AUSTRALIA
The Age
February 22, 2016
Chris Johnston
Martinus Claassen was a Catholic schoolboy in Ballarat through the late 1960s into the 1970s. This, as we now know from the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, was potentially dangerous. And he wasn’t spared.
The 54-year-old’s mother was waived from paying fees at St Patrick’s College, a Christian Brothers high school, because her husband, Mr Claassen’s father, had died. One weekend just after Mr Claassen started at the school in 1974 he went to Melbourne for the weekend and forgot to take his homework.
Back at school, he was confronted in class by Brother Edward Dowlen, now jailed for child sexual abuse offences. Mr Claassen was sitting at his desk. He told Monday’s royal commission hearing in Ballarat the brother leaned in close to him, spoke very softly to him about his missing homework and started stroking his thigh and genitals.
The royal commission heard 853 Australians have claimed child sexual abuse against one or more Christian Brothers, with 75 per cent of victims under the age of 13 and 98 per cent of them male. The church has paid out more than $37 million in compensation, averaging $64,000 per victim.
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