A MARIST Brother who taught at Hamilton from 1971 is tonight behind bars for offences that occurred at St Joseph's College, Hunters Hill, between 1966 and 1970.
The brother, John Patrick O'Brien, was one of the diocesan and Marist figures who later attended the Hamilton home of Audrey Nash and her family the night her son, Andrew, took his own life, aged 13, in 1974.
O'Brien was yesterday convicted by a jury of 18 charges relating to his time at the Sydney boarding school, and found not guilty of another six charges.
He was taken to jail from court in Sydney with a sentencing hearing scheduled for July 23. O'Brien, 81, came to notice during the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.
Police Strike Force Gallagher began a subsequent investigation and a number of charges of indecency and indecent assault were laid against O'Brien in December 2017.
O'Brien entered the Marist order after attending a Marist school. He moved from Hunter's Hill to the Hamilton Marist Brothers college - now St Francis Xavier's College, in 1971.
He was principal of Marist Brothers Kogarah in Sydney from 1981 to 1986, after Brother Christopher (William Wade).
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The Nash family spoke last night about the news of O'Brien's conviction, but Audrey Nash said the news brought her little solace.
"He arrived here at Hamilton in 1971, and we now know that was because one of the boy's fathers down there at Hunter's Hill had kicked up a fuss," Mrs Nash said last night.
"He had wanted John O'Brien expelled from the order, but they didn't, they just quietly moved him up here.
"And O'Brien, [former] brother Romuald [Francis Cable] and Brother Christopher [William Wade] all came to the house the night Andrew died, wanting to know whether he left a note."
Audrey's son Geoffrey said last night that the three men - O'Brien, Cable and Wade - had all now been convicted of child sex offences.
He said Marist Hamilton was "a hell hole".
