AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald
July 1, 2014
Paul Bibby
Court Reporter
As police sought to bring a Catholic brother living overseas back to Australia to face 67 charges of child sexual abuse, the Australian head of the Marist Brothers told him to “stay over there and enjoy your new life”, the royal commission has heard.
In testimony before the commission on Tuesday, convicted paedophile Gregory Sutton set out allegations of a blatant and extended cover-up orchestrated by Brother Alexis Turton, head of the Marist Brothers in the late 1980s and early ’90s.
Sutton, who taught at numerous Marist Brothers schools, told the commission that, in August 1989, he was called in for a meeting with then head (or provincial) of the Marist Brothers in Australia, Brother Turton, and told that he was being investigated by police over his abuse of children at a school in Campbelltown.
Within four days of that meeting, Sutton said, he was put on a plane to the US. He then travelled to Canada for an “assessment” and “treatment” for his behaviour, at a Catholic Church institution known as Southdown.
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