Chiu: “Why was it a difficult task in confronting him?”

Wade: “Because he was such an imposing and strong and intimidating character in himself.”

Chiu: “Brother Christopher, you were a grown man.”

Wade entered the Marist Brothers juniorate after year 11 in 1952. He is 80 years old. He took his vows in 1955.

Wade taught at 10 Marist schools and was principal at five. They included Parramatta, Lidcombe and Hunters Hill, Eastwood and Marcellin College in Randwick, as well as Hamilton Marist College. He started at Hamilton in 1969, and was principal from 1971. He left in 1976.

After Hamilton Wade was principal at Marist schools in Kogarah, Ashgrove in Queensland and finally Canberra.

Wade cannot recalling referring any complaints about the behaviour of brothers to the provincial. He can only remember consulting the provincial once, about an elderly brother who bought a motorbike and was brought home by police on a couple of occasions.

Wade said he was distant from Romuald. His relationship with him “wasn’t contentious but it wasn’t easy”.

Wade has told the royal commission he can recall one complaint about Romuald, he thinks in 1974.

Wade has been shown a document, a record of Strike Force Georgiana police based at Charlestown, during a meeting with Wade.

Wade’s response to police: “Yes. There had been a complaint about him interfering with a boy. That’s what we called it back then, it was interfering. I didn’t even know what a paedophile or paedophilia wer eback then. I went to Romuald and I had a conversation with him. What I remember about that conversation is that he said to me, ‘I thought I had been good in that area recently’. When he said this I thought that it was an admission that he had done stuff in the past.”

Wade said he did nothing about it after Romuald denied the allegation.

Commission chair Justice Peter McClellan is questioning Wade about that complaint.

McClellan: “You say that you only ever received one complaint about Romuald, is that right?”

Wade: “I did, your Honour, only one.”

McClellan: “You say only ever one.”

Wade: “Yes.”

McClellan: “Well, in that event, it’s something that would stand out if there was only the one, wouldn’t it?”

Wade: “It does stand out.”

McClellan: “Yes. It is somewhat remarkable, you would say, on your evidence, is that right?”

Wade: “What I remember most closely is the necessity to confront him about it.”

McClellan asked Wade a few more questions about how many times he had received complaints about brothers – “Hardly ever, seldom” – then asked if he accepted Romuald’s word. He answered that he did.

McClellan: “You were wrong, weren’t you?”

Wade: “Yes, I was.”

McClellan: “With terrible consequences for many children?”

Wade: “Yes, exactly.”

McClellan asked Wade if he knew adults sexually interfering with children were crimes.

Wade: “I think I understood that.”

McClellan: “You only think you understood that?”

Wade: “Yes.”

Wade was principal of a school with 950 children at the time.

McClellan: “Looking back on that, what do you say now as to your level of capacity to care for 950 children?”

Wade: “I think it was not adequate. I think it was woefully lacking.”

Wade said he was “extremely anxious and nervous” having to “confront” Romuald, a meeting he told the royal commission was held in a corridor of the brothers’ house, and which was “very brief”.

Wade has confirmed Romuald’s admission, “I thought I had been good in that area recently”, was Romuald admitting he had sexually interfered with boys in the past.

Wade said he did not report the admission to anyone.

He has just told the royal commission that “there wasn’t any regulation of ours at that time that – later on – there was an obligation on us to report any such matters directly to the provincial. That regulation had not come in. The matter had been denied, however weakly, it had been denied, and I thought that I had done what was necessary to be done”.

McClellan: “Assume there wasn’t one, as you’re telling us there wasn’t. Even without a regulation, did you really need a rule or some specific policy to tell you that this was a matter of some seriousness that you should report to the provincial?”

Wade: “But the man had – the man had denied any current wrongdoing.”

Justice McClellan has just started asking more questions of Wade, and his statement to police in 2014 that Romuald had said “I thought I had been good in that area recently”.

