Catholic Bishop on trial for molesting boys

By Tim Clarke
West Australian
February 8, 2016

https://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/wa/a/30763909/catholic-bishop-on-trial-for-molesting-boys/

Catholic Bishop on trial for molesting boys

The Catholic Bishop to Australia's Defence Forces has gone on trial in Perth accused of sexually molesting five boys while he was teaching at a Benedictine boarding school in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

Max Leroy Davis has denied six charges of gross indecency relating to five different boys aged between 12 and 15 at the time they say they were all assaulted while pupils at St Benedict's College in New Norcia.

The five victims, who are all now in their 50s, alleged remarkably similar abuse while boarding at the school - and all say it was Mr Davis who abused them.

The 70-year-old was at the time a Dorm Master, and dean of discipline at the school, which was run under the Benedictine order of monks who still reside in the town north of Perth.

A jury at Perth District Court was told the boys will all give evidence they were touched on the genitals by Mr Davis in their beds, in the school's infirmary, or in Mr Davis' quarters in the school.

And two more former pupils at the school will give further evidence that they were also inappropriately dealt with by Mr Davis, who was ordained as a deacon and then as a priest while at the school in the early 70's. Mr Davis is not charged with offences against them.

Seamus Rafferty, Mr Davis' lawyer, said he would emphatically deny ever abusing any boys at the school, alleging at least two other staff members - including a former rector, or headmaster, of the school Brother Justin could have been the perpetrator

Mr Rafferty said it was in fact Mr Davis who told Catholic authorities about Brother Justin, who was replaced as head of the school on the very same day.

And he also said another staff member, referred to as Brother Benedict, was also known for taking photographs of pupils' genitalia.

Both of those staff members are now dead.

"Is it really likely that the bloke who was the whistleblower on the boss of the college would have committed these offences?," Mr Rafferty asked the jury.

Mr Davis , who now lives in the ACT, was stood down as the head of the Australian Defence Force's Catholic diocese When he was first charged with an offence against one of the boys in 2014.

The court was told that the resulting publicity from that charge prompted the other alleged victims to come forward.

The trial, before Judge Julie Wager, is scheduled to last seven days.