Eleven former students at St Mark’s College in Port Pirie launch legal action over alleged abuse at the hands of Gregory Coffey

The men have launched a multimillion-dollar legal action against the predator’s religious order.

Eleven men who claim to have been abused by a predatory teacher in country SA have launched legal action with the potential for a multimillion-dollar finding against the religious order which ran the college.

The men, all students at St Mark’s School in Port Pirie in the 1970s, will press their case in the state’s Supreme Court on Monday.

The men claim to be victims of Brother Gregory Vincent Coffey, who was a teacher and member of the Salesian Order at the school.

His students were unaware that Coffey had changed his name from Coffin and fled to South Australia after allegations of abuse were levelled against him at the Salesian College in Sunbury, Victoria also known as Rupertswood.

Even after being sentence for indecent assault in Port Pirie, Coffey was allowed to remain among children, rising to the level of principal at a Victorian school where his victim’s are thought to be in the dozens.

On Monday, three of the 11 men will take the Salesian Society to trial as a test case ahead of the other eight.

The Salesian Society face a potential multimillion-dollar damages bill if found to have breached a duty of care to the students.

St Mark’s itself is not a party to the law suit.

In a statement of claim acquired by The Sunday Mail, one of the men also accuses five other teachers of physical abuse at the school while he was there between 1967 and 1972.

A 1969 Yearbook photo of Brother Gregory Vincent Coffey aka Brother Coffin who is abused dozens of school boys in Victoria and is accused of attacking 11 students in South Australia. Picture: Supplied.

Among the abuse claimed are strikes with a cricket stump, being punched to the face and being knocked to the ground by his teachers.

But the worst abuse was that allegedly inflicted by Coffey who is accused of trying to rape the boy following football practice.

When the boy resisted, Coffey is accused of striking him across the face and “saying that he would one day finish what he had started”.

Coffey’s crimes in Victoria have been the subject of successful lawsuits.

David Campbell SC, who represented two men who successfully sued the Marist Brothers over abuse at Immaculate Heart College, told the Victorian Supreme Court during a May hearing that “the Salesians knew a lot more about him than they let on”.

In the late 1960s Coffey – then identifying as Brother Coffin – was teaching at Rupertswood and was put in charge of young boys in a dormitory at the school.

A 1969 Yearbook photo of Brother Gregory Vincent Coffey aka Brother Coffin who is alleged to have abused dozens of school boys in Victoria and South Australia. The photo is from when he was a teacher at Rupertswood in Victoria. Picture: Supplied.

Almost 50 years later allegations would emerge that Coffey was getting into bed with his students.

At the end of 1970 Coffey left the school and at the start of 1971 started at St Mark’s.

Within a year, on December 17, 1971, Coffey abused a child and was later charged with indecent assault.

The victim wrote in a victim impact “I didn’t like what Brother Coffey did to me, and all the time while he was in the room and after I got out I was scared to death”.

On February 21, 1972, Coffey was convicted in the Port Pirie Magistrates Court and given a suspended 12 month sentence.

Coffey told the court he “got talking” to the boy “and this feeling came over me”.

“I had no sensible thoughts, there’s been no spiritual observance, there’s been lack of contact, repression.”

James Joseph Caroll, the most senior member of the order in Australia, appeared at the sentencing hearing and gave sworn evidence in support of Coffey.

“As a senior member of the order I can say there’s been no complaint about him whatsoever,” he said.

Coffey returned to Victoria where he renounced the Salesian Order, but was appointed as a lay teacher at Immaculate Heart.

The congregation of nearly 2000 in St Mark's Cathedral in Port Pirie for the celebration of Pontifical High Mass after the consecration of the cathedral 01 Mar 1953.

While a teacher, a victim of Coffey’s is alleged to have approached the then principal of Immaculate Heart to tell him of the abuse.

The Principal asked the boy “who did he tell” but the report went no further.

The victim said Coffey became enraged by the report and threatened to rape the 12-year-olds sister.

Rather than be disciplined Coffey was later promoted to principal of the school.

“He should have been stopped in his tracks no later than the timing of this complaint,” Mr Campbell said.

“Yet not only does he go on his merry way continuing his tendency to paedophilia, but he gets a glowing reference from (the then principal) which was no doubt instrumental in his promotion.”

Consecration of St Mark's Cathedral in Port Pirie 01 Mar 1953.

A victim of Coffey’s abuse in Victoria told The Sunday Mail it took him 40 years to break his silence about the abuse.

“This is a cover up which allowed him to inflict his perverted exploits on so many young boys, destroying their lives forever,” he said.

Coffey left the school in 1986 and in the 1990s faced three sets of charges for his offending in Victoria, pleading guilty each time.

He changed his name again and moved to Tasmania. In South Australia more of his victims were coming forward and a task force was established to investigate crimes allegedly committed by Coffey in Port Pirie.

He was charged with additional offences but died before he could come to court.

“There’s a suggestion he committed suicide, there’s no firm answer to that question,” Mr Campbell said.

The trial is scheduled to begin on Monday.