McClellan: “To the police you put the words in inverted commas, didn’t you, meaning they were the words that he actually said to you?”

Wade: “That’s correct, yes.”

McClellan: “There’s no imprecision in those words. The inference is plain, isn’t it?”

Wade: “I’m not sure, your Honour.”

McClellan: “Is that a serious answer?”

Wade: “Yes.”

McClellan: “Because you yourself then go on to say to the police, ‘When he said this I thought it was an admission’. That’s the conclusion you drew when the words were stated, wasn’t it?”

Wade: “Yes, that’s correct.”

McClellan: “You had an allegation, you don’t remember where the source comes from, against a man who makes an admission to you that he’s interfered with boys in the past. Correct?”

Wade: “I’m not sure whether that’s strong enough to say that he’s made an admission.”

McClellan: “Do you understand they’re your words. You understood him to be making an admission to you. You have an allegation from a boy that he has interfered with that boy. You have an admission that he has done it in the past. How could you just accept his denial without investigating the matter further?”

Wade: “I can’t justify that, your Honour.”

Wade is now being questioned about the death of Andrew Nash in October, 1974.

Counsel assisting Stephen Free: “Do you recall attending the Nash house on the night or the afternoon of his death?”

Wade: “I don’t recall it. I’m not saying it didn’t happen. I can’t – I simply can’t recall whether I went to the house or not.”

Free: “This must have been a shocking incident?”

Wade: “It was absolutely shocking and devastating.”

Free: “Do you remember being told on the day of his death that Andrew had killed himself?”

Wade: “I don’t think I can answer that. I don’t recall being told, no.”

Free: “You are aware that other witnesses remember you being at the Nash house on that day?”

Wade: “Yes, I am aware of that.”

Free: “You have no reason to doubt them?”

Wade: “No.”

Free: “It seems extraordinary, Brother Christopher, you don’t remember being there. It must have been a very unusual event?”

Wade: “It was a very unusual event. However, in the nature of schools and particularly one who is in schools for many years, unfortunately, you do come across tragic events. For example, we had another student killed at Hamilton while I was there, in a cycling accident, and in the last year I was there we had a brother killed in a road accident which also involved three or four students, and that was at one school. So whereas a child’s suicide is always a tragedy and a devastating event for the community of which it’s a part, it’s not, unfortunately, a one-off.”

He said he has no recollection of other Marist brothers attending the Nash house on the night of Andrew’s death.

Wade denied the allegation by Andrew’s mother Audrey Nash, made to the royal commission on Tuesday, that he, Brother Romuald and Brother John arrived at the Nash house on the night of Andrew’s death to find if Andrew had left behind any evidence of being abused, such as a suicide note.

McClellan has just put to Wade the question whether there was any connection between the allegation made to Brother Christopher about Romuald, and the movement of Romuald from the school.

McClellan: “Why was Brother Romuald moved?”

Wade: “Are you asking me that?”

McClellan: “Yes.”

Wade: “I don’t know.”

McClellan: “One of your staff members is transferred and you don’t know why?”

Wade: “I never knew. I never knew why any brother was moved.”

Brother Romuald – Francis Cable – left the Marist Brothers in 1978, four years after Andrew Nash’s death, and after Romuald left the Hamilton school.

Wade said he was not aware why Romuald left the order. He said no one in the Marist Brothers had ever asked him anything about Romuald after he left the school. He said former provincials Brother Alexis Turton and Brother Michael Hill had not asked him any questions about Romuald.

Wade is now being questioned about Brother Dominic (Darcy O’Sullivan).

McClellan is now questioning Brother Christopher Wade about the sexual and physical abuse of children by Marist Brothers.

McClellan: “Why? Why did this happen?”

Wade: “I can’t explain that.”

Wade: “It was an era, of course, when corporal punishment was a common feature of most schools in Australia. I think, looking back now, we all regret, certainly I regret that that was ever the case. I would acknowledge that in some cases the corporal punishment was excessive, cruel, unreasonable, certainly unproductive, but beyond that, I can’t really go.”

