20 Feb 2018

Sentence for paedophile not enough, victim says

5:26 am on 20 February 2018

A man who was sexually abused by a Catholic brother when he was six says a 33-year-jail sentence for the paedophile is not long enough.

Abuse survivor Darryl Smith as a 10-year-old.

Abuse survivor Darryl Smith as a 10-year-old. Photo: Supplied / Darryl Smith

The convicted sex offender Bernard McGrath preyed on children in New Zealand and Australia where he's just been sentenced to decades in prison.

Darryl Smith was just six years old when Bernard McGrath began sexually abusing him in the 1970s at Christchurch's Marylands school for boys.

McGrath was a St John of God brother when he abused at least nine boys at the school. He eventually served two prison sentences in New Zealand - released most recently in 2008.

Now 54, Darryl Smith is still angry.

"I got my life totally stolen from me. I had no childhood because of this monster, I lost everything. He is responsible majorly, yes, because he did the crime, but also St John of God hid the crime. They knew these sorts of things were happening to us children and they allowed it to happen."

But McGrath's abuse didn't end there.

Despite the accusations at Marylands, St John of God made him headmaster at Kendall Grange boys home in New South Wales where he subjected boys to years of sexual assaults through the 80s.

In 2012, Australian authorities laid more than 250 charges and after a lengthy two year legal battle he was extradited from New Zealand to stand trial.

Last week, at the age of seventy, he was sentenced to 33 years' jail, with 21 years' without parole.

Mr Smith said it was justice and he should never be allowed out.

"As a survivor of this monster's abuse, life is not long enough for him. My message to the Australian government is to lock him away, lock him away and just throw away the key.

"Don't even feed the monster, give him nothing."

He said it was appalling how long the legal process had taken.

"The predator seems to have more money and people behind him than the victims ... in his case he's got the might of the Catholic Church behind him."

Murray Heasley is a spokeperson for the Network for Survivors of Abuse in Faith Based Institutions.

He said the fact that McGrath would spend the rest of his life in prison was some justice for his victims but he it took far too long to get there.

"Many of the people that Bernard McGrath attacked will be dead now, and a good number of them will be dead by their own hand. So the longer that this injustice was drawn out, the more horrific the effect was on survivors. They're the survivors, the victims are the one's that didn't make it. So my response is this is unconscionable. "

Mr Heasley said he hoped the government would allow abuse carried out in religious orders to be part of the the Royal Commission on historical abuse in state care.