LONDON (ENGLAND)
The Guardian
September 17, 2020
By Christopher Knaus
Exclusive: Brother Geoffrey ‘Coman’ Sykes’ name will be removed from a school building and scholarship program after campaigners say ‘he is not a role model’
A group of prominent Catholic schools are expected to remove the name of a brother accused of sexual abuse from a school building and scholarship program after campaigners warned he was “clearly not someone who should be honoured”.
The two Sydney Marist schools say they were never told of the allegations against Brother Geoffrey “Coman” Sykes, despite the Marist Brothers Catholic order having substantiated a complaint against him three years earlier.
Sykes worked at Marist schools across New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory, including Parramatta Marist and Marist College Canberra, for decades and was honoured by senior colleagues as an “amazing man and a wonderful Marist” after his death in 2013.
A new book by investigative journalist Suzanne Smith contains allegations that Sykes abused Glen Walsh, an aspiring brother. It says the abuse occurred on an almost nightly basis at a retreat in the NSW southern highlands. When Walsh was 18, he was allegedly abused more than 100 times.
Walsh left the order, became a parish priest, and made allegations about Sykes to Marist in 1997, which the order found to be unsubstantiated.
In 2017, Marist Brothers conducted a review of its initial investigation. Marist says the review found Walsh’s allegations against Sykes were substantiated.
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