Convicted Sex Abuser

Stephen Hamra

St. Ignatius College, Athelstone, Adelaide.
Hamra, who worked at Saint Ignatius College, Athelstone and Christian Brothers College during his long teaching career, preyed upon Mr Trembath and one of his brothers between 1977 and 1982.

His abuser Stephen John Hamra, 63, was convicted of persistent sexual exploitation of a child and maintaining an unlawful sexual relationship with a child after separate trials in Adelaide's District Court.

After six years of legal proceedings, Hamra was finally sentenced on Thursday to 12 years in jail with a non-parole period of nine years and seven months.
He has been in custody since January 2017, making him eligible for parole in 2026.
♦ ABC News: paedophile teacher sentenced to at least nine years jail

When an Australian archbishop's conviction for covering up child sexual abuse threw the Catholic Church into crisis this year,
Pope Francis appointed Greg O'Kelly SJ to replace him.
But child abuse survivor Michael* is stunned the pontiff would turn to a South Australian
bishop he says mishandled his complaint about a teacher who groomed and sexually abused him in the 1990s.
"With my experience of Greg O'Kelly, it is absolutely astounding that they would put a man like that in that role," Michael told SBS News.


'I didn't believe him'
Bishop O'Kelly SJ was the headmaster of Adelaide's St Ignatius College in 1995 when Michael,
a former student, told the clergyman he had been abused by teacher Stephen Hamra three years earlier when he was just 14.
"A boy was being hurt and I didn't believe his version of the ordeal,"
Bishop O'Kelly conceded to Michael in a letter sent almost two decades after their meeting. "It is with sorrow that I admit that now."

Hamra stayed in the Catholic school system - and even went on to review a key
child protection policy at another college - until the police notified the church of separate allegations against him in 2011.
Hamra , 61, who was last year convicted of offences against one victim dating back
to the 1970s and '80s, was found guilty in April in relation to a second victim. He is awaiting sentencing.

Full statement from the Catholic Archdiocese of Adelaide
The events prompted the school to get back in touch with Michael in 2012
- his first contact since he met with Bishop O'Kelly as a confused and angry teenager years earlier.
After conceding Michael's claims were "utterly credible", the Jesuits - the religious order that ran St Ignatius -
quietly settled his case without admitting wrongdoing in 2012 for a six-figure sum.

The Jesuits' Australian Provincial , Father Stephen Curtin , also agreed with Michael and his family that minutes of the
1995 meeting distributed by Bishop O'Kelly were "not a true and accurate" account of what took place.
"It was clear that they had an objective of tying up loose ends," said Michael,
who added Bishop O'Kelly's handling of the 1995 meeting had caused him lasting distress.
"I continue to believe that he mishandled it, though he says he didn't."