AUSTRALIA
SBS
A 55-year-old Queensland man who was abused as a child by a Marist Brother has only now learned his abuser left a suicide note asking his forgiveness.
The man known as DG told a national inquiry into child sexual abuse that when he was 13 at a Marist school in the 1970s, Brother Raymond Foster molested him many times.
He reported the abuse to police in 1993 but for various reasons it was not until 1999 when Foster faced extradition from NSW to face charges in Queensland.
He committed suicide on the morning of his extradition.
A note he left said: “I bear no ill-will against the person who had me charged as he had every right to do so, and I ask his forgiveness if he would be so kind.”
DG told the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses of Child Sexual Abuse on Monday that he felt disbelieved by the Marist Brothers when he wrote to them outlining the abuse and its impact on him.
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