Former brother Daniel Slattery, of the Kendall Grange Special School for Boys in Morisset, appeals conviction

The state’s highest court for criminal matters has returned to Newcastle to hear a conviction appeal of former Catholic brother and notorious pedophile Daniel Slattery. Read the details.

Kendall Grange college, Morisett. where convicted paedophile former brother Daniel Slattery worked.

A court has heard there were “significant inconsistencies” in the trial of former Catholic Brother, and notorious pedophile Daniel Slattery, that would have contributed to reasonable doubt and could have affected his case.

Slattery, 68, was among a number of brothers from the Kendall Grange Special School for Boys in Morisset, which was known as the “house of evil”, who were convicted of shocking historical sex crimes against young boys.

In November last year, he was convicted and sentenced for raping and assaulting three boys, then aged nine to 13, between January 1980 and December 1980, given a 40 year jail-term but only ordered to serve a cumulative term of 11 years.

Brother Daniel Slattery is appealing his conviction of shocking child abuse against boys in his care at the Kendall Grange Special School for Boys at Morisset. Picture: Jason Edwards

Aerial picture of buildings at Kendall Grange School Morisset NSW

In August, Slattery’s defence team lodged a conviction appeal on the grounds the trial miscarried due to failure to “adduce good character”, and to raise the prior criminal history of a complainant in the case.

The appeal also stated the guilty verdicts were “unreasonable”.

For the first time since 2005, the Court of Criminal Appeal (CCA) sat in Newcastle on Friday as Slattery’s defence team said they were dealing with “fresh and new evidence”.

He told the panel of judges which included Chief Justice Andrew Bell, Justice Helen Wilson and President of the Court of Appeal Justice Julie Ward, Slattery’s previous defence counsel failed to address the issue of good character and credibility with witnesses was a “fundamental issue”.

Daniel Slattery in his earlier years.

He noted they had failed to disclose a criminal history of one the complainants which went to their “reliability and accuracy” of evidence given at trial.

Questions were also raised about a vaccination certificate provided by a complainants support worker to court, and that police inferred it “looked fake”, also adding to witness credibility.

The court heard there was also a decision by his defence counsel not to produce hospital medical records, which contained his sexual history.

“The issue of sexual orientation and same sex relationship occurred as an adolescent, but nothing about it was non-consensual,” he said.

“This is an irrational forensic decision not to produce it at trial.”

He summed up that the “unreasonable verdict” had key inconsistencies, when people were there and when they were not, and whether certain offences were committed at all.

“In historic cases there is always going to be inconsistencies but this is significant,” he said.

The Crown Prosecutor replied that while the elapsed time periods were not precise, it didn’t raise a doubt in terms of time frames because evidence given proved it was when Brother Slattery was at the school.

Pictured buildings at Kendall Grange School Morisset NSW

She also argued that while one of the complainants had a criminal record, it wasn’t a substantial record for dishonesty.

“There’s no aspect of that record which would have capable to affect his credibility,” she said.

And that producing medical records would go to questioning the likelihood of Slattery committing the offences.

“It’s a clear rational forensic choice,” she said.

When Slattery was sentenced, the court heard from the victims who told of the terror and pain of being raped and assaulted by the former brother who plied them with communal wine and sleeping pills while speaking of God and the bible.

The court heard 40 per cent of the brothers at the school were paedophiles, with abuse so widespread that witnesses aid they were relieved when they were abused by Brother Daniel Slattery because he was “gentler” than the other brothers.

Those brothers became part of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, which had its final report in 2017.

A total of 41 formal complaints of abuse were lodged with the Commission, and since then, hundreds of boys have successfully sued the religious school.

The most notorious was the former Prior when Slattery was there, Bernard McGrath, who was jailed for 33 years after one trial, and 27 years after a second, which involved multiple victims.

The appeal will be handed down at a later date.