AUSTRALIA
The Age
August 27, 2013
Adam Cooper
Reporter for The Age
A jury has been urged to overlook attempts to discredit the evidence of eight men who allege they were sexually abused as boys by a Catholic priest while at a boarding school.
Prosecutor David Cordy, in his closing address in the trial of former Salesian priest David Edwin Rapson, told the County Court he wanted to ”debunk” some of the theories the accused’s barrister put forward during the trial.
Mr Cordy said it was the inference of defence counsel Shaun Ginsbourg that the complainants could not be reliable in their evidence because were teenage boys at the time of the alleged offences, nor could some of them be trusted on account of their own legal problems as adults.
Mr Rapson, 60, has pleaded not guilty to eight charges of indecent assault and five counts of rape related to alleged incidents involving eight boys between the mid-1970s and 1990.
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