McClellan: “Now, were you aware of the brutality that some of them were meting out to kids?”

Wade: “No, I was not aware of it.”

Wade described Cassian as “a strict disciplinarian, as an unreasonable disciplinarian”.

Wade said Brother Cassian taught him.

McClellan: “We also know of a number of abusing brothers in the Hamilton school and the evidence of their behaviour would suggest that many, many boys were abused, far more than we’ve heard from in this hearing, do you understand?”

Wade: “That seems to be the case, yes.”

McClellan: “The behaviour seems to have been in some classes every child was a prospective victim, do you understand that?”

Wade: “Yes.”

McClellan: “Why do you think this happened?”

Wade: “I think in some ways we were part of a perfect storm. Inadequate recruitment processes, inadequate training, inadequate facilities, huge classes, unreasonable demands put on some of our men.”

McClellan: “Why do large classes and lack of resources and unreasonable demands turn your men into sexual abusers of little boys?”

Wade: “Well, when I was saying that I was more referring to physical abuse.”

McClellan: “We’ve moved from that to sexual abuse.”

Wade: “Right.”

McClellan: “What’s your understanding as to why some of your brothers sexually abused multiple, multiple boys?”

Wade: “I can’t answer that, your Honour.”

Survivor CQS is giving evidence about his time as a student at Hamilton Marist School, where his teachers included Brother Patrick and Brother Romuald.

Brother Patrick was his year 8 maths teacher in 1974, and put his hands down his pants and tried to fondle his genitals.

Brother Romuald was his religious education teacher, and was a sports coach. He was a rugby league coach, and organised father and son camps.

Romuald was “a very intimidating, masculine man, and was very tall, big and imposing”.

“Brother Romuald had a way with parents and was very engaging and popular with the fathers,” CQS said.

“As the rugby league coach, Brother Romuald would try to manhandle the forwards when they were packing down.”

Romuald put his hand between boys’ legs and groped them, saying it would help them to bind the scrum.

“I had a lot of rugby coaches before and after this and none ever used such a technique during training,” CQS said.

Romuald sexually abused CQS during Duke of Edinburgh events, and groped him underwater at Merewether baths during bronze medallion training.

“On one occasion I saw Brother Romuald holding another boy on his lap for what seemed like an unusually long time, maybe 5 to 10 minutes. I couldn’t see what was going on under water but I now think he was raping that boy,” CQS said.

“After training Brother Romuald would also appear in the showers. He insisted that all boys should shower naked without their swimmers. He would be naked and often he would have an erection which he would not attempt to hide.”

On another occasion Brother Romuald used CQS to try to identify the femoral artery and fondled his groin in front of other boys.

CQS told his mother who was very upset. His father was angry but also quite matter of fact about it.

“I remember him saying something like ‘In life, you have to be careful. There are people who prey on children’,” CQS said.

He is not sure, but thinks his father went to the school to speak with his form teacher, Mr Forbes, who he described as a good teacher.

“I remember thinking that Mr Forbes was not surprised by this, saying something like ‘I knew he was up to something and that he had been after this bloke for years’,” CQS said.

He asked CQS to report it to the school principal, Brother Christopher.

CQS and his father spoke to Brother Christopher. CQS said he told Brother Christopher everything that had happened to him.

“Brother Christopher gave nothing away in his response. He had a poker face throughout the meeting. I remember my father said something like, something had to be done, and Brother Christopher said he would do something about it. I think he also thanked me for being honest and this was a very important matter.

“CQS said he told Brother Christopher he did not want Brother Romuald to know about the complaint.”

Romuald approached him a week later, and asked if he had said anything about Merewether baths. He said walking around naked was natural, and it was perfectly normal for a grown man to have an erection in the morning. He said if I mentioned it to anyone that I’d be in big strife and he’d make an example of me.

