Paedophile Priest Sentenced on New Historic Indecent Assault Charge

By Mike Mather
Stuff/Fairfax Media
October 26, 2017

https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/98250117/paedophile-priest-sentenced-on-new-historic-indecent-assault-charge

Former priest Mark Mannix Brown, 74, pictured outside the Hamilton District Court during an earlier appearance.

A former Catholic priest jailed for molesting boys in the 1970s and 80s has been sentenced for another indecent assault.

However Mark Mannix Brown won't have to serve any more time in jail to account for his latest charge of indecent assault.

Brown, 74, was sentenced on a new charge of indecent assault on a boy aged under 12, when he appeared in the Hamilton District Court on Thursday, via audio-visual link from prison.

He is currently serving a 26-month jail term, imposed on him in August for charges against three historic victims.

The latest charge - which relates to incidents against another victim that took place between December 1, 1976 and December 31, 1977 in Raglan - resulted in a 10-month jail sentence, which will be served concurrently.

That means Brown won't have any extra time added to his ongoing 26-month sentence.

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

The latest charge involved Brown kissing his victim on the mouth using his tongue, and touching the boy's genitals through his clothing.

Brown had a family farm in Raglan, and it was there that offences against another of his victims took place.

Brown was a Hamilton-based priest at that time.

Crown prosecutor Louella Dunn told Judge Noel Cocurullo that the new victim had come forward after reading about Brown's offending when he was sentenced in August.

Because the nature of the new charge was less serious than many of the other charges Brown had been sentenced on, it would have been likely that it would have been added concurrently to his 26-month sentence had it been before the court at that time, Dunn said.

Had it been a stand-alone charge, the Crown would have been seeking an eight to 10 month jail term, she said.

Therefore, a concurrent sentence was the most appropriate outcome.

Judge Cocurullo and Brown's lawyer Mark Sturm agreed a concurrent sentence would best "meet the needs of justice" - however the judge said it in no way diminished the experience of the victim, who had provided the court with a victim impact statement.

"This is very serious offending ... I well understand the issues that arise from the victim's position and how it affected the relationships for that person.

"I accede not to increase your current sentence."

Sturm said Brown, who had suffered "a spectacular fall from grace" was "anxious to put the unhappy matter behind him".

Since he was jailed in the early 1990s, he had undertaken substantial counselling and there had been no further offending.

He now understood how his actions had affected his young victims, Sturm said.

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 Road 700 metres from Three Kings School – in spite of a warning from Corrections Department psychologists.