Victims accuse Xavier College of covering-up sex abuse

XAVIER College has been dragged into a fresh child sex scandal after a “monstrous” former teacher who sexually abused a number of students was allowed to continue his career at Marcellin College.

EXCLUSIVE: Xavier College has been dragged into a fresh child sex scandal after a “monstrous” former teacher who sexually abused a number of students was allowed to continue his career at Marcellin College.

Former Xavier teacher Vili Kovac this week appeared at the Victorian County Court over the appalling sexual abuse of two boys — the latest ­victims to come forward — in the 1960s.

Kovac, now 85, won bronze for Yugoslavia in the 1960 Rome Olympics. He was picked up as an athletics coach by Xavier College soon after he migrated the following year.

I FEEL SHAMED AND BETRAYED: HART

ACCUSED PRIEST’S NAME ERASED BY ELITE SCHOOL

Xavier College has been embroiled in a child sex scandal involving a former teacher.

Though neither boy was a student at Xavier, one was abused on the college grounds and says he was shown footage of boys from the school engaged in sexual activity.

“He showed movies of students on camp ... leaving me with the impression these boys were having sex with him and each other,” one victim said during a powerful impact statement.

The victim said his life had been ruined by Kovac and he is now uncomfortable being around his own grandchildren.

“I want Xavier to know, that although I was not a student ... There was abuse of students by Willy Kovac. He abused me at the school and elsewhere..... Your legacy ... lingers in my soul.”

The victim only came forward after he saw a news report in 2015 in which a school head said a number of payments had been made to victims of sex abuse but that no staff or clergy had been prosecuted.

Another victim who confronted Kovac in court this week was a Marcellin student, where Kovac taught after being kicked out of Xavier.

Kovac taught at Marcellin College after being sacked from Xavier.

FANCY SCHOOL PLAGUED BY SCANDAL

Kovac raped the boy on a school camp in 1967 and forced him to endure a harrowing trial.

Judge Susan Cohen heard Kovac was a diagnosed paedophile who had little insight into his offending and believed sexual abuse of boys was harmless.

There are many others who were at Xavier in the 1960s who were also abused by Kovac.

At least one wrote to Xavier two years ago, blaming the school for not alerting authorities and allowing Kovac to transfer to Marcellin.

“I would urge you to look into Xavier’s conduct in dismissing Kovac (for good but unstated reason) while presumably doing nothing to foil his later employment at other boys’ schools. Put simply, he was a monster,” a former student wrote in a letter to the school two years ago.

“The legacy of such abuse lives on in strange and peculiar ways … While I have no concrete facts about the full scope of Kovac’s activities and departure, I can do better than surmise that Xavier was derelict in failing to make sure that he was denied further opportunities to scar so many young lives.”

Director of professional standards at the school, Simon Davies, said: “To date, we have no evidence that any change of employment by Kovac related to events which he was subsequently convicted of as he concluded his employment at the end of the school year in 1967.

“However, we cannot ­discount this possibility,” he added.

Kovac, who has already served lengthy stints in jail for paedophilia, will be sentenced at a later date.