How a St Bede’s College priest was revealed as sexually abusing boys

Source: Radio New Zealand

Warning: The story contains references to sexual abuse

More than two decades after departing St Bede’s College Fr Rowan Donoghue was unmasked as sexually abusing boys in his care. National Crime Correspondent Sam Sherwood investigates.

It was the end of the 2000 school year, another group of students were ending their five years at Christchurch’s St Bede’s College, the only Catholic boys’ boarding school in the South Island.

Like most schools, the end of year was marked with an annual magazine, the Bedean, which celebrated the students’ successes and also acknowledged staff that were leaving and who had just started.

Among the list of staff departing was a section devoted to the head of boarding Fr Rowan Donoghue, accompanied by a photo of the priest smiling back at the camera.

“Since 1993 Rowan has ensured that year after year the boarders are happy and totally confident in his genuine care and concern for them, and grateful for his extraordinary and limitless patience and generosity,” the newsletter read.

He had taught math, religious education, and directed several musicals. He had also coached cricket and rugby and even edited the Bedean magazine. The newsletter went on to list several other ways he contributed to the school including being the musician and celebrant at liturgies.

“And these are only the things that the school administration knew about!,” it ended.

It appeared to be an impressive resume.

However, behind the man’s smile was a secret. A secret that would not be revealed for more than two decades when police were notified of historical allegations that he sexually abused boys who were under his care.

On Wednesday, a suppression order was lifted allowing RNZ to reveal Fr Donoghue had pleaded guilty to six charges including indecent assault on a boy aged 12-16, indecent assault on a boy 16 and over and sexual violation by unlawful sexual connection. The offending related to four boys.

The plea had been suppressed until other charges were dismissed. At the end of the hearing, Fr Donoghue was remanded in custody by Judge Jane Farish. He will be sentenced on May 13.

The court room was packed during Wednesday’s hearing. Crown prosecutor Courtney Martyn acknowledged the victims who were in court.

RNZ has spoken to two of the victims about the life-long impact of Fr Donoghue’s offending, how they feel it was “normalised” and why they believe there are others.

‘Silverstream’s loss is St Bede’s gain’

Fr Donoghue arrived at St Bede’s in 1993. The school’s end of year magazine says he began in term three.

“Fresh from renewal and students in Australia and America during the previous ten months, including a stint teaching at our College in Atlanta, Georgia, he did not take long to establish himself as the third form dormitory master and a very competent mathematics teacher.”

He had earlier spent 11 years teaching at St Patrick’s College Silverstream.

“He involved himself enthusiastically in many facets of school life from dean to producer of musicals, from co-ordinator of the Māori and Polynesian Club to teacher in charge of audio visuals, from dormitory master to sporting coach and referee.

“Silverstream’s loss is St Bede’s gain. We welcome him most warmly and hope in his time at St Bede’s he will have the opportunity to share his many talents with the Bedean Community.”

At St Bede’s College the third and fourth form borders resided in a dormitory building called Grimes.

There were no individual rooms for students, instead the dormitory had communal living with several pods of four beds separated by low partition walls.

Fr Donoghue was the Grimes dormitory master and had his own private room.

According to court documents, Fr Donoghue’s offending began in 1996.

His first victim was a 13-year-old boy. From the start of the school year, Fr Donoghue would sit on the boy’s bed at night and console him as he was struggling with homesickness.

At first, Fr Donoghue would rub his back and shoulders. However, within a short timeframe this progressed to him moving his hand down onto the boy’s buttocks.

Fr Donoghue would push the victim’s shorts down and rub his buttocks and inner thighs. He would also part the victim’s legs by pushing them wider with his hand before continuing to rub his inner thighs and buttocks.

Throughout his first year, the victim received multiple massages in Fr Donoghue’s room. The priest would either ask the victim to go with him to his room or at times when the victim was especially homesick the victim would go upset to Fr Donoghue’s room knocking on his door.

Once in his room, Fr Donoghue would put the boy in his bed and lay down behind him and begin rubbing his back, buttocks and legs.

Then, in 1997, he began offending against another 13-year-old boy. Again, it started with back and shoulder massages while the boy was in bed.

Over the first year Fr Donoghue progressed the massages to masturbating the victim’s penis, which he continued to do throughout the year as the boy lay in bed at night.

“The frequency increased to around three times a week. As a result, the victim struggles to differentiate between incidents,” the summary of facts said.

