The church kept quiet about Brother Neil Richards' crimes but now he is locked up, awaiting his sentence

Broken Rites
November 18, 2014

http://brokenrites.org.au/drupal/node/314

Helped by Broken Rites, some of the victims of Christian Brother Desmond Eric ("Neil") Richards have achieved justice. On 7 November 2014, a Sydney court ordered that Richards (aged 75) be taken into custody to await his sentence for indecently assaulting young boys in the 1970s and '80s. The sentence is due to be announced in court on 27 November 2014. The church had known for years about Richards' crimes but the crimes were concealed from the police (and from the public). And the Christian Brothers appointed him to be in charge of their worldwide website in Rome.

Brother "Neil" Richards has spent more than half a century as a Christian Brother, including as a headmaster, in Catholic schools in Sydney and regional New South Wales. When Desmond Eric Richards joined the order, a new Brother would normally adopt a new forename. Hence, he became Brother "Neil" Richards.

Originally, one victim contacted Broken Rites, which advised him to have a private interview with a Detectives Office of the NSW Police. Later, another victim from a different school came forward. Detectives then investigated and found two more of Brother Richards' victims.

These four victims were abused between 1972 and 1982. These four were not necessarily his only victims - they are merely four who finally found an opportunity to talk to the detectives. Other ex-students (outside that 20-year period) could possess relevant information which they can still give to the police.

In 2013 the detectives learned that Richards was working at the Catholic Church headquarters in Rome. When he re-visited Australia, police arrested him in November 2013.

During early and mid-2014, Richards appeared in court, charged (under his birth name, Desmond Eric Richards), regarding the four victims who had spoken (separately) to the police. The court was told that, after the boys had been sexually assaulted by Brother Richards, they were regularly beaten with a strap.

The court was told that one 12-year-old boy, who had never been the subject of any punishment before the indecent assault, was later strapped on more than 60 occasions at St Patrick’s Christian Brothers College in Albury, while Richards was headmaster there in the early 1970s.

Another boy was regularly singled out for punishment and ordered to stand in the corner of the classroom, while a third was strapped once a fortnight and made to stand outside class, the court was told.

One boy, then aged 11, was assaulted while on a school camp (at Arcadia in north-west Sydney) when Richards got into bed with him.

Richards pleaded guilty to the abuse of four boys aged 11, 12 and 13 at St Patrick’s Albury and Bishop Henschke school in Wagga Wagga (both of these schools are in southern New South Wales) and at St Patrick’s Strathfield (in Sydney). In mid-2014, Richards was placed on bail pending the sentence proceedings to be held later in the year.

On 7 November 2014, Judge Peter Zahra conducted a pre-sentence procedure for Richards in the Sydney District Court (case number 201300333667). The judge was hearing submissions from the prosecutor and the defence lawyer about what kind of sentence should be imposed on Richards.

During these submissions, the court was told that the Catholic Church authorities had known for many years about Richards being an offender. In the 1990s, Richards had admitted to the church authorities about his offending. The church authorities kept the matter "in-house" and it was not reported to the police. Later, the police evidently did learn about one of Richards' victims, and, as a result, in 2006 Richards pleaded guilty to a criminal charge about a previous indecent-assault offence at Gosford on the New South Wales Central Coast, but he was not sent to jail.

In his submission to Judge Zahra on 7 November 2014, Richards' defence lawyer recommended that, because of Richards' guilty plea to the 2014 charges and his remorse, he should be given a non-custodial sentence.

But Judge Zahra disagreed, stating that the need to deter others from committing such serious offences demanded a jail sentence.

"The need for deterrence and community retribution weighs very heavily in favour of full-time custody," he said.

The judge revoked bail and ordered that Richards be taken into custody. The sentencing is scheduled for 27 November 2014.

Brother "Neil" Richards has spent more than half a century as a member of the Christian Brothers, where he was sometimes listed (in Christian Brothers documents) as "Brother D.N. Richards".

He has been located in many parts of New South Wales. For example:

• In the early 1980s he was the headmaster of a Christian Brothers primary school at Concord (in Sydney's inner-west).
• Another one of his schools was St. Edward's Christian Brothers in Gosford, on the NSW central coast, in the late 1970s. Some Gosford ex-students remember him being at this school but these students have not yet filed a police statement.

Evidently Richards was living at Gosford in 1990, because a list of Australian Christian Brothers in 1990 mentioned "Brother D.N. Richards, Gosford" in that year.

In the 1990s, Brother Richards was associated somehow with the Broken Bay Diocese, which covers parishes in Sydney's northern suburbs and the NSW central coast. In 1997 a church website, reported the minutes of a Broken Bay Diocese committee (held at Waitara) and it said: "A folder, on internet and access, is being put together by Brother Neil Richards from the Diocesan Office."

After retiring from teaching in schools, Brother Neil Richards worked on the Christian Brothers website for their Oceana province (that is, for Australia and the Pacific). On 11 November 2014, well after Richards had been arrested, Broken Rites was still able to access a Christian Brothers worldwide website, which gave the contacts for Christian Brothers webmasters in various parts of the world. One item said: "Christian Brothers Oceania Province Centre ...Webmaster: Neil Richards cfc."

In December 2009, an announcement by the Christian Brothers stated: "A large gathering of Brothers came together today to say farewell to Neil Richards and to congratulate him on his new position on the [Christian Brothers] Congregation website in Rome."

Presumably, even though he was now located in Rome, Richards would still have been able to work on the Christian Brothers' Australian website from Rome, amongst any other duties in Rome.

Brother Neil Richards' new location in Rome meant that he was out of the reach of the Australian police. But the police were waiting for Desmond Eric Richards when he returned to Australia in late 2013.