A Belmont man and former student of Bishop Guertin High School is suing the school, claiming it failed to protect him from sexual assault by a teacher it knew was a pedophile. 

The administration of the private Nashua high school learned in 1970 that Brother Guy Beaulieu had sexually assaulted a student at his former school and was informed of other incidents throughout his employment, according to the suit that was filed on January 18. William Liakas claims that both the school and the Brothers of the Sacred Heart, the Catholic organization based in Rhode Island that runs it, not only neglected to discipline or report Beaulieu but continued to permit him and other teachers one-on-one interactions with students in and outside of school. 

Liakas, 50, asserts in the suit that Beaulieu sexually assaulted him on two occasions in the 1988-1989 school year, when he was a freshman. 

“Beaulieu was a human wrecking ball. He destroyed multiple lives,” Kristen Knuuttila, a lawyer for Liakas, said in a statement. “The tragedy here is that Bishop Guertin and the Sacred Heart Order knew that Beaulieu was a pedophile and could have easily protected our client from him. They failed to take action to remove a monster like Beaulieu from having access to children at Bishop Guertin.”

Beaulieu, now deceased, was removed from the school in 1990 because of allegations against him and moved to the Brothers’ retirement home in Rhode Island, according to Bishop Accountability, an online public database of abuse accusations against Catholic clergy.

In a statement, Bishop Guertin and the Brothers of the Sacred Heart outlined current protocols designed to protect students and respond to accusations against staff. All Brothers, teachers and staff undergo a background check before they are hired and receive training about preventing, reporting and responding to potential abuse; all allegations concerning student safety are reported and investigated; and the school’s response to every such situation is reviewed by an independent board. 

“We wish to assure all in the community that the safety and security of our students is a top priority. As Bishop Guertin enters this new semester in this new year, each of us recommits ourselves to safeguarding the students who are entrusted to our care,” the statement reads. 

Liakas was a fifteen-year-old freshman at Bishop Guertin when he was assigned Beaulieu as a math tutor, according to the suit. Those tutoring sessions — as was permitted and “normalized” at the time — took place in the bedroom inside Beaulieu’s private residence, where he began grooming and later sexually assaulted Liakas on two occasions. 

The suit filed in Hillsborough County cites other accusations of sexual abuse by Beaulieu during his employment at the school between 1970 and 1990, which were reported to the administration by teachers, parents and students. It also names other teachers who were accused of or pleaded guilty to sexually abusing students in or around that period that “made the rape of the Plaintiff foreseeable.”

“Beaulieu’s sexually abusive behavior with students was well known within the Bishop Guertin community but nothing was done by the institutional defendants to stop him,” the suit states.

As a result, Liakas “suffered severe psychological, emotional, and physical injuries, shame,  humiliation, and the inability to lead a normal life,” the suit states.

Liakas left Bishop Guertin at the end of his freshman year and first disclosed his experiences in 2023, the suit states. He is seeking a jury trial and monetary damages for his psychological and emotional damages.

 In 2002, five men who had been campers at Camp Fatima in Banstead brought forward allegations that Beaulieu had sexually abused them there in the 1970s. In a deposition related to a case they brought, Beaulieu said he had molested 15-20 Bishop Guertin students.

This lawsuit is one of several Bishop Guertin and Brothers of the Sacred Heart, which operates 11 schools around the country, that accused former faculty of abuse. Among those are five suits the school settled in 2004 by students who said Beaulieu had molested them. The school is also set to go trial later this year in another lawsuit by a student claiming that it failed to protect her from sexual abuse in 1995 by Brother Shawn McEnany, who was a convicted sex offender when the school hired him a few years earlier.