Former Marist Brother Kevin Healy was sentenced to nine months' home detention, in June, for sexually abusing three Wairarapa children. Photo / Paul Taylor
Former Marist Brother Kevin Healy was sentenced to nine months' home detention, in June, for sexually abusing three Wairarapa children. Photo / Paul Taylor
A victim of historic child sex abuse by two former Marist brothers is still waiting to hear from the Catholic Church after a review into how it dealt with her complaints was ordered in June.
But the Catholic Church says it is making progress with the independent review and willbe in a position to comment further soon.
The victim was abused when she was a young girl in the 1970s by Kevin Peter John Healy aka Br Gordon and Michael Beaumont, and her brother was abused by Br Gordon, when the pair were Marist Brothers and teachers in the Wairarapa.
Beaumont, 72, was sentenced at the North Shore District Court in September 2019, to a year of home detention for indecent assault and possessing obscene fantasy literature.
On June 5, Healy, 81, was sentenced in the Napier District Court to nine months' home detention for sexually abusing three Wairarapa children including the victim and her brother.
In the same month, the Marist Brothers religious order asked the Catholic Church's National Office for Professional Standards (NOPS) National Director Virginia Noonan to arrange a review.
The review was expected to examine all aspects of how the victim's complaints to the church about Healy were dealt with.
It was also meant to look at the church's offer of $5000 to the victim in exchange for what she claims is her silence about the abuse.
"I am very unsatisfied, and frustrated that I have not heard anything yet about how the inquiry is going," the victim told Hawke's Bay Today.
However, Noonan said they were making "good progress with the formal setting up of the independent review".
"As soon as everything is in place, we will discuss it with the victim before making any public comment, as well as getting her approval before making any details public."
The victim said her parents were "suffering terribly at the knowledge they allowed these brothers into their homes."
The abuse occurred in the 1970s when Healy was a member of the Marist Brothers in Wairarapa.
Healy was also a school teacher at the time.
The victim said the abuse was reported by her father to the parish priest and the school principal.
"At that time the Marist brothers taught and stayed on the school premises," she said.
"The church just moved Healy out of the school and area."
Former Marist Brother Kevin Healy avoided a jail sentence for historic sex abuse. Photo / Paul Taylor
Speaking to Hawke's Bay Today this week, the woman said her father has told her he felt "good" when Healy pleaded guilty but "strangely blame then shifted onto his shoulders".
"It's so sad my elder father, a faithful church-goer, suffers this way in his ageing years.''
The woman, on August 25, shared her story with the Royal Commission Inquiry into abuse in care.
The Royal Commission is looking into what happened to children, young people and vulnerable adults in state and faith-based care in Aotearoa New Zealand between the years 1950-99.
"I was very satisfied with the hearing. I felt for once in my life that I was actually heard and understood."
