The trial of a Catholic priest accused of indecent treatment of a student at an Brisbane boy’s school allegedly photographed a second boy semi-nude.

March 7, 2019

A Catholic priest accused of intimately touching a Brisbane schoolboy and coercing him to strip nude for photos had another student pull down his shorts for the same purpose, a court has heard.

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.

He is accused of groping a student at the school and coercing him to strip nude for photos over a six-year period between 1975 and 1971.

The witness, who cannot be named for legal reasons, told the court Endicott took him into a school area known as the tower when he was about 10 years old.

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

“They were the standard green togs, I describe them as a green version of Tony Abbott’s budgie smugglers,” the witness told the Brisbane District Court trial on Wednesday..

There was no nudity and he didn’t touch me, he said.

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

The abuse of the alleged victim began on a school hiking trip in 1975, crown prosecutor Russell Clutterbuck told the jury in his opening remarks this week.

Endicott photographed the victim nude in a series of nature poses, he said.

Three years later he allegedly lured the boy into the school’s tower for another naked photo session.

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 prosecution is expected to sum up its case on Thursday.