AUSTRALIA
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Genevieve Gannon – AAP on December 6, 2016
A former Catholic school principal convicted of sexually abusing students while giving them “sports massages” in the 1970s has avoided jail for a second time.
Marist Brother Gerard Joseph McNamara, 78, was handed a 16-month suspended sentence by the Victorian County Court on Tuesday after admitting to indecently assaulting two brothers in 1975.
In 2005 McNamara was sentenced to 36 months – also wholly suspended – for seven offences committed in the exact same circumstances.
Most of the assaults happened in the school sports shed after the student sustained an “injury”.
The principal and sports master at St Paul’s Catholic College in Traralgon had a reputation among students, who referred to the abuse as “getting a rub down from Brother Gerard”.
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