CQS said Romuald remained his religion teacher and caned him and another boy at every class.

Romuald left the school at the end of the year. CQS said he felt blessed to have the kind of relationship with his parents that he had, “where I could tell them about this kind of thing”.

CQS is now being questioned by solicitor Hilbert Chiu, representing other survivors.

CQS has told the royal commission that Andrew Nash was one of the boys targeted for sexual abuse, and the abusers were Brother Romuald, and “I also understand Brother Dominic”.

Chiu: “When you say you understand, was that common knowledge among the boys?”

CQS: “It was knowledge on the basis that Andrew was a wonderful singer, actually, and was in Brother Dominic’s choir and I know that he was with Brother Dominic and that’s how I understand.”

CQS has told the royal commission that after Andrew Nash’s death in October, 1974, at the age of 13, he remembers boys being told by someone at the school – possibly Brother Christopher – that Andrew’s death was a result of “an accident, and that he was climbing up the door in his bedroom and his brother shut the door and Andrew’s tie got caught in the door and he hanged himself on his tie by accident”.

Lawyer Mr Brady, for Brother Christopher Wade, is questioning CQS about the meeting with Brother Christopher.

CQS denied telling Brother Christopher what he had told Mr Forbes about the abuse, saying the discussion with Mr Forbes was on his own, and in a general school area, while the discussion with Brother Christopher was with his father and in a confidential area.

Brady has just put to CQS that there was no general announcement to the school after Andrew Nash’s death. CQS said “I can’t recall exactly. There was – it was the official version as we understood it”.

Hallett is 51. He was born in Hornsby. His mother was 14, and he was taken from her.

His adoptive mother moved to Newcastle. She was Catholic, but not overly religious.

Hallett completed kindergarten at St Joseph’s Catholic primary school, and he attended the nearby church. The parish priest was Monsignor Patrick Cotter.

Scott Hallett was best friends with Gerard McDonald, who has already given evidence. The boys became altar boys at the age of 9. Hallett performed altar boy duties many mornings. He attended altar boy practice with five or six other boys at a time.

Hallett recalls Cotter as not talking very much and not being very friendly.

“He seemed to me to be very regal and I remember thinking that he was the next best thing to God,” Hallett said.

Father Vince Ryan started as priest at the Hamilton church in 1975. Ryan gave the boys altar wine, chased them, tickled them and chased them into the cupboard.

Hallett is becoming upset while trying to talk about an incident in winter, 1975. Justice McClellan has just told Hallett: “It is all right. It is all right. Just take your time.”

Hallett is telling the royal commission that Ryan pulled his penis out of his pants and started masturbating himself. He asked the boys “Who wants to have a go?”

Ryan performed oral sex on several boys.

“Father Ryan then encouraged us boys to have anal sex with each other. I remember he told one of the boys to get on his hands and knees on the floor. The boy had his pants off. Father Ryan then got Gerard to try to penetrate this boy. Father Ryan was telling Gerard what to do. I saw Gerard try to put his penis, which was erect, into the boy’s bottom, from behind. Then Father Ryan got Gerard to try to penetrate me,” Hallett said.

Ryan also encouraged Hallett to try to penetrate McDonald.

Hallett told his teacher Mr Hallinan, that Father Ryan had been doing something to the boys.

“I think he picked up on exactly what I meant because he began asking me questions about what had happened. I don’t think I gave him any details and he did not seem shocked,” Hallett said.

He said he told his teacher, Sister Ursula, what Ryan had done.

“Sister Ursula was straight into me ‘You are a liar. How dare you say that? Making up stories about other people will get you into trouble,” Hallett said.

“She ranted and raved and gave me a hard time.”

“As a result of what Father Ryan did to me and the other altar boys I began to hate the church and to hate being an altar boy. I began to take out my anger on the church by doing everything I could think of to hurt it. I started stealing money from all of the poor boxes and also from the petty cash tin. I recall in 1976 I defecated in the garbage bin where the holy waters were stored and I also broke into the school on a couple of occasions and defecated in some library books and also on the keyboard of the school piano.”

