AUSTRALIA
Daily Mail
By BELINDA GRANT GEARY FOR DAILY MAIL AUSTRALIA
A senior brother in the Catholic Church did not consider a teacher kissing his students to be sinister and thought it simply an ‘expression of an eccentric old man’ as it is revealed he hugged an accused child paedophile right after he admitted to physically abusing a year five student.
Paul Nangle, who was headmaster for St Patrick’s College in Ballarat during the 1970s, presented evidence the Royal Commission into Institutionalised Responses to Child Sexual Abuse on Tuesday.
The hearing is focused on the Catholic order’s handling of child sex abuse allegations involving six Christian Brothers, all of whom spent time working at schools in the Diocese of Ballarat.
Four have been convicted of child sex offences while another died in 1986.
The 89-year-old brother said he regrets the horrific child sex abuse committed by Christian Brothers under his watch, but insists he only knew about two complaints and had taken appropriate action.
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