Father Hugh Edward Murray

Father Hugh Murray was a Catholic Priest who served with the Vincentian Fathers and Brothers (formally known as the Congregation of the Mission). He was born around 1930 and ordained as a priest with the Vincentian’s in the late 1950s. Throughout his religious career, Father Hugh Murray served at the following institutions and parishes:

  • St Vincent’s College, Bendigo (1959 and in the late 1970s);

  • St Vincents’s Parish - Ashfield, Sydney (mid-1960s);

  • Medina Parish - southern Perth, Western Australia (mid-1960s);

  • St Joseph’s Seminary - Eastwood, Sydney; St Anthony’s Parish church - Marsfield, Sydney; St Joseph’s Parish - Malvern, Melbourne (1967 to 1987);

  • Marist Brothers Eastwood (school chaplain) - Eastwood, Sydney (late 1960s to early 1970s);

  • St. Stanislaus College - Bathurst, NSW (dates uncertain)

  • Marsfield Parish (parish priest) - Marsfield, Sydney (1985 to 1987); and

  • Tempe House (chaplain) - Arncliffe, Sydney (late 1980s to 1990s);

Father Hugh Murray retired from religious service around 1995.

In 2009, Father Hugh Murray (aged 79 at the time) was charged with five counts of indecently assaulting minors under the age of sixteen. The charges involved the sexual assault of three alleged victims of which one was a former student of St Stanislaus College who was allegedly abused between February and June 1978. The other charges related to two other boys who were allegedly sexually assaulted in Sydney and Eastwood between June 1966 and January 1973. The matter proceeded to the Downing District Court in Sydney but in late 2011 a court order was issued declaring that Father Hugh Murray was medically unfit to strand trial despite NSW Police and the DPP confirming that 43 witnesses had made allegations of sexual abuse against Father Hugh Murray.

Father Hugh Murray died in August 2017 without contesting the allegations made against him.

Moody Law has in the past and is still representing clients who have made allegations of sexual and physical abuse against members of the Vincentian order at various schools and institutions around Australia.

We invite former victims 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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