Royal commission continues in the ACT

Sky News
June 16, 2014

http://www.skynews.com.au/news/national/2014/06/16/royal-commission-continues-in-the-act.html

Even as a 21-year-old in his first teaching job Gregory Sutton's behaviour raised suspicions among his colleagues.

The Marist Brother started his career in 1973 at a school in north Queensland and within a short time senior teacher Denis Doherty was worried.

'I gradually started to feel uneasy about some of Gregory's interactions with children,' Mr Doherty has told a royal commission investigating the adequacy of institutional responses to child sexual abuse.

The commission hearings continue on Monday, sitting for a second week in Canberra and looking at the case of Sutton and fellow former Marist Brother John Chute, also known as Brother Kostka.

The pair taught at schools in NSW, the ACT and Queensland for decades through until the late 1980s and early 1990s and have since been jailed for scores of sexual offences against children.

In his first teaching job Sutton selected two or three children as his 'pets', Mr Doherty said.

'At first I just thought he was a keen teacher.'

But that view changed when he opened the door to Sutton's classroom before school one day and found the teacher lying on the floor with three young boys.

Mr Doherty continues to give evidence when the hearing resumes on Monday.