Pervert at Catholic school targeted disabled children, by Clarissa Bye, Daily Telegraph (July 11, 2016)

A PAEDOPHILE who preyed on a teenage girl at a Sydney Catholic boarding school could “still be out there assaulting other children”, an anguished mother told the sex abuse royal commission yesterday.

The man, who worked as a “houseparent” at a residential cottage of the Mater Dei Catholic school at Camden, had fled to England “under a cloud” in July 1991 and never returned, the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse heard.

The commission is investigating cases of historic sex abuse against four disabled children involving the Mater Dei school, as well as other more recent incidents at Nowra and the Gold Coast.

The alleged paedophile houseparent, who can’t be named, made meals, washed, cleaned and took care of the children at Arnold Cottage, a residential house for disabled children connected to the school, run by the Sisters of the Good Samaritan of the Order of Saint Benedict.

A 69-year-old Sydney woman spoke of her horror at discovering her then 13-year-old autistic and intellectually disabled daughter, who boarded weekdays, was molested.

The daughter, now 38, has the mental capacity of a three to five-year-old and no one was ever charged with sexually assaulting her.

“I was distressed to be sending her out to board on Monday to Friday but she required fulltime care and I had no choice financially,” the mother said. “I felt safe leaving my daughter to board at Mater Dei because it was run by nuns and I felt I could trust them.”

After being picked up from the school one day, the girl began haemorrhaging blood in a toilet, her mother said.

The girl was taken to casualty at Nepean Hospital in May 1991 and doctors informed the mother of the sexual assault. “His words have haunted me for the past 25 years,” she said.

“I am really upset and can’t stand that CID (the initials assigned to the paedophile) is still out there and could be assaulting other children. People like CID can get away with abusing children with disabilities like my daughter.”

The mother said she was upset the school did not inform her about progress investigating the case, and offered no support or counselling.

The commission also heard from Sister Sonia Wagner, a Superior from the religious order, who visited the mother in 1997 after the mother reported the incident to a hotline of the Police Royal Commission.

Sister Wagner said the congregation should have made “more strenuous efforts” in responding to the incident.