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Priest gets 18 months
The Australian
March 12, 2019
https://bit.ly/2EQQJF0
With the power of priesthood and under the guise of artistic intent, Michael Ambrose Endicott took schoolboys to secluded locations, told them to strip nude and took photos.
Almost 40 years later, he will see the inside of a jail cell. Endicott, 75, was found guilty last week of three counts of indecently dealing with a Villanova College student while he was in charge of religious education at the Brisbane school in the 1970s.
Yesterday, the former priest was handed an 18-month jail term, to be suspended after six months. He avoided jail in 2010 when he was handed a wholly suspended sentence for the similar abuse of another boy.
The victim was first abused on a school hiking trip in 1975 when Endicott asked the nine-year-old to accompany him to a creek in dense bush, where he photographed the student naked.
Years later, when the boy was a teenager, Endicott took him into a changeroom and told him to strip. Photos were then taken of him in the shower.
Through his barrister, Endicott claimed the photos were “artistic” rather than sexual, but judge Leanne Clare rejected that argument. “This man was walking around the child, who was completely naked, taking photographs of him from the front and back. I don’t understand how that sounds artistic,” she said.
Judge Clare said Endicott had no remorse for his “substantial” crimes. “(The victim) is still burdened by deep shame. I have no doubt knowing his degradation was preserved on film has haunted most of his life.”
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