Brother Robert Best
Robert Charles Best was born on 1 January 1941. In 1960, at the age of 19 he started to train as a Christian Brother. He went on to profess his initial vows when he was 22. Brother Best had a long teaching career with the Christian Brothers where he served at the following schools:
St Alipius Parish Primary School for boys in Ballarat East, where he also acted as the headmaster (1968 to 1973);
St Patrick's College (a secondary boarding school in Ballarat), resided there when working at St Alipius and where he also supervised a dormitory;
St Bernard's College, Moonee Ponds (1974);
St Leo's College (Christian Brothers) in Box Hill (in Melbourne's East) (1975 to 1985); and
Warrnambool Christian Brothers College (also called St Joseph's) in south-western Victoria (1989 to 1994).
Brother Best’s behaviour was looked at in Case Study No. 28 - Catholic Church authorities in Ballarat by the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. This was in relation to the sexual abuse Brother Best had committed while he was at St Alipius Parish Primary School and St Patrick’s College in Victoria. The Royal Commission found that the highest number of claims or substantiated complaints of child sexual abuse against an individual Christian Brother that alleged incidents in Victoria and/or Tasmania was 46, made against Robert Best. The first alleged incident of child sexual abuse the subject of a claim against Best occurred two years after he professed his initial vows, when he was 22 years old. The average age of the victims at the age of the alleged child sexual abuse was 11 years.
In 2011, Brother Best was sentenced to 14 years and nine months in jail crimes against 11 boys over a 20-year period from the late 1960s at several Victorian schools. In 2017, Best pleaded guilty again to indecent assault charges against 20 boys, who were mostly aged between eight and 11 years old. The County Court had heard the sexual abuse occurred between 1968 and 1988 at four schools — St Alipius at Ballarat, St Leo's at Box Hill, St Joseph's at Geelong and St Bernard's at Essendon. Brother Best's earliest release date will be in 2027, when he will be 86 years old.
Moody Law (formerly Artemis Legal) has in the past and is currently representing clients who had been sexually abused at St Alipius and other Christian Brothers Institutions.
We invite former students, teachers and parents to tell us confidentially what information they may have, and we will explain what options are available to help with these cases.
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