AUSTRALIA
ABC News
By police reporter Jessica Kidd
A man indecently assaulted by a Catholic Brother more than 30 years ago has told a sentencing hearing he hopes the 66-year-old gets “locked up for good”.
William Peter Standen has pleaded guilty to 18 charges of indecently assaulting 18 boys during the late 1970s and early 1980s while he was a year seven dormitory master at a Catholic boarding school in southern NSW.
At a sentencing hearing in Sydney, 11 middle-aged men read out victim impact statements.
None of them could be identified for legal reasons but each told of how they had suffered years of ongoing trauma, mental health problems and drug and alcohol addiction as a result of the abuse.
One man told the court his parents sent him to the school in order to protect him from domestic violence at home.
“My parents believed they were sending me to a safe place,” he said.
“Not this mind-twisting institution that I had to battle through for six long years.”
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