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St Edmund's abuse survivor urges others to come forward
By Christopher Knaus
A survivor of abuse at St Edmund's College has urged others to come forward, saying the justice process helped him heal and live a full and happy life. Anthony Kane, as a boy of 13, was invited back to the room of lay teacher Patrick O'Flaherty in the winter of 1968 after a football match. Mr O'Flaherty was a new teacher at the school, and lived on the St Edmund's campus, near the school's monastery. It was there that court documents allege Mr O'Flaherty began to abuse the 13-year-old in his room. Mr Kane was saved by a knock on the door from his father, who had been frantically looking for his boy. Complaints were made and Mr O'Flaherty was immediately removed from teaching and referred to police. He was later charged with abusing five children, not all of whom were St Edmund's students, and appears to have made a plea deal that saw the charge relating to Mr Kane discontinued. He was sentenced to a two-year good behaviour order for crimes against two other victims, one a St Edmund's student, in 1970. Mr Kane bears no ill-will to St Edmund's or the Christian Brothers. Indeed, he later went on to work in the order himself, and remains a teacher. He said he had eight "terrific years of solid all-round education with many wonderful teachers" at St Edmund's, and made lifelong friends. But he wants other abuse survivors from the school to know that the legal process helped him move forward with his life. Now, he's urging others to come forward. "It really helped the healing, that helped me as a young bloke. I think if I hadn't gone to court about it, even though that was a mixed experience, I would have been more affected." "If I didn't – and I'm certain of this, hindsight's a wonderful thing – if we didn't have that legal outcome, unsatisfactory as it was, I think I would have been more affected and the healing would have been more protracted." On Wednesday, Fairfax Media revealed that a group of known child abusers was allowed to come to St Edmund's College in its first three decades, despite previous complaints that they had abused children Those abusers included Brothers John Enda Hynes, Geoffrey Claver Baumgartner, Patrick Timothy Farrell, John Christopher Roberts, Thomas Coman Seery, and Romuald Hills. Some of the Christian Brothers' most senior clergy knew of abuse complaints against a number of them, but did nothing to remove them from the order or refer them to police. One paedophile, former Marist brother Francis William Cable, arrived in Canberra despite prior complaints to at least two Marist principals in NSW. A St Edmund's headmaster, Noel Landener, has also been the subject of a string of child abuse claims relating to his time at the school from 1960-65. Many of those civil claims are currently being handled by Porters Lawyers. St Edmund's College wrote to its alumni on Wednesday morning, stressing that Fairfax Media's reports do not relate to current students or staff of the college. Principal Daniel Lawler reassured the school community that his highest priority was the safety and wellbeing of students, and that St Edmund's had implemented stringent policies and procedures to protect students. Mr Lawler also reiterated calls for anyone with an abuse complaint to come forward. He said the school shared a long and proud history with the Christian Brothers, but that: "We also accept that in that history there were past failures where children were not protected, with devastating consequences for the victims of abuse," he wrote. "The college stands by the unreserved and enduring apology of the Christian Brothers and their acknowledgement of the enormous pain and suffering endured as a result of abuse."
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