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

The state’s highest court for criminal matters will return to Newcastle to hear a conviction appeal of former Catholic brother and notorious paedophile Daniel Slattery. See what it means here.

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

The state’s highest court for criminal matters will sit in Newcastle this week for one of the region’s most notorious paedophiles.

Daniel Slattery, a former brother at the Catholic boys home the Kendall Grange Special School for Boys in Morisset, known as the “house of evil”, will appeal his conviction of historical sex crimes against young boys.

In November last year, Slattery, aged 67, was sentenced for raping and assaulting three boys, then aged nine to 13, between January 1980 and December 1980.

Brother Daniel Slattery, convicted of shocking abuse against disadvantaged boys in his care at the Kendall Grange Special School for Boys has lodged an appeal against his conviction. Picture: Jason Edwards

Pictured buildings at Kendall Grange School Morisset NSW.

In Sydney’s Downing Centre, he was convicted by Judge Helen Syme of multiple child sexual offences including aggravated sexual assault and committing acts of indecency.

While his total sentence was 40 years and six months, the judge ordered him to serve a cumulative term of 11 years.

On Friday, a panel of judges including Chief Justice Andrew Bell, will sit at Newcastle to hear the appeal — which will be the first time the CCA have done so in the region since February 2005.

Brother Daniel Slattery in earlier years.

Five grounds of appeal will be raised which includes the trial miscarried due to failure of defence counsel to “adduce evidence of the appellant’s good character”, as well as their failure to put evidence of convictions of dishonesty to the complainants in the case.

The appeal will also be heard in regards to the guilty verdicts in counts one to 11 and 13, which they say is not supported by evidence, or in the alternate the verdict was unreasonable.

When sentencing Slattery, who now suffers from Parkinson’s disease, 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.

In November Judge Syme told the court, the boys at the school, run by the Hospitaller Order of the Brothers of St John of God, were told they would burn in Hell, be visited by the Angel of Death and never see their parents again if they told anyone about the abuse.

Aerial picture of Kendall Grange college, Morisett where convicted paedophile Daniel Slattery worked.

The court also heard police had difficulty getting material from the religious charity which had not been cooperative in their investigations.

A number of brothers at the school were also convicted of child sex abuse, and 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.