The victim remained in the Grimes Dormitory in 1998 and 1999, with Fr Donoghue continuing his offending against him. The offending was so frequent the victim felt that at times it was a nightly occurrence.

The victim recalled an incident in 1998 where he tried to prevent Fr Donoghue from masturbating him.

“The victim who was lying in bed at the time kept trying to roll away from the defendant’s advances. However, the defendant failed to stop and kept reaching over and handling the victim’s penis while continuing to masturbate him.”

In 2000, the victim, now 16, started sixth form and resided in Durham, the sixth and seventh form dormitory where he had his own room.

The offending then began to escalate further, with Fr Donoghue both masturbating and giving oral sex to the victim.

The victim believed the first incident of oral sex was after Fr Donoghue invited him to his private room in the Grimes dormitory. He recalled going to the room and being provided with sandwiches and beer.

After the incident the boy left the room and returned to his dormitory feeling “gross”.

For the rest of the 2000 school year, Fr Donoghue would walk to the victim’s room in the Durham dormitory, where he would carry out his offending.

“The frequency of this increased to around three or four times a week and when the defendant didn’t turn up the victim would wonder if something had happened.”

‘His behaviour was so normalised’

Fr Donoghue’s third victim, Stephen* started at St Bede’s in 1999, a year after his older brother left. Growing up outside Canterbury, he says the move to “the big smoke” was “an exciting adventure for a 13-year-old”.

“It looked like a hell of a lot of fun,” he told RNZ.

The first time he met Fr Donoghue was the day his parents dropped him off at school.

“He seemed like a caring, personable guy. He didn’t show any indications of the monster that he is.”

Within days of arriving at the school everything changed.

It was the last weekend of January and Fr Donoghue was overseeing the third and fourth form students playing cricket.

During the game Stephen got “sconed in the head” with a cricket ball. Fr Donoghue took him to the school’s first aid room.

While giving him first aid he began rubbing Stephen’s legs, according to court documents.

He then moved his hand up the inside of the boy’s leg, under his shorts and underwear and placed his hand on the victim’s penis and testicles. He started stroking the boy’s genitals a couple of times before Stephen pushed Fr Donoghue’s hand away and left the first aid room.

Stephen says he was in “shock” when the offending occurred.

“I had no real understanding of stranger danger or anything. I was a strong, independent kid.”

He wanted out of boarding “immediately”.

“My parents thought I was just really homesick. It sounds so stupid now, but back then I didn’t feel like… there wasn’t an outlet or an avenue to go down to complain.

“I’d gone to Catholic schools my whole life and had been around priests, but nothing had ever happened. I didn’t feel like I had an avenue, anyone to go to and even talk amongst.”

Stephen moved out of boarding after three terms to go back and live with his parents. Court documents say Fe Donoghue gave him numerous massages at night during his time boarding.

He says Donoghue’s offending was “normalised”.

“He would come in at night, pretty much every night from what I can remember, after lights out and go around beds and give us massages. It was normal…,” he says.

“It was like ‘that’s Rowan, that’s Fr Donoghue, just a friendly guy’. No one thought ‘shit, someone’s probably getting it more than this’.”

The fourth victim

Fr Donoghue’s fourth victim, Michael*, started at St Bede’s in 1997, but did not become a boarder until 2000 when his parents moved overseas.

Then 16, Michael says before boarding he’d heard rumours about the priest from older pupils.

“There was a story going around why he had a crooked nose, and we used to hear that it was because he used to try and touch the boys, and they’d smack him.”

Michael says he didn’t think much of the rumours, and thought Fr Donoghue seemed like a friendly staffer who was heavily involved in the school.

Michael began the year in the Durham Dormitory where the older students resided, but was later moved into his own room in the Grimes Dormitory halfway through the year in a tutoring role for the younger students.

Court documents say that shortly after Michael moved into the Grimes Dormitory, Fr Donoghue entered his room at “lights out” and sat on his bed asking if he wanted a massage. Michael initially consented to back massages.

After the first couple of times Fr Donoghue progressed to moving his hand down Michael’s back during the massage. Once his hands reached the victim’s lower back, he would try pull his pants down, however Michael would prevent this by rolling or shifting away.

Fr Donoghue would then continue the massage and move his hand under Michael’s underwear, placing his hand on his buttocks.

“Sometimes on occasion, the defendant would move his hand down the inside of [Michael’s] upper thigh close to his genitals and apply pressure trying to get the victim to open his legs. When the victim did not move, the defendant would try to move his hands around and underneath the victim’s hips and pelvis close to his penis,” the summary of facts says.

