LAWYERS for a former brother at one of the most notorious Catholic boys' homes in the country, known as 'the house of evil', on Friday attacked the credibility of some of his victims and pointed to what they said were "key inconsistencies" in their evidence during a Court of Criminal Appeal hearing in Newcastle.
Daniel Slattery, now 68, faced a special hearing in Newcastle District Court last year after he was found unfit to plead to a number of historical child sexual assault offences due to "aggressive Parkinson's disease".
The charges relate to Slattery abusing three boys, then aged nine to 13, at Kendall Grange Catholic school near Morisset more than 40 years ago. A focus of his defence during the special hearing was that the victims were mistaken about the identity of their abuser and it was, in fact, Bernard Kevin McGrath, another Brother at the notorious boarding school, who is currently behind bars until 2053. At the conclusion of the evidence, Judge Helen Syme found Slattery guilty of 12 counts, including buggery and indecent assault, and imposed what is called a "limiting term" - a period during which he can be detained - of 11 years and six months.
Slattery appealed against Judge Syme's guilty verdicts on a number of grounds and faced a hearing in the Court of Criminal Appeal on Friday, the first time the state's highest court has sat in Newcastle since 2005.
The appeal hearing heard Slattery was currently in a facility and not in jail after being referred to the Mental Health Review Tribunal last year. "He will never be fit to stand trial," Slattery's barrister told the three-judge panel. "This means that the applicant must serve the full head sentence of 11 and a half years."
Slattery has appealed his convictions on five grounds, including that the trial miscarried because defence counsel failed to adduce evidence of his good character, and that it failed to put evidence of convictions of dishonesty to complainants in the case. The judges reserved their decision.