Hallett started at Marist Brothers Hamilton in 1977 and saw Vince Ryan serving mass.

“After the mass finished I went out of my way to get behind Father Ryan because I wanted to push him down the stairs. I wanted to kill him. I didn’t do anything to Father Ryan that day and I didn’t see him again afterwards.”

In 1995, after a funeral attended by Hallett and McDonald, they agreed to speak to police.

Ryan was charged.

“The matter went to court but I was not required to give evidence. I found the experience to be very daunting. A lot of people were calling me a liar and did not believe what Father Ryan had done. Others were telling me to just get over it. This was a distressing time as I really hate being in the spotlight,” Hallett said.

He told the royal commission that Vince Ryan was convicted of sexually assaulting 33 victims and sentenced to 14 years jail.

Hallett: “That’s less than five months per victim. And I do not think that is enough for what I go through on a daily basis and the damage it has caused everybody.”

Hallett said he took civil action against the diocese, and attended a meeting with Maitland-Newcastle Bishop Michael Malone in a room at Noah’s.

“We met at the motel because it was neutral, not part of the Catholic Church. The first thing Bishop Malone did was put his hand out for me to kiss it. I said ‘You’re kidding, aren’t you?’

“Bishop Malone’s action got me offside straightaway.”

Hallett said he received $360,000 from the diocese but “the money can’t compensate me for what happened and what I have lost”.

Hallett said he attempted suicide in 1995 or 1996.

Hallett is being questioned by barrister Simon Harben, SC, representing former Maitland-Newcastle Bishop Michael Malone.

Hallett is making a statement to the royal commission.

Hallett: “We, the survivors, have experienced major mental trauma and we all deal with that in different ways and relate differently in different ways, irrespective of what, when and where. These abhorrent acts should never be trivialised again as inappropriae behaviour, old hat or out of date.

“At the end of the day, what matters is how we, the survivors, perceive ourselves. We don’t want the pity. What we need is understanding.

“So I would like to say that maybe when you go home today, pull out a photo of yourself and one of your children when they were 9, 10 or 11 years old and just maybe sit that in front of you and go through a couple of the statements that survivors have provided you here, and then hopefully most people may get a bit of an insight what our world is like.”

Counsel assisting Stephen Free is questioning Brother Michael Hill – a psychologist and provincial of the order from 1995 to 2001 and a member of the Catholic Church’s national professional standards committee from 1996 to 2007.

Free is asking Hill abut a complaint made by a student boarder at Ashgrove Marist school in Brisbane in 2001 against Brother Patrick.

The student said Patrick stroked him and placed his hand on the boy’s groin during a study session.

Hill was advised straight away and a complaint was made to police. Hill has told the royal commission that supervision of Patrick was “clearly” not effective.

Hill remembered getting a request from police to “conduct checks of the archives and personnel files... of Brother Patrick in an effort to identify any history or circumstances which may suggest that the brother has acted in any inappropriate manner with any child during his extensive teaching career”.

Hill said he “definitely” intended to cooperate with the request.

The royal commission has been told a lawyer called Pat Mullins was handling the criminal case for Brother Patrick.

There was a subsequent phone call between Hill and a lawyer working with Pat Mullins, and a file note saying: “They have now had an approach from Geoff Marsh from Task Force Argos wanting them to do a search of their archives to come up with any documents they have which would point to Brother Patrick being involved in any inappropriate behaviour with children”.

Hill has just been shown a police file note saying “DSC Dixon has advised that subject to his investigation in 1999 he conducted a thorough background investigation of Butler. He advises that he failed to generate any associated complaints. The Marist Brothers provincial Brother Michael Hill, of Drummoyne, advises that a search of their archive has failed to identify any adverse allegations with respect to Brother Butler”.