“However, the victim would again move or roll away generally resulting in the defendant stopping and leaving his room.”

The pattern of massaging happened on a weekly basis during Michael’s time in the dormitory.

Michael told RNZ that initially he thought it was a “once or two-time thing”.

“But after that, he would keep coming in and sitting at the end of my bed and talking. He would say ‘do you want a massage?’, or ‘do you want a rub?’ or ‘do you feel stressed?’ and I’d either say yes or no.

“And if I said no he would push it and then I’d say no and he’d go to the next cubicle.”

Michael says that as time went on, he didn’t feel he had a choice.

“He wouldn’t leave. He would just sit.”

Michael says the offending “killed the school buzz for me” and decided it would be his final year at the school as he did not want to return to boarding. He told his parents he wanted to drop out, but did not tell them why. He then joined the army.

Like Stephen, Michael says the offending was “normalised”.

“No one actually raised concerns that I knew of…

“It was never spoken about. No one ever said anything about it. It just f…ing happened.”

Fr Donoghue finished at St Bede’s in 2000. The school’s magazine said Fr Donoghue had been in charge of boarding for a number of years, in two separate stints.

“He would never claim to be a slave to best management practices nor a devotee of highly organised systems and policies.

“What Rowan has done is to produce boarders who ar

e happy and confident in his genuine care and concern for them and grateful for his extraordinary and limitless patience and generosity.

“We thank you, Rowan, for the significant contribution you have made and we wish you well in your new ministry.”

Little is publicly available about his movements after leaving St Bede’s, but in 2002 he was at St Francis Xavier Parish and Pompallier Catholic College Chaplain in Whangārei.

The teaching council’s database says Donoghue’s teaching certification expired in October 2002.

‘He broke my trust, he broke me’

While Fr Donoghue’s offending remained secret for decades, the impact on those he had abused was severe.

Stephen says he “went off the rails,” and struggled at school, finishing after fifth form once he got school certificate.

“I was a teenage asshole,” he recalls, adding he battled with drugs and alcohol abuse.

“I stopped caring about myself. I felt like I lost my mana… it’s so hard keeping it a secret but then it was also like this internal cry for help but not being able to ask anyone or having an avenue to speak to someone and actually getting it out.”

As he got older, Stephen says he was fortunate that he was able to hold down good jobs, but that he struggled to open up to people.

He went on to have children; however he felt uncomfortable being intimate with them.

“I couldn’t even cuddle my own kids really, like I could hold them and all that, but I couldn’t. I’d feel uncomfortable. I feel like I’m invading their space or privacy.”

It wasn’t until about five years ago that Stephen confided in a relative about what happened to him.

“That was the first time I’d got it off my chest and then I left it at that… I always thought oh, it’s only me, it’s not worth going to the police, nothing’s going to happen, I won’t waste my time and go through it. I’ll just move on. But you never do move on.”

Michael says he has had issues with trust ever since.

“I was 16… mum and dad had left… I had no real male role model, so I turned to Fr Donoghue being a priest, being at a Catholic school, having time with him in the dorms.

“He broke my trust, and he broke me… I was vulnerable, and he groomed me to gain my trust.”

He too went down the path of drugs and alcohol abuse and became violent.

Then, about three years ago, Michael assaulted his partner. He was arrested and did a 16-month period of intensive supervision.

It was then that he says he reached out to the Salvation Army to get help with his drug and alcohol abuse.

Later, while attending a sexual violence services course he was asked a series of questions, including whether he had ever been sexually abused.

“That was the first time anyone ever asked me. I just broke down in tears. And from that day forward, that was when I started dealing with this.

“If I hadn’t done that three years ago, I would say I’d still be on the road of drugs and alcohol.”

Michael says from that day forward he’s stuck with his support group, including his partner who he calls his “rock”. He also started weaving, which he credits for keeping him on the “straight and narrow”.

“I just weave and weave and weave. It keeps the fingers going. It keeps the mind ticking over. It’s balanced. You’re working with nature. It’s just awesome,” he says

“A lot of self-work as well, sophisticated self-awareness and just being present instead of dwelling on too much past and what’s going to happen, or what could happen. Acknowledge it, live with it, and then you just carry on going.”

The police investigation

In early 2023, police were contacted with allegations of sexual abuse by Fr Donoghue and an investigation began.

