• By a Broken Rites researcher (article updated 18 July 2018)

This Broken Rites article reveals how the Catholic Church harboured a child-sex abuser, Marist Brother Gerard Joseph McNamara, teaching in Catholic schools, for four decades until some of his victims began speaking (separately) to the Victoria Police child-protection detectives. When the police charged McNamara regarding the first batch of these victims, the Marists enthusiastically supported McNamara and ignored the victims. But Broken Rites supported the victims — and in 2004-2005 McNamara finally pleaded guilty and was convicted. This prompted more of McNamara's former students to contact the detectives. In 2016, McNamara pleaded guilty to indecently assaulting two more of his victims, resulting in another conviction. On 19 March 2018, McNamara appeared in Melbourne Magistrates Court where he pleaded guilty to sexual offences against five more of his former schoolboys. He is currently awaiting sentence regarding these five boys. Meanwhile, in a separate court case in early 2018, McNamara has been sentenced to a short term in jail regarding yet another boy, who was not a student of his; and McNamara is currently appealing against this jail sentence. The separate 2018 court proceedings are reported at the end of this Broken Rites article.

McNamara's background

From statements made in court (in 2004-2005), Broken Rites has compiled the following details about McNamara's background.

Gerard Joseph McNamara (born 9 March 1938) became a trainee Marist Brother, straight from school, at age 18 in 1956. He belonged to the Melbourne-based province of the Marist Brothers, where he was originally known as "Brother Camillus" (not to be confused with another, older "Brother Camillus" in the Sydney province). McNamara began teaching in Marist schools at:

• Sale VIC (St Patrick's College) 1960-4;
  Wangaratta VIC 1965-6;
  Bendigo VIC 1967;
  Forbes NSW (Red Bend College) 1968; and
  Traralgon VIC (St Paul's College) 1970-6.

In the mid-1970s, while officially still attached to the Traralgon school, McNamara spent some time in Fiji. About 1977, after his period of offending at the Traralgon school, he also spent some time away from teaching, visiting the Catholic Church's "National Pastoral Institute" (now defunct) in Melbourne. (Catholic priests and brothers were sometimes "warehoused" at the National Pastoral Institute after being exposed for child-sex crimes.)

Despite McNamara's behaviour at the Traralgon school, the Marist Brothers kept him in the Order and appointed him to more schools. His next postings were to:

• Mt Gambier in South Australia 1978-80;
  Preston VIC 1980-5;
  Shepparton VIC 1986-92;
  Sale VIC 1993-9;
  Preston VIC 2002-3; and
  Sale VIC 2003.

More background, 1994 to 2004

In April 1994, "Sam" (born in 1960) telephoned Broken Rites, alleging that Brother Gerard Joseph McNamara sexually abused him at St Paul's Catholic College in Traralgon, in eastern Victoria, in the 1970s. Also in 1994, Sam complained to a senior Marist Brother about McNamara's offences but this complaint was unsuccessful; and McNamara continued teaching as a Marist Brother. At a school reunion in 1998, Sam found that half a dozen other ex-students still remembered McNamara as an abuser. Finally, in 2003, on the advice of Broken Rites, Sam contacted the Sexual Offences and Child-abuse Investigation Team (SOCIT) of the Victoria Police. Detectives then easily found more victims of Gerard McNamara from just this one school.

In the Melbourne County Court on 13 December 2004 (ten years after Sam's first call to Broken Rites), Gerard McNamara (then 66) finally faced justice.

A Broken Rites researcher was present throughout all the McNamara court proceedings, taking notes.

The court was told that when Sam contacted the police, McNamara rejected the allegations, and continued convincing his friends and supporters that he had done nothing wrong.

A Marist cheer squad at the court

When McNamara turned up for his court appearance in 2004, he was accompanied by a throng of his colleagues and supporters, who filled the corridor outside the courtroom. This support team included leaders of the Marist Brothers Order. If any victim arrived, he had to weave his way through this support squad to approach the courtroom.

