AUSTRALIA
The West Australian
Tim Clarke
February 15, 2016
The Catholic Bishop to Australia’s Defence Forces has been found not guilty of sexually molesting five boys while he as teaching at a Benedictine boarding school in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
Max Leroy Davis had denied six charges of gross indecency relating to five different boys aged between 12 and 15 at the time they say they were all assaulted while pupils at St Benedict’s College in New Norcia.
The five victims, who are all now in their 50s, alleged remarkably similar abuse while boarding at the school – and all say it was Mr Davis who abused them.
But after four hours deliberation following a week-long trial, the jury at Perth District acquitted him of all charges, after hearing Mr Davis categorically deny it had been him who had abused them.
The 70-year-old was at the time a Dorm Master, and dean of discipline at the school, which was run under the Benedictine order of monks who still reside in the town north of Perth.
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