AUSTRALIA
Broken Rites
By a Broken Rites researcher (article updated 2 November 2014)
Helped by Broken Rites, victims of Christian Brother “Neil” Richards have achieved justice. In the Sydney District Court in 2014, Richards has pleaded guilty to indecently assaulting four boys, aged 11, 12 and 13, at various schools.
Brother Richards (aged 75 when he appeared in court) had a long career as a Christian Brother, including as a headmaster, in Catholic schools in New South Wales. He was charged under his birth name, Desmond Eric Richards.
The court was told that, after the boys had been sexually assaulted by Brother Richards, they were regularly beaten with a strap.
One 12-year-old boy, who had never been the subject of any punishment before the indecent assault, was later strapped on more than 60 occasions at St Patrick’s Christian Brothers College in Albury, while Richards was headmaster there in the early 1970s.
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