When the courtroom door was opened, the Marist support squad filled nearly all the seats in the courtroom's public gallery, leaving little space for victims.

Thus, no Catholic Church representatives attended court to support the victims. However, Broken Rites representatives were present to provide this support.

Helped by Broken Rites, one victim had alerted the media, and therefore (unfortunately for the Marists) journalists were present in court, taking notes. This ensured that the court case would not be covered up.

The 2004 court case begins

When the court hearing began, the courtroom was informed that detectives had obtained statements from not just one victim ("Sam") but six.

When asked how he wished to plead regarding these six victms, McNamara announced "Guilty". He admitted indecently assaulting these six students, mostly aged about 11 or 12, in 1972-73. These six were not McNamara's only victims — they were merely those who provided police statements. And the detectives had investigated only one of McNamara's schools — St Paul's College, Traralgon.

(St Paul's College, Traralgon, has since merged with a girls' school to become a part of the enlarged co-educational Lavalla Catholic College).

The offences in the 2004 case

Because of the "Guilty" plea, McNamara's victims were not required to give verbal evidence in court. However, the court possessed written statements, compiled by the victims during their police interviews.

The victims' written statements described how McNamara would send a boy alone to a sports equipment shed at the school for a "remedial massage". The massage, using oil or smelly "Dencorub", extended from the ankles to the genitals. McNamara sometimes took the victim to a bedroom near his office. McNamara was not a qualified masseur, the court was told.

The court was told that McNamara's abuse was well known to students at the campus, all of whom came to dread an invitation to the notorious shed. Other students knew what the smell of "Dencorub" meant and what being sent to the shed would result in. The "Dencorub" made the boys embarrassed after going back to class (or going home on the school bus) smelling of the substance. One embarrassed 11-year-old boy fled from the school and made his own way home from Traralgon to Moe, 30km away, instead of returning to class, after a "massage" from McNamara.

Some of the "massages" were purportedly for sports injuries — mostly an injured ankle but also an injured knee or an injured back — but some were for disciplinary reasons.

The court was told that McNamara was a violent teacher, regularly using a strap to discipline students. The prosecutor said McNamara was the deputy principal, sports co-ordinator and discipline co-ordinator at the time of the offences and later became the principal — positions that gave him power over his victims.

One victim wrote: "It was like discipline was his God, I remember seeing fellow students wet their pants while being dealt with by Brother Gerard."

Another victim said that during a sport class McNamara pushed him into a wooden vaulting horse and ordered him to stay back after school to have the injury massaged.

"I said it's not necessary ... I told him I had to go home after school, he insisted I was to stay back," the victim wrote. "I was petrified and fearful. I knew something was going to happen. It was well known around school Brother Gerard spent time alone with boys."

He said McNamara took him to a room in the school, told him to lie on a bed and rubbed a cream on him and massaged him for half an hour.

"I felt very dirty, I think I was in shock. I knew Brother Gerard had done something wrong but I didn't understand, I was very confused, embarrassed and ashamed," he said.

The culture of cover-up

McNamara also taught "religion" which included teaching "morals", the court was told during the 2004 hearing.

The court was told that McNamara held a position of exalted trust within the Catholic community, and his defenceless victims were too afraid to speak out.

When some boys did eventually reveal the abuse, the parents did not believe them. These parents had been conditioned to believe the Marist Brothers, rather than the children, the court was told.

Impact of the crimes

One boy ("Mitch") did tell his parents but his mother reprimanded him for "telling lies" about a Marist Brother — and his father thrashed him. This destroyed his relationship with his parents, both now dead. Even his brother disbelieved him until recently. After the court proceedings began, Mitch's brother apologised for doubting Mitch but the brotherly relationship is damaged, and Mitch (at the time of the 2004 court case) is still estranged from other family members.

The victims said that the long-term effects of McNamara's crimes included: low self-esteem; inability to form relationships; a feeling of powerlessness; the loss of their relationship with the church community; and a disruption of family relationships. Only one of the boys in the case has gone on to have a normal life, the court was told.

