AUSTRALIA
Newcastle Herald
By JOANNE McCARTHY Aug. 1, 2013
JOHN Sidney Denham was in his 30s when he prowled the halls of St Pius X School at Adamstown in the late 1970s and picked off victims at will.
Many were groped – some while reading the Bible during religion classes, after confession, at youth clubs, during “male bonding weekends” or in their altar boy garb while preparing for church services.
But as the 29 pages of agreed facts tendered to Sydney District Court Judge Ronald Solomon yesterday showed, Denham restricted his most violent sexual assaults and rapes to the most vulnerable children in his care.
They were the quiet boys, the sons of violent or alcoholic parents or from families described as “extremely devout”, “strict” or “ardent Catholics”, who invited Denham to dinner but were ignorant of the crimes he committed against their children, sometimes within earshot.
Denham targeted boys left shocked and numbed by recent tragedies, like the boy who experienced a succession of family deaths, only to have a priest’s “comfort” turn to forced sex and threats in his private quarters.
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