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Accusations of Abuse in Institutions

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The Press
May 24, 2003

Ex-brother appears in court on sex charge
by David Clarkson

A former brother at St John of God's Marylands school has appeared in court charged with sodomy.

The arrest of Bernard McGrath was the first in the police operation investigating brothers and staff at the Halswell residential school.

Bernard McGrath, whose 56th birthday was on Thursday -- the day he was arrested -- appeared in the Christchurch District Court yesterday and was remanded without plea for a fortnight.

Defence counsel Nigel Hampton, QC, did not seek suppression of McGrath's name at the appearance before Judge John Bisphan.

The charge alleges he sodomised a boy aged under 16 years, over a six-year period from January 1972 to May 1978. He was granted bail, but at the request of the police a series of stringent conditions were imposed.

The arrest is part of a police investigation, Operation Authority, into alleged sexual offending at Marylands between 1955 and 1984 by brothers of the Order of St John of God. The school in Halswell catered for boys with learning or intellectual disabilities and closed in 1984.

Police said yesterday that much inquiry work still had to be completed.

The police have received complaints from 75 former residents who have accused 14 brothers and a nightwatchman of abuse over several decades from the late 1950s.

The St John of God Order has offered $4 million to 56 of the complainants in payouts ranging from about $30,000 to $100,000. Nearly 95 per cent of the complainants have accepted.

McGrath, who grew up in Christchurch and has been living with his brother in Cashmere, taught at Marylands in the 1970s, leaving in the late 1970s to work in a residential school in Sydney.

In 1986 McGrath returned to Christchurch, having been invited by the late Catholic Bishop Denis Hanrahan to set up a programme teaching life skills to street kids on the margins of society. McGrath has not been a member of the order since 1993.

Brother Peter Burke, the Australasian head of the St John of God Order, said he knew of McGrath's arrest. He said the "process of engagement with complainants that he was conducting independently of any criminal inquiries" would continue.

The order was continuing to co- operate with the police.

An "open and transparent protocol" had been developed to deal with complaints about Marylands. It provided professional counselling and support services at the order's expense, he said.

"So far, pastoral offers have been made to more than 50 of the complainants. Very soon, once I've had the opportunity to meet with them again, pastoral offers will be made to the remainder (about 20 men)," Brother Burke said.

Patrick (not his real name), whose revelations to The Press sparked the police inquiry last year, said it was good to see the police achieving results.

"People should be able to feel safe with priests," he said. "I can't even drive past a church without feeling scared now."

The manager of the Male Survivors of Sexual Abuse Trust, Ken Clearwater, said last night that the victims of the abuse by brothers and staff at Marylands felt relief and trepidation on hearing of Bernard McGrath's arrest.

"The men are nervous about having to re-live their awful pasts through the courts," he said.

Mr Clearwater said he had also paid a price on a personal level: "It has been a year of battling. The mental and financial cost has been huge."

McGrath's bail conditions mean he must stay at an address in Cashmere and he must report to Christchurch Central Police Station three times a week.

He has had to surrender his passport and he must have no contact with former pupils of Marylands, nor any victims. He must have no association with anyone under the age of 16.