrath had admitted the full
extent of his offending and was not guilty of the charges he now faces. The trial continues
today. |
