{"id":281349,"date":"2026-02-13T00:57:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-13T00:57:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/281349\/"},"modified":"2026-02-13T00:57:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-13T00:57:08","slug":"police-probe-new-rowan-donoghue-abuse-allegations-at-st-patricks-silverstream-wellington","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/281349\/","title":{"rendered":"Police probe new Rowan Donoghue abuse allegations at St Patrick\u2019s Silverstream, Wellington"},"content":{"rendered":"

Donoghue worked at St Patrick\u2019s College Silverstream from 1982 to 1992.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe know it can be incredibly difficult and at times distressing to talk about these matters, but we would like to reassure any victims of offending that we will take them seriously,\u201d Simmons said.<\/p>\n

\u201cPolice has a number of officers and detectives dedicated to these cases, and we provide a safe space to report offending in confidence.\u201d<\/p>\n

The 69-year-old pleaded guilty to the charges in October last year and is remanded in custody.<\/p>\n

He will be sentenced on the charges on May 13.<\/p>\n

Donoghue first appeared in the Christchurch District Court in October 2024<\/a>.<\/p>\n

His application for name suppression was declined, but he filed an appeal in the High Court, meaning his details remained secret.<\/p>\n

The offending was revealed when he abandoned the appeal<\/a> in February last year and pleaded not guilty.<\/p>\n

\"RowanRowan Maxwell Donoghue, 69, worked at St Bede\u2019s College as a priest and dean of boarders.<\/p>\n

St Patrick\u2019s College Silverstream has a school roll of 720 students and boarding facilities for 110 students. <\/p>\n

It describes itself as being founded on Catholic and Marist values and traditions.<\/p>\n

More to come.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Donoghue worked at St Patrick\u2019s College Silverstream from 1982 to 1992. \u201cWe know it can be incredibly difficult…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":281350,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1903,26673,1117,5811,26676,1975,1558,1848,4487,157409,2740,14724,117,111,43,139,69,28703,98456,384,675,17041,28758,42542,4062,15386,157410,11420,52,4741],"class_list":["post-281349","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-abuse","tag-abusing","tag-accused","tag-admitted","tag-allegations","tag-at","tag-been","tag-boys","tag-christchurch","tag-donoghue","tag-former","tag-further","tag-new","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-offending","tag-patricks","tag-people","tag-police","tag-priest","tag-probe","tag-rowan","tag-school","tag-sexually","tag-silverstream","tag-st","tag-wellington","tag-young"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281349","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=281349"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281349\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/281350"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=281349"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=281349"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=281349"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}