AUSTRALIA
The Public Opinion
MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — An American clergyman suspected of child sexual abuse at a Pennsylvania school was sentenced on Friday to three years in an Australian prison for molesting three children in Melbourne more than 30 years ago.
Brother Bernard Hartman, 75, a member of the Roman Catholic Marianist religious order, had pleaded guilty in the Victoria state County Court in Melbourne in April to four counts of indecent assault involving two pre-teen sisters of male students at St. Paul’s College in the late 1970s. A jury found him guilty in May of one count of indecent assault and two of common law assault for abusing a male student at the school in 1981-82.
Hartman had gained the trust of the girls’ parents and abused them while he was invited to their family homes for dinner.
Judge James Parrish ordered one year of the sentence to be suspended, but Hartman will be supervised for three additional years after his release.
“You have breached the trust of those young girls with blatant offending in their homes … which allowed little avenue for retreat,” Parrish told Hartman while sentencing .
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