Edward ‘Ted’ Hall has been found guilty in Newcastle District Court of multiple child sex offences against St Pius X, Adamstown students between 1973 and 1986.
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Mr Hall retired to Junee in the Riverina and has previously appeared before court via video link in Wagga.
Judge Tim Gartelmann delivered the decision after a trial in which Mr Hall repeatedly denied 31 charges including sexual intercourse, assault, acts of indecency and attempting to detain a boy for sexual gratification.
He was found not guilty of some charges.
Before the verdict the sister of a former St Pius student and victim told Hall “You have to be held accountable for what you’ve done” after Hall approached her while waiting to enter the courtroom.
Hall carried a small piece of cardboard which he tried to press on the woman, saying it belonged to her late father. The woman stepped back and repeated “You have to be held accountable for what you’ve done” until Hall turned and walked into the courtroom.
The woman said Hall had wreaked havoc on her family. She was relieved her parents were no longer alive to learn Hall had used their generosity to work his way into her family to sexually abuse her brother.
Hall’s earliest St Pius victim who was sexually abused in 1973, the first year Hall taught at the school, said he was also pleased his parents weren’t alive because “My dad would have killed him if he knew.”
The man was disgusted with the Catholic Education Office after he reported Hall as a sexual abuser in the early 1990s when he was in his early 30s.
“I went to the office and said I wanted to make a complaint against a teacher at St Pius X, Adamstown. I spoke to a woman. She asked me what the complaint was in regard to. I said it was about Ted Hall and that he had abused me,” the Hunter man, 60, said.
“She said ‘You don’t have to worry about him. He’s dead.”
It was not until he read a Newcastle Herald article in 2016 saying Hall had been charged with child sex offences against St Pius X students that he discovered his former teacher was still alive.
“Everything came flooding back. It was a horrible, horrible feeling that they lied to me. They told me he was dead and he wasn’t. I felt so betrayed. I still feel betrayed,” the man said.
He contacted investigating officer Detective Simon Grob that day and made a statement.
MORE TO COME
