AUSTRALIA
Broken Rites
By a Broken Rites researcher, article posted on 2 February 2016
Jesuit priests and brothers operate some of Australia’s most prominent schools, with famous ex-students such as former prime minister Tony Abbott. After Brother Victor Higgs committed sexual offences against boys at one of these schools (St Ignatius College, Adelaide), the Jesuits kept Brother Higgs as a member of the Jesuit Order and moved him to their famous Sydney school (St Ignatius College Riverview). One of the Adelaide victims finally reported Brother Higgs to the South Australian police and, on 29 January 2016, Higgs was jailed for some of his Adelaide offences. New South Wales police might now examine Brother Higgs’ career in Sydney.
According to statements made in the Adelaide District Court, Victor Thomas James Higgs was born in the late 1930s, the youngest of nine children. After a period of training with the Jesuits, he became a Brother in the Australia-wide Jesuit religious order in 1963, aged in his twenties. He later spent three years working at St Ignatius College in Athelstone, Adelaide (1968 to 1970, inclusive, when he was aged around 30). He mostly did administrative duties for the school, although he taught some classes (for example, in religious education and in commerce).
After a complaint by a parent in Adelaide, the Jesuits transferred Brother Higgs to St Ignatius Riverview, Sydney, where he spent ten years. The Jesuits kept him as a member of the Jesuit religious order until he retired in Sydney in 2001.
Higgs was interviewed by South Australian police in early 2013 regarding boys from St Ignatius, Adelaide. When charged, Higgs indicated that would plead not guilty, meaning that he would fight the charges in court. Eventually, nearly three years later, he changed his plea to guilty, which meant that no trial would be needed (a judge would merely have to impose a sentence).
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