AUSTRALIA
ABC News
ANALYSIS
By political editor Chris Uhlmann
About 20 boys crammed into the small hotel room in Wellington and the mood was sombre.
Marist College Canberra’s First XV had gathered to hold court. The 1978 rugby tour of New Zealand was going well, but they weren’t there to talk about football.
The night before an incident had profoundly shaken the group.
One of the players had been called to a Marist brother’s room on the pretence of treating an injury from that day’s game.
The coach tried to sexually assault the boy. He fled, told his closest friend, and word had spread quickly through the touring party.
The boys, aged between 16 and 18, called a meeting. At its end they passed a resolution: the coach was to be banned from the change room, when the team returned to Canberra, the brother was to leave the school and the Marists were called on to guarantee that he would never teach again.
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