Former teacher and priest Michael Endicott asked a young student to pose for photos with his swimming costume pulled down, a court hears.

March 6, 2019

A witness in the trial of a former Catholic priest accused of groping a Brisbane schoolboy he coerced to strip nude for photos has recalled his own disturbing interaction with the former teacher.

On trial is Michael Ambrose Endicott, 75, who pleaded not guilty to eight historical charges of indecently dealing with a child under 12 and a child under 16 while he worked at Villanova College.

The witness, who was a student in the mid-70s and cannot be named for legal reasons, told the court Endicott took him alone into a school area known as the tower when he was about 10 years old.

“I was asked by Father Endicott to take some photos of me while I was wearing my swimming costume,” he told the Brisbane District Court trial on Wednesday.

The witness, now 53, said he was asked to pull his bathers down as low as he could.

“I didn’t actually expose my penis or testicles but just pulled them down as far as I could,” he said.

“They were the standard green togs, I describe them as a green version of Tony Abbott’s budgie smugglers.”

“I do remember, I didn’t have pubic hair at the time.”

Endicott was a priest in charge of pastoral care and religious education of children during the ’70s, the witness said.

Endicott’s alleged abuse of the alleged victim began on a school-hiking trip in 1975.

In his opening remarks this week, crown prosecutor Russell Clutterbuck told the jury Endicott asked the victim to take off his clothes and pose for photographs after taking him to a secluded area along a creek.

Three years later, Endicott again coerced that boy to strip naked and pose for photographs after luring him into the school’s flag tower.

The alleged abuse became sexual in 1980 when Endicott is accused of touching the boy’s genitals during an excursion to the Augustine Retreat in Clayfield, Brisbane.

After photographing the boy, the defendant dropped to his knees and pulled the boy close and touched him sexually, the prosecutor said.

The following year at a school sports afternoon, the priest took the boy, who was by then a teenager, into a change room and told him to strip to his underwear, Mr Clutterbuck said.

He then allegedly told the boy to strip completely naked and took photos of him while he was in the shower with water running and drying off.

The court has largely remained closed to the public and media throughout the trial as witnesses gave evidence.

The prosecution is expected to sum up its case on Thursday.