Boy shut in coffin before sex, jury told

A man says former St John of God brother Bernard Kevin McGrath tricked him into getting into a coffin and then shut the lid when he was a pupil at Marylands school in Christchurch.

McGrath was dressed in a long black cloak when he let him out, and he undressed and sexually assaulted him, the witness told the trial before Justice Lester Chisholm and a jury in the High Court at Christchurch.

He also said that after he had run away from the school three times, McGrath had kept him in a locked room for a month. When he was released, no one remarked on his absence from class.

"There was a real fear factor."

The witness was giving evidence on the fifth day of a three-week trial in which 58-year-old McGrath denies 53 charges of sexual abuse against 16 complainants who were at the school in the 1970s.

Defence lawyer Raoul Neave challenged the times in the witness' evidence. His allegations of sexual offending began a year or more before the Crown said McGrath arrived at the school, and there was insufficient time for other alleged offending to have taken place in the months before McGrath's departure, said Mr Neave.

The man replied: "It was only a rough estimate. I don't remember exact times."

The witness acknowledged that he had convictions for dishonesty and was serving a prison term for burglary. He had been in Lake Alice psychiatric hospital, and other mental institutions.

He denied a suggestion that he had made his earlier statements after discussions with others about what had happened at Marylands.

He said McGrath had approached him one day and said he had a job he wanted help with in the church.

He took the boy to a room under the bell-tower where coffins were stored, and pointed out one that was half-open.

"He said to go in and clean it, but he shut the lid down on me. I don't know how long I was in there. When he opened the coffin there was a big smile on his gob and he told me to get out and get undressed."

The witness said he refused to obey McGrath, who was wearing a black cloak, but he was "slapped around a bit".

He told the court his pants and underpants were pulled down and he felt pain in his anus. He could feel the cloak and McGrath's body rubbing against him.

The Crown alleges McGrath indecently assaulted the boy by penetrating his anus with his finger, his penis, or a cane, a sodomy charge, and a second representative sodomy charge alleges the act occurred more than once.

Cross-examined, the witness said he had received $95,000 as a goodwill payment from the Catholic Church.

- NZPA