Gerard McNamara was a Marist Brother masseur

In April 1994, a Melbourne man ("Sam") phoned Broken Rites about a Marist Brother (Gerard Joseph McNamara) who sexually abused him at St Paul's Catholic College in Traralgon, in eastern Victoria, twenty years earlier. About the same year, Sam also spoke to a senior Marist Brother about McNamara but McNamara continued teaching as a Marist Brother. Four years later, 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 Victoria police Sexual Offences and Child Abuse (SOCA) unit. Detectives then easily found more victims of Gerard McNamara.

In the Melbourne County court on 13 December 2004 (ten years after Sam's first call to Broken Rites), Gerad McNamara, 66, pleaded guilty to indecently assaulting six students, aged about 12, in 1972-3. These six were not McNamara's only victims - they were merely those who provided police statements.

The court was told that when the first victim contacted police, McNamara rejected the allegations, and continued convincing his friends and supporters that he had done nothing wrong. It was only after the police found further victims that he decided to plead guilty. He still has not expressed remorse, the court was told.

McNamara's December 2004 guilty plea was reported in the media. This prompted a seventh victim to come forward. When the hearing resumed on 3 June 2005, McNamara added the seventh victim to his guilty plea.

Victims' statements

In written statements, the victims said McNamara would send each 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. Prosecutor Ray Gibson 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. McNamara also taught "religion" which included teaching "morals", the court was told. 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.

Impact of the abuse

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.

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 is still estranged from other family members.

The victims said 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.

McNamara (born 9 March 1938) became a trainee Marist Brother, straight from school, at age 18 in 1956. Originally known as "Brother Camillus", he taught in Marist schools at Sale VIC in 1960-4, Wangaratta VIC 1965-6, Bendigo VIC 1967, Forbes NSW 1968, Traralgon VIC 1970-6, Mt Gambier SA 1978-80, Preston VIC 1980-5, Shepparton VIC 1986-92, Sale VIC 1993-9, Preston VIC 2002-3, Sale VIC 2003. In the mid-1970s, while officially still at the Traralgon school, McNamara spent some time in Fiji. About 1977, after Traralgon, he also spent some time away from teaching, doing a course at the Catholic Church's National Pastoral Institute (now defunct) in Melbourne. McNamara's barrister said McNamara is receiving counselling from Catholic Church Melbourne psychologist Shane Wall. [The church also employs Wall to supervise the counselling of church-abuse victims - an obvious conflict of interest.]

Sentenced 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 defence would then have appealed 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 can never work near children again, not even driving a school bus. And the worst penalty of all is that his name and face have been publicised in Melbourne newspapers, on radio news bulletins and on television.

After the sentencing, 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.

Thus, Gerard Joseph McNamara is totally disgraced and humiliated. And the public image of the Marist Brothers order is tarnished.

The case was prepared by the police Sexual Crimes Squad, St Kilda Road, Melbourne. The investigator was Detective Senior Constable John Dimos, phone 03 9865 2535.