EXCLUSIVE: Convicted child rapist Graeme Mundine – formerly a senior Catholic Church and Indigenous community leader – has been recently released from prison to face court this week on further child sex abuse charges after being charged by detectives over more offences that took place at a Marist Brothers college in Sydney’s west in the 1980s. Serkan Ozturk reports.
He was the high-profile convicted paedophile the media for one reason or another tried its best not to report on. That was until True Crime News Weekly stepped in to the murky and choppy waters to help throw some moral clarity on the situation in late 2018.
Back then, about 18 months ago now, former Catholic Church official and Indigenous community leader, Graeme Mundine, was sentenced over a number of historic child sex offences to have taken place in the 1980s involving five young male victims. One of the offences took place as late as 1988.
He was found guilty of four charges of indecent assault, three charges of assault, as well as an act of indecency involving five student victims, all under the age of 16. The offences occurred at St Gregory’s College and at the Marist Brothers College in Pagewood while Mundine was employed as a teacher.
Mundine perhaps could have counted himself just a little lucky. District Court judge Chris O’Brien – a former Marist old boy himself – could see fit to give only three years imprisonment for his crimes, with the former teacher up for parole as early 18 months later.
Mundine is the youngest child of famed Aboriginal icon, Roy Mundine, and is the brother of former Labor Party national president turned Liberal stooge and George Pell paedophile defender, Warren Mundine. He’s also the first cousin of Tony Mundine, the boxer and the boxing training father of former NRL star turned boxing champion, Anthony Mundine. At his sentencing in December 2018, Mundine was supported by his wife – Sydney University academic Gabrielle Russell – and two of his brothers.
Following our initial investigation, we were contacted by a number of other alleged victims of Mundine’s, some of whom claimed that a paedophile ring had been operating at the schools run by the Marist Brothers. One victim labelled Mundine and his alleged co-conspirators as “well-mannered predators”.
“Brother Graeme and Mr Carl Stafford – another abuser – were my dorm masters when I was in year 7/8 at St Gregory’s College in 1982/3 and the things that they allowed to happen and that were perpetrated would turn your stomach,” the child abuse survivor told True Crime News Weekly.
“It’s time that the Marist Brothers and the Christian Brothers audited any records/reports from their own archives and found the pedophiles themselves, instead of waiting for people who have been living with the suffering for decades to come forward.”
Asked what he thought should happen to Mundine, the survivor said there should only be one outcome.
“May he burn in the hell that he believes in! He’s a scum bag just like Geoff Clark,” he said. “An Indigenous leader who has brought shame upon his own people!”
Over eight months, in December last year, True Crime News Weekly was informed that Mundine had been visited while in prison by officers from NSW Police and questioned over possible further offences committed while at St Gregory’s College.
However, it took almost six months for the new charges to be filed against Mundine.
It was not until April 2, 2020 he was charged with sexually assaulting another Year 7 boarder at St Greg’s in 1986.
“I can confirm that detectives from Campbelltown Police Area Command issued a Future Court Attendance Notice on a 59-year-old man for the offence of sexual assault (Cat 4): Indecent assault, party under 16, under authority,” a NSW Police spokesperson told True Crime News Weekly. “The offence dates back to 1986.”
Mundine faced a short hearing on June 1 at the Campbelltown Court House where bail was perhaps unsurprisingly refused.
But then some luck, again, would go Mundine’s way just over a fortnight later.
On Friday June 19, Mundine was granted bail and under “strict conditions” would be allowed to live with his wife at their Central Coast home. Just like that, Mundine was a (almost) free man. Released from prison for good behaviour over his first set of charges (as the 18 month parole period had come up), and then bailed on “health reasons” to the safety of his wife’s home for a couple of months before having to face the music on the new charges. Until this week.
Dr Gabrielle Russell: senior academic at the University of Sydney and the wife of convicted paedophile, Graeme Mundine
On Wednesday August 5, Mundine is due back in the Campbelltown courts.
And yes, we’ve timed this story on purpose to appear just before Mundine’s re-appearance in court. It’s the least we could do.
With the convicted paedophile having been bailed into his wife’s care, some victims and their families came forward to True Crime News Weekly to share their outrage that a supposedly intelligent, senior university academic was publicly supporting a child rapist.
On her academic profile at the University of Sydney, Dr Russell is credited as being the Assistant Director and Education Lead at the National Centre for Cultural Competence, and was for a time being also its Acting Director.
According to the profile, Dr Russell’s teaching and research interests include “race and racism, critical pedagogies,” as well as “service learning and cultural competence”.
True Crime News Weekly contacted Dr Russell by email to ask how a serious academic at a prestigious university interested in “critical pedagogies, service learning and cultural competence” could continue to support their husband despite his first set of convictions, and now these further charges.
We also asked whether she was concerned her husband – a convicted paedophile – may have offended against other children considering our long-length investigation from late 2018 which demonstrated Mundine seemingly had not given up the criminal itch of trying to be near young children.
Dr Russell did not provide a response to any of our queries.
We had also provided Mundine a chance to defend himself and his past alleged conduct but we did not hear back from Dr Russell’s husband either.
Once again, Mundine’s older brother Warren is not speaking with us when we contacted him over Twitter seeking comment.
Interestingly, in the same week of April when police pressed further child sex abuse charges against his brother, Warren was instead busy publicly defending notorious child abuse enabler, former Catholic Church Cardinal George Pell, as “innocent”.
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