AUSTRALIA
Broken Rites

By a Broken Rites researcher (article updated on 10 May 2015)

Catholic priest David Edwin Rapson used computer games, soft drinks, alcohol and cigarettes to lure boys (as young as 12) into his office at a Catholic boarding school before he sexually abused them, a Melbourne court has been told. After two years of hearings which finished in 2015, Rapson (now aged 61) was convicted of serious child-sex crimes. Now he is locked up, awaiting the amount of his jail sentence which is due to be announced on Monday 11 May 2015.

Rapson, who was the school’s vice-principal at one stage, also gave some of his victims a drink of drug-laced chocolate-milk or lemonade to make them sleepy before he sexually abused them, the court was told.

However, if boys complained about Rapson’s abuse, they tended to merely tell Rapson’s colleagues and friends in the priesthood,…