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Allegations
of Abuse in Institutions |
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By John Henzell The trial of former
Catholic brother Bernard Kevin McGrath on historic child-sex charges has been
adjourned for a second time because he has become ill. Justice Chisholm told
the High Court jury in Christchurch yesterday afternoon that McGrath, 58, had
sought medical help. The trial lost a day last week because of McGrath's ill
health. Before the adjournment,
the jury had heard the end of a videotaped police interview in which McGrath
admitted he sexually abused boys at the school in the 1970s but denied he was
a paedophile. "I'm not sexually
attracted to prepubescent people, which is a paedophile," he told
detectives. "I found I was
attracted to the female body and the smooth male body." McGrath admitted
fondling boys over their clothes in class and accepted it was risky
behaviour. "I can't explain
that. I'm sick, I suppose." He denied claims that
he sexually abused two brothers who were in his dorm, adding: "I
wouldn't have been sexually attracted to them. No inclination at all. Because
they were pretty small kids." Detective Sean Buckley
asked: "So you preferred them bigger than that?" McGrath: "I did,
yep." McGrath also denied
molesting another boy but accepted that "down the track, he could have
become a victim of mine because I felt sorry for him". The boy, now aged 39,
has claimed McGrath repeatedly sodomised him and subjected him to indecencies,
but McGrath denies the abuse on any of the children ever went beyond indecent
touching. Buckley: "Is it
possible you touched them and you can't remember it?" McGrath: "That's
the dilemma." He later disputed that
there was abuse he could not recall and was adamant it did not extend to oral
and anal sex, saying he was physically incapable of doing so. "I'm not in
denial. Please believe me," McGrath added. "I'm not saying
it's made up by (the boys). All I can say it that's not one of my sins. As God
Almighty is my judge, I'm prepared to go to my grave tonight and face that.
I'm not minimalising it, I'm not." McGrath said that since
leaving the school in 1977, he has prayed for the sexual-abuse victims at the
school – including his, those abused by four other Catholic brothers he
identified, and by fellow pupils. The trial is
tentatively scheduled to continue today, depending on McGrath's health |