Hill has also been shown a letter from Pat Mullins to investigating police indicating that Brother Hill “has caused a search to be done of the records of the province and that those records reveal that Brother Patrick Butler has never been charged with any criminal offence”.

Free: “Did you understand that to be part of what the police were asking you?”

Hill: “I understand that, yes.”

Free: “But you did understand also that they weren’t asking only about whether he had been the subject of criminal charges before, but whether he had been the subject of any complaints?”

Hill: “Yes, that’s – they are – there were two parts to it. As I recall, it started off with a very, very broad request.”

Hill has told the royal commission that in a verbal call with the investigating police officer, he advised him there were other complaints about Butler, and the police officer advised that he “wanted to receive the report from the case dealing – there was a police investigation”.

Free: “Did you say to him that you had understood his request to go much wider than that?”

Hill: “Well, I had indicated to him that there were several complaints.”

Free: “But did he say he wasn’t interested in those unless they were the subject…

Hill: “Words to that effect, yes.”

Free: “Did he say why.”

Hill: “No.”

Free: “Did you ever appreciate that the police were interested in what is called similar fact evidence or tendency evidence that might show that the Brother had engaged in similar things in the past?”

Hill: “I’m – no, I’m not a lawyer.”

Free later put it to Hill that it might be possible that “you are not remembering this accurately, and that the police never qualified their request”.

Hill: “Oh, no I’m – I remember quite clearly: they did qualify their request. I’m not in error there.”

Free: “The archives or, I should say, the documentary records that the Marist Brothers held, did, in fact, include file notes and other documents about complaints against Brother Patrick which have not been the subject of a police investigation?”

Hill: “True.”

Free: “And you didn’t provide those to the police?”

Hill: “I provided it verbally.”

Free: “By telling them that there had been several complaints?”

Hill: “Yes.”

Free: “But beyond that, you didn’t provide the documents?”

Hill: “No, I wasn’t asked for them.”

Brother Michael Hill, current provincial for the Marist Brothers and responsible for Queensland, NSW and the ACT, is giving evidence.

Hill has just been shown a letter sent by him to Francis Cable, the former Brother Romuald, in March 1999. It refers to Cable being charged with an offence. Hill said he did not remember the details of the charge, which he was told was physical assault.

The letter shows that Hill spoke with Cable, while he was provincial.

Cable asked for financial assistance because he said he had been charged after being wrongly accused. Hill agreed to provide $2000 financial assistance, on condition that it was kept strictly confidential.

Hill has now been taken to his statement to the royal commission: “During the course of 1997 I was aware that a significant number of complaints were being received in relation to other Brothers. I recall a significant evolution in my thinking as to potentially widespread inappropriate behaviour by a number of individuals.”

Hill was asked why he agreed to give Cable assistance, and agreed it was because he understood Cable had been “wrongly accused”.

Counsel assisting Stephen Free: “Why did you think that?”

Hill: “I have no reason for it. It was naive.”

Hill said Cable gave him no details of what had happened.

Free: “Did you have any particular reason to believe Brother Romuald as a trustworthy person?”

Hill: “Not really, no.”

Hill confirmed he had heard of at least rumours of inappropriate conduct by Romuald before this request.

Hill has been taken back to his statement in which he said his “evolution in my thinking” occurred from 1997, and agreed he was more sceptical of what Brothers told him after that time.

Free: “Can you explain, then, why in 1999 you took Brother Romuald at his word in saying that he was wrongly accused without knowing more detail?”

Hill: “As I say, I’m embarrassed to say I cannot give an adequate response to that question. It was stupid.”

Free has now taken Hill to what he was told about Brother Dominic, real name Darcy O’Sullivan.

He said Brother Dominic – now jailed for child sex offences against former Hamilton Marist students – phoned him to say he had “done something foolish” and made an inappropriate statement to a student at a Marist school. The royal commission has been told Dominic told a young teenage boy that “Soon you’ll get hair on your balls”.