One boy wrote that this was his first "sexual" encounter and he carried the burden of guilty around for all these years, until this court case.

Pre-sentence submissions in 2004

Because of the "Guilty" plea, the victims' written evidence was not in dispute. The court began hearing submissions from the prosecution and the defence about what kind of penalty should be imposed on McNamara.

The prosecutor referred to the seriousness of the offences, committed on defenceless young boys (aged 11 or 12, not big teenagers) by a man in an exalted position. And, despite McNamara's guilty plea, he still has not expressed remorse, the court was told.

The Marists' defence lawyer stated that Brother McNamara has received overwhelming support, "as shown by the number of supporters in court today."

The Marists' lawyer asked for a non-custodial sentence, adding that McNamara's public disgrace would be a punishment in itself, as shown (he said) by the presence of "reporters in court today".

Media coverage of the 2004 case

At the end of the 13 December 2004 hearing, McNamara was remanded on bail pending the resumption of the pre-sentence proceedings on a future date.

McNamara's December 2004 guilty plea was immediately reported in the media. This prompted a seventh victim to come forward. When the pre-sentence proceedings resumed on 3 June 2005, McNamara the seventh victim was added to the case, and McNamara pleaded guilty regarding this victim.

At the June 2005 hearing, Marist leaders again attended court but many of McNamara's former large throng of supporters stayed away. Again, journalists were present in court.

Sentenced in 2005 and disgraced

On 17 June 2005, Judge Jim Duggan sentenced Gerard McNamara to a 36-month jail term which was suspended.

Certainly, the judge could have made McNamara serve part of this 3-year sentence (say, six months) behind bars but the Marist Brothers' lawyers could then appeal against the jailing — and, for legal reasons, the Appeals Court could easily release him (because it is quite common for the courts to give a suspended sentence in a case of this kind, where the incidents occurred many years ago).

The judge placed McNamara on the Register of Serious Sexual Offenders. McNamara now could never again work near children, not even driving a school bus. And the worst penalty of all is that (much to the embarrassment of the Marist Brothers Order) his 2005 conviction was publicised in Melbourne newspapers, on radio news bulletins and on television.

Radio interview

After the sentencing in 2005, Broken Rites arranged for one victim ("John") to be interviewed on Melbourne radio 3AW's drive-time program. After John's interview, several talkback callers spoke negatively on 3AW about the Marist Brothers culture. One caller said that he was an additional victim of McNamara — that is, this man had not been to the police and he was not one of the seven victims in the court case.

More Marist victims

As well as making sure that McNamara's conviction was reported in the Melbourne media, his victims also made sure that it was reported in local newspapers (and on local radio) in Traralgon and other districts in which McNamara had taught.

These media reports (plus this McNamara article on the Broken Rites website) caught the attention of other Marist victims. One of these was "Jeremiah" (not his real name), who was a victim of Marist Brother Aubrey Tobin at the Traralgon school. After the McNamara conviction, Jeremiah wrote to Marist headquarters in Melbourne, expressing his sympathy for the McNamara victims. The then head of the Marist Order in Australia's southern states, Brother Paul Gilchrist, replied to Jeremiah in a letter dated 28 June 2005. This letter indicates that Gilchrist participated in the defence lawyers' submissions on behalf of Brother McNamara at the pre-sentence proceedings. Gilchrist wrote in his letter to Jeremiah:

• "At the court hearing, I informed the presiding judge that the Marist Brothers are very sorry for any damage that has been caused, not only through Gerard's actions but through the subsequent impact of these actions that all or any of the former students have experienced."

[However, this expression of regret came thirty years too late for McNamara's victims at the Traralgon school.]

