No Public Apology for Abuse, Inquiry Hears

The Sky News
December 17, 2013

http://www.skynews.com.au/local/article.aspx?id=934958

 

The Marist Brothers did not want to make a public apology to a victim of sex abuse because it would affect people at the Queensland school where the abuser had worked, a national inquiry into child sex abuse has heard.

Brother Michael Hill, the former head of the Marist Brothers in NSW, Queensland and the ACT, denied at the inquiry on Tuesday he tried to protect the order over the needs of a man whose life had been shattered by the abuse.

He apologised for his handling of the complaint against Brother Raymond Foster, who molested a 13-year-old boy in the 1970s.

In a letter to the principal of the North Queensland school in late 2000 he said the complainant, identified as DG, was seeking a public apology.

'I will instruct our solicitor to negotiate as best I can to keep it all out of the public eye,' he wrote.

Brother Hill told the inquiry, 'I was trying to reduce whatever impact on the innocent people at the college'.

'I was wrong,' he said.

'I would not in any way claim my handling was ideal ... I unreservedly apologise to DG for that'.

The commission was told on Monday that Brother Foster killed himself in 1999 on the morning he was to be extradited from NSW to face child abuse charges in Queensland.

He had been working at St Joseph's College at Hunter's Hill in Sydney and was stood down after police began their investigation in 1994.

He left a suicide note admitting guilt and asking forgiveness.

Brother Hill had the note and never passed it on.

On Tuesday, Brother Hill told the commission he did not mention the note during his sole meeting with DG because it was not appropriate for the first meeting with a victim.

Brother Hill, a psychologist, said the emphasis was on letting DG tell his story.

'The victim would have heard forgive and forget', if the letter was mentioned, he said.

The commission also heard on Tuesday the response of the order to DG was primarily through solicitors, not the church's Towards Healing pastoral process.

Brother Hill told the commission he had urged that negotiations be left to lawyers because DG at first said he mistrusted all church bodies.

He later changed his mind and expressed a willingness to enter Towards Healing.