Hill has told the royal commission he was due to have a meeting with the Brisbane Catholic Education authorities, with the outcome that he was reprimanded.

Free: “Were you told that there was also a complaint that he had touched the boy inappropriately, put the boy’s hand on his thigh and rubbed it, and kissed the boy on the top of his head?”

Hill: “None of that information was conveyed to me.”

Hill said he spoke to the Catholic Education Office and “I asked the person directly, should he be stood down?”

Hill: “She said that no, the Catholic Education Office would handle the matter, there was no need for me to be involved. They saw it as a minor matter rather than a standing-down issue.”

The royal commission was told the CEO got Dominic to agree to work on a “hands off approach”.

Hill said he was not aware that a former student has given evidence to the royal commission that he made a complaint about Dominic to Hamilton Marist principal Brother Christopher in 1972.

Hill said he was also not aware of a complaint about Dominic by a priest to the then provincial Brother Alexis Turton in 1994.

Hill is now being shown a file note by him, dated May 25, 1996, headed “Brother Dominic”.

It notes that Hill put the proposal to him about taking over as principal at Hamilton from the beginning of 1997.

“He was quite surprised by this, not having put Hamilton into the equation at this stage. We see it as a good match between him and that school,” Hill’s note said.

Dominic was appointed in June 1996 but objections were subsequently raised about him, including from the then Maitland-Newcastle Bishop Michael Malone.

The bishop said he had received complaints from former students within a very short time – within hours – of the appointment being announced.

Hill said Malone referred to “inappropriate behaviour”, but there were no more details than that.

Free: “You must have understood that Bishop Malone took those complaints to be serious?”

Hill: “Of course, yes.”

Free: “And did you, in turn, treat them as serious?”

Hill: “Absolutely.”

Free: “And it suggests, doesn’t it, a level of notoriety of Brother Dominic in the former student community?”

Hill: “It was the first I’ve heard about it, yes.”

Free has just asked Hill if the conversation with Dominic about having been foolish and having made an inappropriate comment to a young teenage boy was before or after the appointment, Hill said it was after.

Hill said he told Malone he would revoke the appointment after the discussion with him.

Hill has just been shown minutes for a Marist provincial council meeting for 16 August, 1996.

Under special appointments it notes “Brother Dominic O’Sullivan is unable to go to Hamilton next year because of health reasons. Discussion on the possible replacement for Brother Dominic took place.”

Hill has been asked why it appeared in this way.

Hill: “I have no specific memory of that particular discussion. That certainly would have arisen, given what had happened. I would have told the members of the provincial council about the details we have already discussed here, so why it is expressed that way I cannot give an explanation.”

Free: “So the record of the reason for his being unable to go to Hamilton as it appears in the minutes is completely wrong?”

Hill: “Yes. Well, it is misleading, certainly.”

Free: “And anyone who later tried to understand why this had occurred would be completely misled by the minutes?”

Hill: “Yes.”

Royal commission chair Justice Peter McClellan has just asked Hill if he attended the following provincial council meeting, and if he approved the minutes showing Dominic would not be taking up the appointment because of “health reasons”.

McClellan: “Why would you have done that?”

Hill: “I can’t – I can’t recall this – yes.”

McClellan: “It looks like someone’s trying to hide the truth?”

Hill: “It certainly appears that way.”

Free is asking Hill about attempts he made to place Dominic after he attended a treatment centre in America in 1997 for “mid-life renewal”.

Hill proposed sending him to a novitiate in Fiji, but Dominic didn’t like the idea.

Free: “He objected quite strongly?”

Hill: “He did.”

Free: “What was your reasoning in suggesting him for that appointment?”

Hill: “First of all, he wouldn’t be in any contact with children, right? It was a necessary appointment, it would give him something to do, something which was productive and worthwhile but, as I say, it would not put him in any unsupervised contact with minors.”

