Cleric suspected of child abuse in US jailed in Australia

MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — An American clergyman suspected of child sexual abuse in Pennsylvania has been sentenced to an Australian prison for molesting three children in Melbourne more than 30 years ago.

Judge James Parrish on Friday sentenced Brother Bernard Hartman to three years, but suspended one year of the term.

Hartman, a member of the Roman Catholic Marianist religious order, had pleaded guilty in a Melbourne court to four counts of indecent assault involving two female students at St. Paul's College in the late 1970s. A jury found him guilty of one count of indecent assault and two of common law assault for abusing a male student in 1981-82.

Officials say the 75-year-old Hartman is one of eight brothers accused of molesting 20 students at Pittsburgh's North Catholic High School.


-- (c) Associated Press 2015-07-24

Should be a zero placed after that length of sentence.

Call me extreme, but seeing child molesters sentenced to such pitiful sentences (2 years <deleted>) is sickening.

Perhaps a few Australian bro's can give him an appropriate goodbye gift from this World.

Should be a zero placed after that length of sentence.

Call me extreme, but seeing child molesters sentenced to such pitiful sentences (2 years <deleted>) is sickening.

Perhaps a few Australian bro's can give him an appropriate goodbye gift from this World.

Yes the sentence seems light. From my vague memory of the legal system in oz is that he would be sentenced in accordance with the sentencing guidelines of that time, as it was about 40 years ago.

Somperhaps restrained on the principles of that time. If he had committed the crime lately he would have received much more time.

I stand to be corrected though

Rest assured he will be corrected in the big house.

What about sentencing all his colleagues and superiors who shuffled him around to other schools knowing full well he was a predator and allowed him to continue his monstrous behavior. Many of them are accessories before and after the fact.

Should be a zero placed after that length of sentence.

Call me extreme, but seeing child molesters sentenced to such pitiful sentences (2 years <deleted>) is sickening.

Perhaps a few Australian bro's can give him an appropriate goodbye gift from this World.

Yes the sentence seems light. From my vague memory of the legal system in oz is that he would be sentenced in accordance with the sentencing guidelines of that time, as it was about 40 years ago.

Somperhaps restrained on the principles of that time. If he had committed the crime lately he would have received much more time.

I stand to be corrected though

You're right but prison terms do range from 14 years to 25 years, depending on the offence however, for whatever reason these predators appear to be a protected species and are being given manifestly inadequate sentences. Commonly known as rock spiders, they are put into protective custody as the general prison population loath them, and will do them over at the first opportunity.

Unfortunately, many of the magistrates, judges and previous heads of the DPP (Director of Public Prosecutions) are left wing do-gooders who, when creating new laws, go too soft and the sentencing judges are living on another planet They show more sympathy for these Cretans and little if any for the victims. There are even people out there who believe it should be law that they are able to have sex with children, as they see no wrong, because as they allege, it's love, not sex. (Paedophiles) We are surrounded by so many sickos one just wonders what the world is coming to.

Edited July 25, 201510 yr by Si Thea01