CANADA/AUSTRALIA
The Australian
EAN HIGGINS, GEOFFREY LUCK
The Australian
June 5, 2017
A Catholic order of brothers in Quebec, Canada, has alleged that it was the victim of fraud and an attempted $66 million extortion at the hands of a Queensland convicted murderer and insurance scammer who mounted sexual abuse claims against Anglican Church Grammar School in Brisbane and a private international school in Japan.
Conrad Lord, a Montreal lawyer who acts for the Quebec chapter of the Brothers of Christian Instruction, known as the Mennaisians, was recently in Australia trying to encourage the Queensland Parole Board and other law enforcement authorities to investigate an extraordinary expedition that David Grant Mathiesen made to Tokyo three years ago while he was still on parole.
Mr Lord is expected to file a formal complaint to Queensland police alleging that Mathiesen engaged in “harassment using a computer”.
In 2014, Mathiesen sought and obtained apologies from the brothers, who were teachers and administrators at St Mary’s International School in Tokyo, which were meant to settle his claims.
However, he then demanded $66m in compensation and threatened to report them to the Japanese police.
Contacted at the weekend, Mathiesen, who lives in Brisbane where he and his wife own several up-market properties, maintained his claims that he had been sexually abused at St Mary’s when he was 11 years old and at the Brisbane school about 18 months later, and denied he had engaged in fraud or extortion.
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