NSW Priest Abused Homesick Students

9 News
February 3, 2017

http://www.9news.com.au/national/2017/02/03/12/38/ex-priest-spillane-shows-no-remorse

Former priest Brian Spillane took advantage of homesick young boarding school students to satisfy his sick desires, then used emotional blackmail to ensure his victims kept quiet.

The pedophile told the boys no one would believe them if they spoke out - even telling one victim that the news would have a serious effect on his ill mother's health.

"All sorts of emotional blackmail was used," Crown prosecutor Elizabeth Wilkins SC told the NSW District Court on Friday.

The 73-year-old former chaplain at St Stanislaus College in Bathhurst is facing sentence for sex offences committed against 21 victims in the 1970s and 1980s.

Spillane is already serving a minimum 11-year sentence for previous convictions.

Ms Wilkins told the court many of the predator's victims in the latest case had been vulnerable and depended on the chaplain.

They were at an age where homesickness was a real issue.

"That was a major breach of trust," she told the court.

Spillane was convicted of 18 offences, mostly sexual or indecent assaults, following two trials last year.

Six of the assaults were committed on boys under 16.

The crimes ranged from kissing boys on the cheek, to grabbing one victim's penis through his pyjamas, to having anal sex with another.

In the dock the prisoner showed no visible emotion and sat turned away from the handful of former St Stanislaus students who were present with family members.

In harrowing victim impact statements they told of the years of hell they had endured as a result of the abuse, including psychological problems and self-medication with drugs and alcohol.

"I've had to watch the perpetrator not show an ounce of remorse, not admit to anything," one man said.

"What happened to me will haunt me for the rest of my days."

Defence barrister Tom Warr said some of the assaults were in the lower range of seriousness and were "one-off" events for certain victims.

But Judge Robyn Tupman said Spillane's behaviour was part of an ongoing course of pedophilic conduct towards young children in his care.

She is due to pass sentence on February 16.