Paedophile priest’s new victims
A former Catholic priest jailed for molesting boys in the 1970s and 80s has admitted charges against three new victims.
Mark Mannix Brown, 74, pleaded guilty to four charges of indecent assault and attempted sodomy when he appeared in the Hamilton District Court yesterday.
Some of the charges are representative.
He was remanded on continuing bail by Judge Kim Saunders, to be sentenced on July 19, following a pre-sentence assessment and a restorative justice conference with one of his victims.
Brown was jailed for 15 months in 1990 for sexual offending against altar boys.
The agreed summary of facts reveal that the first and youngest of his three new victims was aged between 6 and 9 years old and was in the care of an orphanage in Auckland in the mid 1970s.
Brown’s sister was a nun who taught at the orphanage, and he was a frequent visitor.
Under the guise of having oneon-one ‘‘spiritual time’’ with the boy, he made him sit in his lap and kiss him. On at least one occasion he attempted to sodomise the boy.
He told the boy that their interactions were ‘‘our special secret’’ and if he told anyone he would be separated from his siblings, who were also wards of the orphanage.
Another victim was aged 16 and 17 and was an invited guest at Brown’s family farm in Te Mata, near Raglan.
Brown would make nocturnal visits to the teenager, where he sexually abused him. They also engaged in anal intercourse.
The victim said he was confused and did not know what to do, as he looked up to Brown as a father figure.
The third victim, aged 9, was an altar boy where Brown was a priest.
At an unspecified date between 1982 and 1986, the boy was in the church, when he became unwell and vomited onto the floor of the church.
Brown led the victim to a nearby building, known as the Priests’ Building, where he let the boy throw up into the toilet there.
Brown rubbed the boy’s back as he vomited, but at one point began fondling his genitals instead. He stopped when the boy looked at him.
Brown was represented in court by barrister Mark Sturm.
Brown also made headlines in 2008, when it was revealed he was living in a house in Auckland with brain-injured serial child molester Vivian Kitching. The pair were allowed to reside in a house on Mt Eden Rd, just 700 metres from Three Kings School – in spite of a warning from Corrections Department psychologists. A driver and passenger managed to escape their vehicle before a train smashed into it. A silver Opel Vectra station wagon got stuck on the tracks near Ryburn Rd, Ruakura, around 6.45pm on Monday, Senior Sergeant Ray Malcolmson said. The occupants got out of the car before the oncoming train ran into it, he said. Malcolmson said no one was injured. The University of Waikato and Shanghai International Studies University have strengthened their partnership of more than 20 years with the announcement of a joint research centre that will focus on China and Oceania Studies. Tertiary Education, Skills and Employment Minister Paul Goldsmith joined the celebrations in Shanghai, which also signalled the University of Waikato’s transition to ‘‘SISU Strategic Partner’’, the next step in a partnership that dates back to 1995. SISU students commenced the SISU-University of Waikato joint programme in 1997. Over 1500 students have graduated from this programme, focusing on Management, Arts and Social Sciences. A joint Master of Laws (LLM) degree will commence in 2018.