Christian Brother ex-headmaster jailed for abuse of seven boys at north Queensland school

By Nick Wiggins
ABC News
January 31, 2017

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-01-31/paedophile-headmaster-jailed-st-teresas-college/8227422

Kingston pleaded guilty, but his lawyer said they were considering their next step.

The boys were molested at St Teresa's College in Abergowrie, an all-boys boarding school.

A former Christian Brother and high school headmaster has been jailed for molesting seven boys at his north Queensland school more than 40 years ago.

Terence Patrick Aquinas Kingston, 79, molested the seven boys at St Teresa's College in Abergowrie, near Ingham, in 1976.

He pleaded guilty to nine counts of indecent treatment of a child under 16 last year and has been sentenced in the District Court in Brisbane to three years' jail, suspended after nine months.

The court was told that over a period of months Kingston touched a number of boys on their groin.

Some of the students had first been told to strip.

He put oil on two of the boys and rubbed their genitals.

A victim impact statement read to the court detailed how the abuse affected the victim's ability to have healthy relationships, and led to problems with drugs and alcohol.

"I will forever question if the abuse had never taken place how different my life would have been," he said in the statement.

"I always felt responsible for what took place".

Crown prosecutor Russell Hood told the court that while Kingston had pleaded guilty, he had never expressed remorse or apologised to his victims.

Kingston's barrister said his client left the Christian Brothers in 2003, and became involved in community organisations in Blackall, in Queensland's west.

He urged the court to take into account his client's age and recent treatment for cancer.

In sentencing, Chief Judge Kerry O'Brien noted Kingston's guilty plea spared his victims from testifying but said the offences were serious.

"It is the persistence of your conduct, in the sense that a number of boys were involved, and the position of trust you held in relation to those boys, which makes your offending particularly serious," he said.

"These boys were offended against in the formative years of their lives.

"It is not surprising to me ... these events should have had an ongoing effect upon them."

Kingston's lawyer Terry O'Gorman said they would make a "careful and deliberate decision on what we do from this stage onwards".

"It is unpredictable what his health will be like when he's in jail," Mr O'Gorman said outside court.

The Christian Brothers Oceania Province apologised "unreservedly" to those who suffered at the school, which takes in Indigenous boarders.

"We acknowledge the effects of such abuse can continue into adult life," province leader Peter Clinch said.

"We hope that today's sentencing provides those impacted and their families a sense of justice.

"That any child has suffered in this way is a tragedy and is a matter of profound regret."