Child sex abuse royal commission: Former Ballarat student 'beaten up by convicted child abuser'

By Sarah Farnsworth
ABC News
February 22, 2016

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-02-22/former-ballarat-student-beaten-by-convicted-child-abuser-inquiry/7189578

A former student of St Patrick's College in Ballarat says he was beaten up by convicted child abuser Brother Edward Dowlan after reporting him to the school for "putting his hands" down students' pants.

Timothy Barlow told the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse he took it as "common knowledge" that boys were being abused at the school as rumours about brothers sexually assaulting students in their dorms was well known.

"It was survival of the fittest," he told the inquiry.

Mr Barlow was on the student representative council at the Christian Brother's school in 1973.

He said he saw Brother Dowlan putting his hands down the pants of students, describing it as frequent enough for all students to know it happened.

Mr Barlow was asked to help by younger students and moved that the student council ask principal Brother Paul Nangle to intervene.

The inquiry heard one night after dinner Mr Barlow was hauled down the corridor by Brother Dowlan and another brother and beaten up.

"You'll regret this you lying prick, who do you think you are?" Mr Barlow recalled them saying.

In a meeting with the school headmaster, Mr Barlow said he was told he was too young to understand and was ordered to recant what he had said about Brother Dowlan.

He said the student council was then disbanded after it was accused of spreading lies and he was forced to apologise.

"I did not feel like I had any other option," Mr Barlow told the inquiry.

"I wasn't a liar but was being forced to apologise even though I was telling the truth.

"I think we were in a dysfunctional closed environment where the abnormal was normal."

The inquiry heard rumours and allegations of abuse by Brother Dowlan were common and in 1974 parents asked his "inappropriate behaviour" be looked into.

Brother Dowlan was moved to Warrnambool two years later, and then to Tasmania.

In 1996, he was convicted of 16 counts of indecent assault against 11 boys at four different Christian Brother schools. He was convicted of a further 33 counts against 20 boys last year.

The royal commission heard a total of 853 complaints of sexual abuse had been made against the Christian Brothers, with a total compensation payout of $37.3 million.

The first day of the third public hearing into child abuse in the Ballarat Diocese focused on the handling of abuse allegations by six Christian brothers, including Brother Dowlan.

Brother Nangle, who was the superior in Ballarat in the1970s, will give evidence this week about the rumours circulating at Ballarat Christian Brother schools, St Patrick's College and St Alipius Boys School, and when he knew about abuse.

Fifty-six people have made allegations of abuse in the Ballarat Christian schools.

Of the six brothers being dealt with at the hearing, four have been convicted of child abuse.

The inquiry heard most allegations of abuse were made against a Christian brother known as CCK, totalling 46 cases.

Other Christian brothers the inquiry will focus on are Brother Stephen Farrell, Brother Gerald Leo Fitzgerald and Brother BWX.

A number of them are alleged to have abused children shortly after being ordained.

The royal commission has heard 10 men were sexually abused at St Alipius Boys School, arguably one of the worst schools affected by child abuse, where Australia's notorious paedophile priest Father Gerald Ridsdale was school chaplain.