One morning in mid-1978, the phone rang in the home of a public servant in western Queensland.
On the line was his 14-year-old son Nic* with possibly one of the strangest confessions a father might ever hear.
This story contains references to allegations of child sexual abuse that may be distressing to some readers.
The boy said he was calling from his boarding school to say he had been sexually fantasising about his school's middle-aged headmaster, a stocky chain-smoking Christian Brother called Darcy Fidelis Murphy.
He said he had even acted out his fantasy with the 46-year-old Brother in the boarding house at his school, St Brendan's College in Yeppoon.
Then Nic hung up, leaving his father stunned.
Minutes later the phone rang again, this time with the tell-tale clunk of a coin dropping to reveal the call was from a public telephone.
It was his son: "I don't know what you have heard but none of it is true."
The father was left shocked after Nic told him he had just been forced to play a role in a bizarre deception arranged by the Christian Brothers.
The call had been orchestrated to cover up the sexual abuse of his son and had even involved forcing the confused boy to sign a "confession" and then reading it to his father over the phone.
An ABC investigation has uncovered the suppression of the abuse at St Brendan's College involving Murphy who was later made boarding master and the deputy headmaster of the order's most prestigious Queensland boarding school, St Joseph's Nudgee College in Brisbane.
The Christian Brothers have now said they will investigate after the ABC contacted them with details of the cover up.
Nic, who has asked not to be identified, said he has never received any apology or acknowledgement of wrongdoing from the order.
"It's terrible, they [the Christian Brothers] just seemed to be able to do whatever they wanted,'' he said.
"He [Murphy] was never punished. I was the one who was blamed."
Abuse occurred in school dormitory after lights out
According to Nic, the abuse took place in 1978, several years before Murphy took up a teaching role at Nudgee College.
He said he was in year 10 when Murphy started grooming him.
Nic said Murphy would then come into the dormitory and molest him after lights out.
He said the first time: "I yelled out and made a racket, saying 'Get away from me, I don't want to do this.'"
Murphy then moved away and continued his evening walk through the dorm, he said.
The abuse occurred again on another night.
"The second time I jumped up and turned on the lights of the dormitory and ran from Murphy as he chased me,'' Nic said.
"He [Murphy] jumped up and ran over to switch the lights off, trying to cover up the actions. All the kids stayed asleep except for one, who didn't remember it in the morning. I was worried he was going to try and chase me."
Nic said he tried to find his brother, who was also boarding at the school, but was unable to locate him.
"I slept on the oval that night,'' he said.
'Troubleshooter-type' Brother arrives from interstate
Nic's older brother reported the matter to the local priest — Father Ray Benjamin, who would later become the Bishop of Townsville.
The reports appeared to trigger a cover up involving Murphy and others in the order.
Nic said soon after the priest had been told, a "troubleshooter type" of Christian Brother arrived from Melbourne and tried to conduct a weird form of indoctrination.
"He [the Brother from Melbourne] told me that this had happened because I was homosexual,'' Nic said.
"I spent days with this strange man out of class walking the cross country track surrounding the school … talking about sex and I was very naïve, [things] I wouldn't have known anything about.
"It was weird. I didn't even know what being homosexual was. I now know and I'm not homosexual, although I would be OK with it if I was, but I'm just not."
At the end of about four days, he said he was brought to the headmaster's office where Murphy was waiting with the Melbourne Brother and another Brother.
"The three Brothers explained to me that I was homosexual and had sexually fantasised about Brother Murphy and I was acting out this fantasy,'' Nic said.
He said the three Brothers presented him with the "confession" saying he was homosexual they had written, before forcing him to rehearse reading it.
"Brother Murphy would have then rung my dad … I got on the phone and said it [the confession] was my fantasies and that was it. They hung up," he said.
"I knew it was wrong what was happening.''
Nic said 20 feet outside Murphy's office was a public phone for students to use.
"I walked straight out of the office, put my money in and I rang my dad and said: 'I don't know what you heard but none of it is true'," he said.
He spent the final days of the term at St Brendan's before his father collected him and sent him to another school.
"Some of the other Christian Brothers [at St Brendan's] made my life hell [in the days] afterwards … some staff were supportive while others saw me as a threat to Catholicism,'' Nic said.
"I wasn't allowed to eat in the dining room. I had to get my mates to bring food out to me. People knew what was going on. They knew when a boy decides to sleep on the oval rather than in the boarding house."
Nic's older brother planned to give Murphy a 'good thrashing'
The only public penalty that Murphy seems to have faced at the school appears to have come from Nic's older brother.
He told the ABC he set out to give Murphy a "good thrashing".
"I waited calmly outside his office. I had with me a large stick that I had selected, approximately 2 metres in length from the nearby barbecue area," he said.
At the time there were two year 12 boys with him, one boy came out of the office and asked what was going on.
