Another two Christian Brothers, both one-time teachers at Edmund Rice College in West Wollongong, have been charged over historic child sex crimes.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
David Michael Curtin, 65, of Mulgoa, taught at the West Wollongong college in the 1980s.
Next month he will appear before Goulburn Local Court charged with two counts of sexual assault/indecent assault on a person younger than 16 under his authority.
Police will allege that Curtin indecently assaulted two students, aged 12 and 14, while working in the Goulburn area in 1986.
He was charged in February, after presenting himself at Goulburn Police Station, and has been granted conditional bail to appear at Goulburn Local Court May 10.
Also coming under the court’s scrutiny is Peter Nicholas Joseph Lennox, principal at Edmund Rice in 1982-83.
Lennox, 75, of Cootamundra, has pleaded not guilty to seven counts of indecent assault on a male, one count of an indecent act on a male, two of sexual assault/indecent assault on a person under 16 under his authority and two charges of gross indecency by a male on a male under 18.
He is due to stand trial on October 23 at Sydney Downing Centre.
The men are the fourth and fifth brothers to be charged under Strike Force Charish, established in February 2014 to investigate allegations of historical sexual and indecent assault at St Patrick's College, Goulburn, in the 1970s and 1980s.
A spokesman for Christian Brothers' Oceania Province acknowledged the matters had come before the courts.
"Whilst the individuals involved did serve at ERC [Edmund Rice College], the charges they are facing are entirely unrelated to the College,” the spokesman said. “They relate to matters alleged to have occurred at a school in the Goulburn area.”
"The Christian Brothers are unable to comment further on the defendants and the detail of what is alleged out of respect for the judicial processes underway"
Edmund Rice College has been repeatedly linked to cases of historic child sex abuse.
Whitlam MP Stephen Jones recently spoke out about the school’s unofficial one-time status as “a dumping ground for paedophiles”.
Mr Jones attended the college in the late-1970s and early 1980s, when Brother Michael Evans was principal and Father Peter Comensoli was parish priest.
Evans committed suicide in 1996, before detectives could interview him about child abuse allegations. Comensoli was jailed for abusing boys. Last year he admitted to interfering with another three boys.
In September, another former Brother at the college, John Vincent Roberts, was handed an overall prison term of ten years, with a non-parole period of six years, for the repeated rape of a 13-year-old student in the early 1980s.