Free has told the royal commission that the provincial council seemed to have considered appointed Brother Dominic to either Dundas or Ashgrove schools. The principals of both schools “expressed some reservation about the appointment”.

Hill has denied there was some notoriety about Brother Dominic. He said Dominic and the Dundas school would not have been a good fit.

Asked to explain what that meant, Hill struggled with a response, and eventually said: “I cannot see, I just could not see Dominic fitting in to the culture, the sub-culture, of Dundas. They would have been poles apart.”

Free: “Is Dundas a rough school? Is that what you are getting at?”

Hill: “Yes, yes. In those days.”

Hill said he eventually appointed Dominic to a secretarial role. By that stage he decided Dominic had “zero insight” into what had led him to do the program in the first place.

Free is now questioning Hill about Brother Patrick, real name Thomas Butler, and Patrick’s time at Ashgrove Marist College in Brisbane.

Hill has told the royal commission he was aware of “arrangements” in place involving Patrick after he became provincial, and after allegations raised about Patrick touching boys. He had been told about those arrangements by Brother Alexis Turton.

He said the arrangements involved the headmaster and counsellor, and the need for “vigilance”.

Hill is now being shown a document showing “supervision arrangements or restrictions on duties” were imposed on brother Patrick by August 1992. Brother Patrick was working at Marist College, Ashgrove on the date the supervision arrangements or restrictions were imposed on him. Brother Patrick died on August 26, 2006.

Hill said he was not aware what the supervision arrangements were from 1992.

Hill is being asked about Brother Patrick taking part in the Crossroads program, which Hill described as a program for “people either in the process of, or preparing to, retire, change ministries, transition”.

Hill has told the royal commission that by the time he took over as provincial, in 1995, “it was quite clear that he could not have unsupervised contact with children”.

“That was abundantly clear,” he said.

Free: “And so did you proceed on the basis that during your time in charge as provincial, whatever Brother Patrick was doing should not involve unsupervised access to children?”

Hill: “Yes.”

Hill is being questioned about a letter written by him in October 1996 after one of the complaints against Brother Patrick.

Hill wrote “I note with regret your information concerning the actions of two of our men at Hamilton in the early 1970s. This is not the first time that each of these had come to our attention. For your own peace of mind I can assure you that, after thorough investigation, it would seem that aspects of the behaviour of Brother Patrick were certainly injudicious and inappropriate but not criminal in nature.”

McClellan is questioning Hill about whether he understood the difference between the police responsibilities to investigate potential crimes, and his responsibilities to protect children.

McClellan: “Why was it sufficient to say ‘The police aren’t proceeding and therefore nothing of concern arose’?”

Hill: “Because by then we had already put in place the structures, if you like, whereby Butler had no unsupervised contact with children.”

McClellan has asked Hill why multiple Marist Brothers sexually abused children.

Hill: “I have no explanation for that. None whatsoever. It’s exercised my mind for 20 years.”

McClellan: “You don’t seem to have asked the question whether the changes are going to remove the problems?”

Hill: “Well, we – I mean, the Marist Brothers of the 21^st century - are implementing best practice as it is understood throughout the wider church.”

McClellan: “But you are telling me, and others have told me, you actually haven’t sat down and analysed why it was that the brothers went off the rails?”

Hill: “Oh, that happens over and over again, whether it has been independently and in a systematic way, so far I don’t think it has.”

McClellan: “Well, then, to say that the changes will then solve the problem doesn’t take you very far, does it, because you don’t know whether those changes will answer the problems that haven’t been looked at?”

Hill: “Certainly in the field of – in my own particular field of expertise – I think we have done that.”

10.00am

Good morning. It’s Joanne McCarthy back at the Royal Commission hearings in Newcastle, with the focus today on the response of Catholic Church authorities in the Maitland-Newcastle region to allegations of child sexual abuse.

Here is a wrap up of day five:

To read more about the hearings into the Newcastle Anglican diocese, check the video and links below.