CANBERRA (AUSTRALIA)
Canberra Times
September 9, 2020
By Peter Brewer
It was purely coincidence but the timing of National Child Protection Week and a warm spring day couldn’t be more appropriate for tireless campaigner Damian De Marco to be conferred with his Member of the Order of Australia.
The AM award presented on Tuesday by Governor General David Hurley is the latest of many which have been delivered to Mr De Marco for his unstinting efforts over decades to expose the sexual abuse of children under the care of the Catholic Church.
The former Marist College Canberra student and the 2015 ACT Local Hero bravely faced the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse six years ago, eschewing anonymity in doing so.
It was his crucial evidence which helped build the compelling case against former Canberra Marist Brother and proven paedophile Kostka Chute.
Last year 87-year-old Chute faced 16 charges, including 14 counts of indecent assault of a minor, one charge of buggery without consent and one charge of an act of indecency with a minor.
Chute was found unfit to plead on medical grounds and escaped imprisonment.
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