Paedophile priest admits charges against three new victims

By Mike Mather
Stuff
May 30, 2017

http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/93144151/pedophile-priest-admits-charges-against-three-new-victims

Mark Mannix Brown, 74, after appearing in the Hamilton District Court on Tuesday.

A former Catholic priest jailed for molesting boys in the 1970s and 80s has admitted charges against three new victims.

Mark Mannix Brown, 74, appeared in the Hamilton District Court on Tuesday, where he pleaded guilty to four charges of indecent assault and attempted sodomy.

Some of the charges are representative.

He was remanded on continuing bail by Judge Kim Saunders, to be sentenced on July 19, following the compiling of a pre-sentence assessment and a restorative justice conference with one of his victims.

Brown was jailed for 15 months in 1990 for sexual offending against altar boys.

The agreed summary of facts reveal that the first and youngest of his three new victims was aged between 6 and 9 years old and was in the care of an orphanage in Auckland in the mid 1970s.

Brown's sister was a nun who taught at the orphanage at that time, and he was a frequent visitor to the establishment.

Under the guise of having one-on-one "spiritual time" with the boy, he made him sit in his lap and kiss him.

On at least one occasion he attempted to sodomise the boy.

He told the boy that their interactions were "our special secret" and if he told anyone he would be separated from his siblings, who were also wards of the orphanage.

Another victim was aged 16 and 17 and was an invited guest at Brown's family farm in Te Mata, near Raglan.

Brown would make nocturnal visits to the teenager, where he sexually abused him. They also engaged in anal intercourse.

The victim said he was confused and did not know what to do, as he looked up to Brown as a father figure.

The third victim, aged 9, was an altar boy where Brown was a priest.

At an unspecified date between 1982 and 1986, the boy was in the church, when he became unwell and vomited onto the floor of the church.

Brown led the victim to a nearby building, known as the Priests' Building, where he let the boy throw up into the toilet there.

Brown rubbed the boy's back as he vomited, but at one point began fondling his genitals instead.

He stopped when the boy looked at him.

Brown was represented in court by barrister Mark Sturm.

Brown also made headlines in 2008, when it was revealed he was living in a house in Auckland with brain-injured serial child molester Vivian Kitching.

The pair had been allowed to reside in a house on Mt Eden Rd, just 700 metres from Three Kings School – in spite of a warning from Corrections Department psychologists.