Further complaints about Marists

Since McNamara's sentencing in 2005, more ex-students have said that they have similar complaints about sexual abuse in Marist schools. Such ex-students, in the state of Victoria, should have a chat with the specialist police officers of the Sexual Offences and Child-abuseInvestigation Team (SOCIT) units which are located around Melbourne and around Victoria (for example, there is a SOCIT team at the Morwell police station, investigating such cases in the Gippsland region in eastern Victoria). Such a case could also interest the specialist detectives in the Sano Taskforce of the Victoria Police sex crime squad, in Melbourne.

Convicted again in 2016

On 14 November 2016, Gerard McNamara, 78, pleaded guilty in the Melbourne County Court to indecently assaulting two males under the age of 16 at St Paul's Catholic College in Traralgon (eastern Victoria). These offences occurred in 1975 when Brother Gerard McNamara was the principal and sports master of the school.

The court was told that the younger victim was 11 or 12 at the time and was in Year 7 (the lowest form in the school). This boy went to the school's office after injuring his knee (and damaging his pants) while playing soccer. He was standing in an office in his underwear while a female staff member repaired his pants.

McNamara then came into the office and used a pungent cream ("Dencorub") to massage the boy's leg. While doing this, he indecently attacked the boy's genitals.

"The victim returned to class smelling of liniment and was laughed at by the other students," the prosecutor told the court. "Unfortunately, the accused had a reputation among the students – a common expression used was 'getting a rub down from Brother Gerard'."

The second victim (when aged 14) was indecently assaulted twice after getting an injured thigh while playing football. First, McNamara indecently assaulted this boy in the sports shed and told him to return two days later. The boy returned and was indecentely assaulted again.

During a pre-sentence procedure on 14 November 2016, each of these two victims submitted an impact statement to the court, telling how this crime (committed by a Catholic Brother in a Catholic school) had damaged his life, leaving him emotionally scarred. Both victims said they still carried the consequences decades later.

On 6 December 2016, Judge James Parrish sentenced Gerard McNamara to 16 months in prison, wholly suspended.

The investigation for the 2016 case was conducted by detectives in the Sexual Offences and Child-abuse Investigation Team (SOCIT) at Morwell.

After the 2016 conviction, Victoria Police detectives continued to investigate further complaints concerning Brother Gerard Joseph McNamara.

In court on two matters in 2018

#1.
On 19 March 2018, Gerard Joseph McNamara appeared in Melbourne Magistrates Court, where he pleaded guilty to sexual offences against five more former schoolboys — case number H10859605. McNamara is scheduled to appear in court again in July 2018 for the next step in this judicial process. The police investigator in the McNamara case is Detective Senior Sergeant Christopher SKURRIE of Morwell Police. Following McNamara's guilty plea on 19 March 2018, the Marist Brothers’ Province of Australia released a media statement, finally acknowledging McNamara's offences: "The charges that have been pleaded guilty to today by this Brother represent the most profound breach of trust of children. We acknowledge that the effect of these actions is often lifelong and we apologise unreservedly to those who have suffered great pain as a result."

• A comment by Broken Rites: The church's "apology" (a business tactic) has come many years too late for McNamara's victims and their families, who are still feeling damaged by the disruption that the church cover-up has caused to their lives.

#2.
Meanwhile, in late January 2018, Gerard Joseph McNamara appeared in the Melbourne Magistrates Court on a separate matter — case number G13387455 — in which he was charged with sexually abusing a 12-year-old boy (who was not a student of his). This abuse occurred in Melbourne in the late 1970s, when McNamara used to visit the residence of this boy's family. The hearing began with legal argument between the defence lawyer and the prosecutor about the proposed evidence. The defence decided not to call or cross-examine any witnesses. McNamara then entered a plea of "Guilty" regarding what he had done to this 12-year-old boy. On the second day of the hearing, the magistrate gave McNamara a 12-months custodial sentence, which would include some months spent behind bars. McNamara gave notice that he will appeal against the jail period. He is on bail, pending the outcome of the appeal. On 6 April 2019, McNamara appeared in the Victorian County Court for an administrative procedure regarding this appeal.