An abuse survivor compared the abortion of his trial at the 11th hour to being 'stabbed with a sharp, long bladed knife to the back' due to an unprecedented legal tactic by the Christian Brothers. This was reported by Qazaqyia.kz citing The Guardian.
Last week, the Christian Brothers sought a permanent halt to hundreds of cases lodged by survivors of abuse at its schools and orphanages, arguing it was about to go broke and could not afford to meet them. It instead wants to sell off its remaining property portfolio and set up its own scheme outside the court to divide the proceeds between creditors, including survivors.
Church property records obtained by Guardian Australia show the Christian Brothers has spent the past decade transferring vast wealth – including holdings of land, school buildings and multimillion-dollar homes – to another Catholic entity, Edmund Rice Education Australia (EREA), for $1 each. Those assets will not be sold off to help survivors, according to EREA.
The attorney general Michelle Rowland’s spokesperson said the government 'takes any alleged attempts by institutions to hide assets from victims of child sexual abuse extremely seriously'.
Arnold Thomas & Becker has 78 claims against the Christian Brothers on behalf of abuse survivors. Partner Jodie Harris said her firm would be scrutinising the property transfers with 'laser focus'. '[Survivors] know about the movement of assets to Edmund Rice over a period of time, and for them, all it is is the Christian Brothers trying to protect themselves again, at [expense to] their lives that have been devastated,' Harris said.
Lawyers were given little advance warning about the Christian Brothers’ proposed moratorium. One survivor was due to finally have their trial heard against the Christian Brothers beginning on Monday. It has been aborted. 'After every delaying tactic in the book was used up – to be told that there is little, perhaps no money available after years of my family and myself hanging on by our fingernails, days before trial, is like my white-collared, black-robed rapist returning to finish me off with four deep thrusts of a sharp, long-bladed knife to the back, after fifty years of gradual, painful, delayed death,' the survivor said.
Guardian Australia understands that, in another case, a survivor had recently settled with the Christian Brothers, prompting the court to dismiss the proceedings due to the settlement agreement. The survivor had taken out a loan in the expectation of receiving money from the Christian Brothers, which was expected next week. That payment will now not be made.
A third survivor said he had suffered lifelong impacts from his abuse at the hands of four Christian Brothers and one non-religious teacher at St Kevin’s College in the 1970s. 'Failed relationships, depression and repeated suicide attempts have haunted me throughout my life. Over the past few years, I have been able to find forgiveness. This progress has been destroyed. Last week, when I heard about the Christian Brother’s transferring ownership of the St Kevins property and other assets into another name, I felt betrayed – again,' the survivor said.
Other survivors said they had been looking forward to moving on from the ordeal. Christian Brothers have informed survivors and other creditors that the sale of property would not be enough to pay each person what they are entitled to. Their proposed scheme will be run by retired judges who will divide up the proceeds of the property sales and decide what each survivor and other creditor is entitled to.
EREA took over the running of former Christian Brothers schools from 2007 and is named after the order’s founder. EREA has made it clear it will not be selling property to help the Christian Brothers pay survivors. EREA’s financial reports indicate it has received transferred land worth $891m, according to its latest financial report in December 2024. Proxy adviser Dean Paatsch, who has examined the Christian Brothers’ financial reports, said that property could now be worth $2bn, an estimate first reported by the Australian Financial Review. A spokesperson said the property was transferred as part of a slow, progressive process of turning over Christian Brothers school land and property to EREA, which was delayed by what the spokesperson describes as the 'complexity of transferring individual titles across multiple jurisdictions'.