"I told him the rector has been trying to molest my younger brother and when they finished their meeting, I was going to flog Brother Murphy with this stick."
Nic's brother said an "animated discussion ensued followed by the rapid exit of Brother Murphy through the back door of the office".
He said he also rang the parish priest, then Father Benjamin, to tell him what happened.
"He [Father Benjamin] said to me that if everyone was shipwrecked, Brother Murphy would still be out there sailing. I then rang my dad and told him what happened. From then on I never associated with Brother Murphy."
Nic's father said his son's schooling had been interrupted as a result of the abuse, by him moving to another school and then having to repeat a year.
Murphy left St Brendan's in 1981, according to the school records.
School staff knew of abuse allegation, wanted Murphy removed
Allegations of Murphy abusing the boy at the school have been confirmed by former Christian Brother Mick Devlin, who was teaching at St Brendan's at the same time.
Mr Devlin, who left the Christian Brothers in the 1980s after becoming disgruntled with the order's handling of numerous issues including child abuse, said there had been other St Brendan's staff who wanted Murphy removed.
"We were agitating for something to be done about Brother Murphy,'' said Mr Devlin, who later worked for the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse collecting statements from victims.
"Some of the staff were very concerned. We were devastated as we knew it was a credible story [from the victim] and we knew Murphy was a sort of immature guy," he said.
Mr Devlin said he had not been aware of the victim being made to sign a confession, but he confirmed that the then local priest Father Benjamin had reported the matter to the Bishop.
He said the Christian Brothers responded by sending Brother Neil Langan, who was in the order's Queensland leadership team, to visit the school.
"He [Langan] was there to reassure us that something would be done," Mr Devlin said.
"I recall the meeting in which Langan said Brother Murphy would never be appointed to a school with a boarding house ever again."
The promise was not honoured.
Murphy takes on senior roles at prestigious Brisbane college
In 1983, Murphy's name showed up on the academic staff list of the Brothers' most prestigious Queensland boys' boarding school, St Joseph's Nudgee College.
The following year, Murphy appeared not only in the academic staff list but as dormitory master for the Year 11 boarding house with his contribution to the school praised by then acting headmaster, Brother Stephen David McLaughlin.
"His caring and concern in the year 11 areas is much appreciated,'' McLaughlin wrote in the magazine's 1984 Headmaster's report.
Previously the ABC revealed McLaughlin had been the subject of unproven child sexual abuse allegations in the 1990s but was never convicted in relation to any of these matters.
McLaughlin repeatedly denied being a child abuser, but was this year convicted of abusing a boy in 2015 unconnected to the school.
By 1986 at Nudgee College Murphy had risen to the position of co-deputy headmaster of the school in charge of pastoral care, while also holding the role of year 12 boarding dormitory master.
His work was also praised by then headmaster Brother Vince Connors, who expressed his gratitude for Murphy's share of the administrative load of running the school, according to an account in the school magazine for that year.
Murphy held the co-deputy headmaster and year 12 dormitory master roles until 1991.
That year the Nudgee school magazine noted that Murphy was due to retire and would be travelling to New Zealand to undertake a leadership course before being appointed to director of fundraising for the Brothers in Queensland.
Murphy died in a Sydney hospital in 1995.
Former teachers from Nudgee College have confirmed they attended a school assembly where a doctor was brought in to tell them Murphy died of throat cancer.
Christian Brothers refers accusation to ongoing inquiry
Now retired former Nudgee headmaster Brother Connors said last week he had been unaware of the St Brendan's allegations, or any student being made to write a confession.
Brother Connors said he was also not aware of the promise that Brother Murphy would not be sent to any more boarding schools.
"If it's true, it certainly concerns me that it happened,'' he said.
Brother Langan is currently in a retirement home at Carseldine in Brisbane but could not be reached for comment.
Several Christian Brothers, including Brother Connors, told the ABC Brother Langan would not be able to answer questions due to his age.
Bishop Benjamin died in 2016.
Nic said he wrote to the royal commission but received a response indicating that there were so many complaints that his was unable to be investigated.
"I did write about things that happened. I suspect the account provided was the awakening of memory, the beginning of acknowledgement for me, rather than a document of significance to the commission,'' he said.
The Christian Brothers said the matters relating to St Brendan's and Murphy had been referred to an existing inquiry commissioned earlier this year in response to revelations by the ABC about McLaughlin allegedly fostering wards of the state via an arrangement with Nudgee College.
St Brendan's College and St Joseph's Nudgee College have been asked for a response to the allegations.
Oceania province leader Brother Gerard Brady said the Christian Brothers were concerned about the St Brendan's incident.
"We urge the complainant to come forward so that the other issues they have raised can be fully investigated either through the National Redress Scheme or the civil litigation process," he said.
"We urge any person with any evidence of criminal conduct to take that to the police."
*Name has been changed to protect identity
