Former Chaplain Convicted

Illawarra Mercury

Tuesday February 26, 2008

By VERONICA APAP and ZARA DAWTREY

A CATHOLIC priest who had worked in the Illawarra has been sentenced to four years' jail for sexually molesting three young boys at Marist College in Burnie, Tasmania, nearly 40 years ago.

In handing down his sentence in the Supreme Court in Launceston on Thursday, Justice Ewan Crawford said Roger Michael Bellemore, 72, had indecently assaulted the boys, aged between 11 and 15, on several occasions in his room in the school's priest's quarters between 1966 and 1971.

Justice Crawford said since the commission of the crimes, Bellemore had worked for much of the time as a teacher with young people, and as a parish priest and chaplain.

Bellemore was a chaplain and counsellor at Edmund Rice College in Wollongong between 1990 and 1994.

Yesterday the school's headmaster, David Lear, said he was personally sad to hear Bellemore had been convicted of the offences.

"It has upset a lot of people in the Illawarra," he said.

"He had a lot of friends in the area and people who thought very highly of him."

Mr Lear said there had been no complaints or allegations about Bellemore during the time he worked at the school or since he left.

In court, Justice Crawford said that because of Bellemore's age, health, and apparent reformation since 1971, a sentence of personal deterrence was not required, but a sentence of general deterrence was demanded.

"His crimes amounted to substantial abuses of the trust that the boys and their parents had in the college and its staff," he said.

"He took advantage of three young persons for his own gratification, using his superior age and personality to have his way with them ... such conduct by a teacher and a priest must be appropriately condemned by the court's sentence."

© 2008 Illawarra Mercury

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