Church counsellor 'assaulted' boy

1st December 2009

A CATHOLIC brother is accused of sexually assaulting a boy he had been counselling after the youngster was molested by another man, a court has been told.

Former Vincentian brother William Stanley Irwin, 54, of Pyrmont in inner Sydney, appeared briefly in Sydney's Downing Centre Local Court on Tuesday charged with two counts of gross indecency on a male under the age of 18 in the mid-1980s.

The court was told Irwin was arrested last week and had since been stood down from his teaching job at St Aloysius College at Milson's Point on Sydney's lower north shore.

Irwin is the 10th man to be charged with sexually assaulting boys at a central western NSW boarding school.

His arrest follows an investigation by Strike Force Belle into claims of sexual assaults on students at two secondary colleges at Bathurst between 1960 and 1993.

Some of the offences allegedly occurred at the prestigious boys' boarding school, St Stanislaus School.

According to a statement of police facts handed to Magistrate Jane Culver, Irwin was based at St Stanislaus between 1980 and 1983 and between 1987 and 1989.

He was a "spiritual director" of the Catholic youth group ANTIOCH and provided counselling to youths aged between 15 and 18.

The statement alleges that the parents of a teenage boy had been referred to Irwin for assistance after the boy had recently been sexually abused by another man.

Irwin allegedly stayed overnight with the 17-year-old boy at St Stanislaus School and sexually abused him.

After the boy's parents complained to the then-Vincentian Provincial, they were promised Irwin would be removed from all positions involving contact with children or young people.

But that did not happen, the statement says.

Ms Culver continued Irwin's bail but ordered him not to be in the company of anyone under the age of 18 unless the children were with a parent or guardian.

The matter was adjourned to the same court on February 11.