Stephen told RNZ he first heard of the investigation the following year via his brother who had heard from a friend who went to St Bede’s that there had been a complaint about Fr Donoghue. Stephen knew who the complainant was and reached out to him.

The complainant gave Stephen the number of the police officer who was investigating the allegations. Stephen called the officer, who asked him to come to the Christchurch Central Police Station for an interview. He says it felt “empowering” knowing he wasn’t alone.

“I knew then that there were going to be others like me, and it would no doubt have had the same impact on their lives as well. And because it was such a relief for me, it was like well if the cops are taking this seriously, like there’s going to be others out there who are going to get the same kind of relief or validation.”

Around the same time Michael received a call from the officer in charge.

The officer told him police were investigating a case in relation to St Bede’s and that Michael’s name had come up and asked whether he would be happy to speak with police.

Michael says speaking to police brought everything back from more than 20 years ago.

“It almost made a picture in my head of him doing it again… because I remember it like it was yesterday, just every movement – the smell, his breathing, everything.

“So when those certain questions were asked, like, where did he place his hands, or how did he start, or what was he doing, those sort of things it triggered me. But it felt good to release it and get it off my chest. It had been weighing me down most of my life.”

In September 2024, Fr Donoghue was arrested in relation to Michael, Stephen and another victim.

The following month, the case made the media and police appealed for any further information. However, Fr Donoghue had name suppression, limiting how much police could say.

Detective Senior Sergeant Karen Simmons said at the time police believed Fr Donoghue, who had name suppression at the time and was referred to as “the alleged offender”, targeted those boarding at the school during this time, and the investigations were ongoing to determine if there was any further offending not yet reported to Police.

According to the summary of facts, Fr Donoghue admitted to police that he engaged in sexual behaviour with the second victim.

“He stated that he only ever masturbated or performed oral sex on the victim and never received anything. He stated that everything was initiated by the victim and that he only ever did what the victim asked for.

“The defendant stated that he enjoyed the interaction with the victim but was concerned about what it was doing to him.”

Fr Donoghue denied the incidents with Michael and Stephen, saying he had no recollection of any sexual interactions with them at all.

‘He’s out of the shadows’

It wasn’t until Fr Donoghue’s name was published in the media along with a current photo of him that Stephen got to see how the man who offended against him more than two decades ago looked now.

“He just looked like a little man… he was a grown adult as I remember him as a 13-year-old boy. I just thought, what a frail little man, a weak little man.

“Here he is being this monster in the back of my head for so long.”

Fr Donoghue, now 69, pleaded guilty last year to six charges, five of which are representative, including indecent assault on a boy aged 12-16, indecent assault on a boy 16 and over and sexual violation by unlawful sexual connection.

Stephen says for decades he hated Fr Donoghue, but now he feels nothing towards the man he describes as a “prolific predator”.

“He’s out of the shadows, he’s not that scary guy down the alley anymore. He’s just this pathetic little man, he’s nothing,” he says.

“He has to live with that shame, that stench that he’ll never get rid of, and that, for me, has been enough.”

Stephen recently started seeing a counsellor and a psychologist, which he says is helping him come to terms with what happened.

“I’ve sat there my whole life and always rued the opportunities I missed, I ruminated about bad things and always wish I could go back in time. But now I’m trying to learn how to look forward and actually live my life.”

Michael says there will be no relief until he sees Fr Donoghue be jailed for what he did.

“To see him in cuffs and sentenced, that’s going to be a good day for everyone.”

He says Fr Donoghue is “untrustworthy and sneaky and a manipulator”.

Both Stephen and Michael are adamant that there are other victims out there.

“I don’t believe that there’s only four,” Stephen says.

“I certainly believe there are others out there.”

Michael says he wants to know whether St Bede’s knew of the allegations about Fr Donoghue earlier, and if so, what action was taken.

He says he loves St Bede’s, but believes the school should apologise to the victims.

“I want something out of them. I want a sorry, or I want a compensation. I want them to say ‘we’re sorry’.”

RNZ asked St Bede’s College rector Jon McDowall for comment this week on when the school was first notified of any allegations regarding Fr Donoghue.

He said the school was “formally notified” of the allegations by police and had “worked openly with them since that time”.

“We hold victims and survivors in our thoughts and remain focused on providing a safe and supportive environment for all members of our community – past, present and future.”

Where to get help

If it’s an emergency and you feel that you or someone else is at risk, call 111.

If you have been abused, remember it’s not your fault.

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