Royal Commission hears of priest abusing boy at Morpeth College

The man, given the code-name CKU, said he was 12 years old when his mother began her training as a priest at St John’s Theological College at Morpeth.

Barrack was 28 and married, although CKU said Barrack’s wife was rarely present.

Both families lived on the grounds of the Morpeth college.

CKU said his family had separated and his father was in England and the only way to stay in contact with his father was to use a computer at Barrack’s house, because his mother could not afford the long-distance telephone calls and the only other alternative was letters.

He said his mother trusted Barrack enough to let him “sleep over” at Barrack’s house, believing, wrongly, that Barrack’s wife was there.

He said the first abuse took place about a month after his 14^th birthday when both were playing a computer game.

Barrack convinced him to let him perform oral sex on the teenager.

“He came over and knelt down in front of me and then I remember my pants and boxer shorts being down around my knees,” CKU said.

He said Barrack then introduced him to pornographic movies, which he would play while Barrack abused him.

He said Barrack made the teenager penetrate him anally, and while CKU said he knew their behaviour was wrong, he also felt confused and embarrassed.

One day late in October 1998 CKU said “we were mucking around and I said: ‘Don’t do that or I’ll tell.

“I didn’t mention abuse but he got angry and said: ‘Don’t do that or I’ll be done for a paedophile.”

He said the abuse was regular, taking place at least three or four times a week.

CKU said he went to a boarding school at Armidale from 1999 because his mother had taken up an assistant priest’s position at Forster.

Having broken free of Barrack, things came to a head in May 2002 when he received an email from Barrack and believed he had seen him, the same day, on the street in Singleton.

Aged 17, he had already told his girlfriend at the time about the abuse and then he told his mother, who took him to Singleton police station on May 29, 2002, where he made a statement.

Unfortunately, nothing happened with that complaint and it was not until he made a second complaint in 2005 at The Entrance police station that a case was mounted against Barrack and he was taken to court.

After a plea-bargaining process, Barrack was charged with a single count of sexual intercourse with a person aged 10 years to 16 years.

After pleading guilty Barrack was sentenced to two years jail with 12 months non-parole.

After the church paid for some counselling sessions CKU said he received a payment of $60,000 in 2009, with the church also paying for his legal costs.

He said in 2009 he received a written apology from the Newcastle Bishop Brian Farran, but it was not the public apology for all of the church’s abuse that he had asked for.

Concluding his statement, CKU said: “Although people don’t know what happened to me, I feel self conscious about being around children and what strangers might think if am seen near children.”

“I have heard theories about abused people become abusers and although I know this is not true, it plays on my mind.”

Earlier in the morning, former assistant Newcastle Bishop Richard Appleby resumed giving evidence, and continued to deny that he knew of any child sexual abuse during his time in Newcastle.

He confirmed that the former Dean of Newcastle, Graeme Lawrence, had read the bible about half a dozen times at St Stephen’s Adamstown, in 2013, after he had been defrocked the year before.

The commission asked about this, but Bishop Appleby said there was nothing wrong with him doing this because he was not carrying out “priestly duties” in doing so, and had not worn a priest’s collar when doing so.

The hearing continues.