Victims of the notorious paedophile priest Brian Joseph Spillane have told of devastating and lifelong effects suffered due to the sexual abuse experienced at a prestigious Catholic country boarding school between the 1970s and 1990s.
Spillane, 73, sat with his back to the public gallery and refused to look at the victims during the harrowing accounts given to the Downing Centre District Court on Friday.
The former teacher at St Stanislaus' College, Bathurst, in central west NSW, has been found guilty of a string of child sexual abuse charges over a series of trials that have taken place since 2008.
The sentencing hearing covers 18 charges of buggery, sexual assault and indecent assault.
A non-publication order on Spillane's name and the school, known as "Stannies", has been lifted after a jury found him guilty of dozens of charges of buggery, indecent assault and sexual assault late last year.
The full scale of his perverted behaviour not only as a teacher but as a trusted priest against both boys and girls can now be reported.
In a sentencing hearing before Judge Robyn Tupman, one victim, who was sexually abused and subjected to "exorcisms" as a 13-year-old boarder, told the court: "My life has been the embodiment of living hell."
The now middle-aged man has been diagnosed with chronic complex post-traumatic stress disorder and has struggled to hold down a job or relationship.
"I'm dead inside. I look forward to the day I die," he said via a statement read by a relative.
The victims also told of the toll the almost decade-long legal process had taken on them and their families.
One man said he was unsure if he should have spoken to police investigating child sexual abuse by a number of staff at Stannies, in particular because of the trauma involved in being cross-examined in court by Spillane's lawyers.
Spillane, who has been in custody since 2010, is serving at least 11 years in jail on previous convictions.
He was sentenced to nine years' jail in 2012 for attacks on young girls, whom he accessed through his role as a priest in Sydney and other parts of NSW.
Spillane was then convicted of assaults on five St Stanislaus' students after a trial in 2013, and in 2015 he pleaded guilty to assaults on four boys at the school in the late 1980s.
In December last year, a jury found him guilty of 11 charges, including sexual assault, indecent assault and buggery on four students at the school between 1976 and 1988. He was acquitted on one charge of buggery.
Earlier last year, he was convicted of attacks on five students between 1974 and 1990.
Last week, the college made an unprecedented public apology to the victims of sexual abuse as part of its sesquicentenary celebrations.
Submissions on sentence will continue on Friday afternoon. Spillane will be sentenced sometime after mid-March.