KEY POINTS:
The Crown alleges that Brother Roger William Moloney was "a risk-taker", sexually abusing boys in reasonably open areas while he was effectively headmaster at the Marylands Special School, Christchurch, in the 1970s.
The former prior of the Order of St John of God in Christchurch has gone on
trial today before Justice Graham Panckhurst and a jury.
Eleven complainants who were all boys at the school are alleging he committed 30 sexual abuse offences against them over six years from 1971.
Moloney, 71, denied all the charges on the first day of his three-week trial.
He pleaded not guilty to 14 charges of inducing a boy under 16 to commit an indecent act, 10 of indecent assault on boys, four charges of sodomy, and two of doing an indecent act.
Justice Panckhurst told the jury that allegations of sexual abuse at Marylands had begun to appear in the media in 2002.
Another ex-brother at the school, Bernard McGrath, had gone on trial in February and March 2006 on historic sexual abuse charges.
"As it happens, five of the 11 complainants in this case were also complainants in the previous trial," he told the jurors.
He said the jurors must decide the case only on the basis of what they heard in court during the trial.
"The matter has excited a good deal of media interest, with allegations of sexual abuse having been made against a number of brothers at Marylands Special School.
Crown prosecutor Kerryn Beaton said the Order of St John of God had set up an 0800 phone line to handle the abuse allegations when people started to contact it after the allegations appeared in the media.
The order also made pastoral payments to many of those who complained. This involved not only financial help, but payments for counselling, medical and psychiatric treatment, and learning programmes.
Two of the men who made claims about childhood abuse were prosecuted for fraud when their claims could not be substantiated by the subsequent police investigation, codenamed Operation Authority.
Not all of the people making claims of abuse to the order had also gone to the police. One of the complainants who had gone to the police had not complained to the order and had received no money.
"Many of the witnesses said they came forward not because of the money, but because they took courage from the fact that they weren't the only ones who had been abused at Marylands Special School," she said.
The Crown said Moloney had been a risk taker, as effectively the principal of the special school, abusing students.
"The charges primarily relate to events said to have occurred in quite open areas."
Some of it allegedly occurred in his office at the school during school hours. The office was reasonably open to others passing.
More was alleged to have taken place in the brothers' dining room, or a shoe cleaning room, toilets or glasshouses on the property. Some was said to have occurred in the boys' shared dormitories.
"The risk-taking is something quite unusual. I ask you to consider that as you hear of it from the complainants," said Miss Beaton.
- NZPA