AUSTRALIA
The Canberra Times
June 13, 2014
David Ellery
Reporter for The Canberra Times.
A former Marist College Canberra headmaster has denied he was subservient to his superiors, had deliberately obstructed sex abuse investigations and was protecting a former leader of the order.
Brother Christopher Wade, the headmaster when Brother Kostka Chute was removed from the college at the end of 1993, was testifying on Friday afternoon before the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.
He said he had been aware of “gossip” that Chute may have been a child molester as early as the mid-1960s but did not follow this up when appointed to a school where Chute was on the staff.
Brother Wade said he had not been told of Chute’s history of sexual offending when he took up the MCC appointment at the start of 1993. Chute’s history included numerous admissions of touching students and a canonical warning in July 1969. Brother Wade, 78, is now retired. He said his memory of his time at MCC was poor because of his age.
“The only intimation I ever had Kostka may have been abusing children was 20 or 30 years before the date (1993),” he said.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.