A former high-society Catholic priest, who plied teenage boys with alcohol,
drove them around in fast cars and took them on holidays, was jailed for at
least seven years yesterday for sex crimes.
Vincent Kieran Kiss, once seen at exclusive functions with Melbourne
socialites Lillian Frank and Jeanne Pratt, sexually abused four boys, aged
between 13 and 16, as a priest, athletics coach and teacher at Albury.
His crimes were committed over seven years from 1966.
In a Downing Centre court yesterday, Judge Penelope Hock described him as a
predator and a manipulator who had exploited the boys, playing with their
emotions by telling them he was dying of leukemia.
She said Kiss, 70, had displayed "calculated pre-meditation in his conduct
towards these youths, engaging them with his apparent sophistication and
trappings such as flash cars and alcohol, and then corrupting them".
His victims, members of the Young Christian Students' organisation, were
drawn to his "flamboyant lifestyle" and the interest he showed in them.
The assaults occurred in the steam room after athletics training, during
altar boy practice, and on holidays in Sydney and Surfers Paradise. One assault
occurred in a boy's family home, another before a boy sat for his school
certificate exam.
Judge Hock said Kiss's conduct was appalling for any adult but more so for a
teacher and spiritual adviser. __________
Read the rest at
www.smh.com.au/text/articles/2002/09/13/1031608326919.htm
"Party priest jailed for sex abuse of schoolboys," Sydney Morning Herald, September 14 2002
Study more at: http:www.multiline.com.au/~johnm/nonmarital.htm
Jailed in Victoria in 1993 for six years for a $1.8 million fraud, Kiss was
well known among Melbourne's high society. Arts patron Mrs Pratt once said: "He
is not priestly, he is saintly."
Judge Hock said Kiss's claims that he had not known the damage he was causing
was disingenuous. He was jailed for a maximum 10 years and six months, but will
be eligible for parole in seven years.
