Father John (‘Jack’) Ayers

Father John (‘Jack’) Ayers was a Salesian priest who joined the Salesian Order in the early 1950s. He helped to open Salesian College at Chadstone (in Melbourne's south-east) in 1957. In the early 1960s, Father Ayers was teaching at Salesian College in Brooklyn Park, Adelaide, South Australia. In the 1970’s, he taught/worked at Boys Town, a Salesian home for disadvantaged boys, at Engadine in western Sydney.

Like other members of the Salesian Order, Father Ayers is known to have committed child sexual abuse in the 1960s whilst he taught at Rupertswood College. Civil settlements have been made in the past by the Salesian Order in relation to Father Ayers sexually abusing students at Rupertswood College. He is known also to have committed further abuses in Adelaide previous to Rupertswood in the early 1960s and after in Sydney in the 1970s. In the 1990s the Salesians transferred Ayers to Samoa in order to put Ayers beyond the reach of Australian police. In 2011, Victoria Police were gathering evidence in order to prosecute Father Ayers, but due to his location and health at the time, they found it too difficult to bring him before a court of law in Victoria. Father Ayers died in Samoa in 2012, aged 83.

Moody Law has in the past represented clients who were sexually abused by members of the Salesian Order.

We invite former victims of Father Ayers 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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