NEW ZEALAND
Record
A High Court judge today backed a decision by the New Zealand Government to extradite a former Catholic brother to Australia to face 250 charges of child-sex abuse charges.
Australia requested the extradition of Bernard Kevin McGrath, 66, in November 2012 alleging that he raped, molested and abused dozens of young boys at one of Australia’s most prominent Catholic religious orders – the St John of God Brothers between 1977 and 1986. According to court evidence the institution which specialized in accommodating boys, many of whom had intellectual disabilities, had an entrenched culture of sexual abuse.
Originally from New Zealand, McGrath joined the St John of God Brothers (SJOG) in the 1960s at the age of 18. He trained at the order’s headquarters in Sydney and spent most of his working life SJOG institutions both in Australia and New Zealand. In 1991 in New Zealand two social workers contacted the police after reports from boys that he had sexually molested them and he was tried and sentenced to three years jail. In 1995, after McGrath completed his New Zealand jail term, police took him back to Sydney, where he pleaded guilty and was sentenced in 1997 to nine months jail for offenses against another boy.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.