Ballarat Christian Brothers ‘misled police’ over abuse, royal commission lawyers say

AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By Charlotte King

A senior member of the Christian Brothers religious order failed to tell police the truth about the nature of historic child sexual abuse complaints in Ballarat, lawyers assisting the sex abuse royal commission have submitted.

The Christian Brothers operated four schools in Ballarat in the 1970s and much of the 437-page submission from the counsel assisting the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse detailed the religious order’s handling of abuse complaints.

The submission, now made public, singles out Brother Paul Nangle, one of Ballarat’s most senior Christian Brothers in the 1970s, for providing inconsistent testimony in relation to a complaint from the father of a student at the St Alipius boys school.

In his February evidence to the royal commission, the 84-year-old accepted that the 1974 complaint, made against a St Alipius primary school teacher, Brother Stephen Farrell, had a “sexual element” to it.

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