Pell will appear before child abuse Royal Commission
17 Aug 2014 - 1:06pm
The child abuse royal commission will hear from Cardinal George Pell about his involvement in responding to allegations of child sex abuse in Melbourne.
Source AAP
17 Aug 2014 - 10:00 AM UPDATED 3 HOURS AGO
One of the world's first child abuse compensation schemes will be scrutinised when the child abuse royal commission sits in Melbourne this week.
The Melbourne Response, introduced in 1996, was the one of the Catholic Church's first redress schemes for victims of pedophile priests.
Cardinal George Pell, who was Archbishop of Melbourne in the 1990s, will give evidence via video-link on Thursday from the Vatican about his role in setting up the scheme.
But first up will be Christine Foster, whose daughters were raped by a priest in Melbourne in the 1990s.
One daughter committed suicide while the other is in 24-hour care after being hit by a car.
Mrs Foster and her husband Anthony have been critical of the church's treatment of victims and their families.
The royal commission has held more than 2000 private hearings with victims of institutional sexual abuse.
The next fortnight of hearings will examine the Melbourne Response and look at criticisms that it was legalistic and re-traumatised victims.
The Catholic Church's Truth, Justice and Healing Council has called for a mandatory national victims redress scheme operated by the government.
Council chief executive Francis Sullivan said it needed to be non-adversarial, low cost to claimants and provide compassionate and fair compensation for victims.
"The scheme should be built with prime input from victims and open to anyone who has suffered child sexual abuse within any institution in Australia," Mr Sullivan said last week.
But the Australian Lawyers Alliance president Andrew Stone said the Catholic proposal was "extremely flawed".
"For a start the church clearly wants the scheme to operate with limits on victims' access to the benefit of a lawyer," Mr Stone said.
He also said the Catholic proposal had capped payments based on community standards.
"In the past they have applied appallingly low caps to their internal redress schemes which they have established," Mr Stone said.
Archbishop Philip Freier, the new head of the Anglican church in Australia, said his church had not decided on a compensation scheme model, but was in talks over the best way to do it.
The royal commission hearings start on August 18 at the County Court in Melbourne.
Child sexual abuse royal commission: Consultation paper predicts national redress scheme for victims would exceed $4 billion
By Deborah Rice and staff
Updated about 2 hours ago Fri 30 Jan 2015, 12:25pm
"Only good can come of this royal commission. Thank you, Julia Gillard."
Photo: Justice Peter McClellan and Justice Jennifer Coate at the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. (AAP: Jeremy Piper)
The total cost of a national compensation scheme for victims of child sexual abuse would exceed $4 billion, according to a consultation paper released by the royal commission.
The commission has today released a consultation paper inviting community input on the issue of redress and civil litigation.
It said that many people would prefer a single national redress scheme to be administered by the Australian Government, with institutions contributing to the funding of the scheme based on their responsibility to individual survivors.
Based on modelling assuming that 65,000 eligible survivors would receive payments of $65,000 each, the total cost of redress would be $4.38 billion according to the report.
"The cost of redress would be spread over a number of years," royal commission chairman Justice Peter McClellan said in Sydney this morning.
"The actuarial model over 10 years suggests, on these assumptions, the maximum cost in any one year is likely to be in the order of $650 million nationally."
Justice McClellan said all major institutions had made it clear that they would cooperate with plans for redress and compensation.
"Everyone recognises that redress is not only about money," he said.
"Furthermore an effective redress scheme cannot offer common law damages.
"The fundamental object of redress must be to help those who have suffered to heal and live a productive and fulfilled life."
The consultation paper explores the journey of the royal commission so far, through its research, private sessions, forums and public hearings.
Photo: Survivors of child sexual abuse and their supporters gather outside the royal commission after the release of the paper. (ABC News: Bill Birtles)
"We have heard from survivors, survivor advocacy and support groups and others about the many difficulties that survivors experience in seeking redress or damages through civil litigation," the paper states.
"Although the primary responsibility for the sexual abuse of an individual lies with the abuser and the institution they were part of, we cannot avoid the conclusion that the problems faced by many people who have been abused are the responsibility of our entire society.
"This broad social failure to protect children across a number of generations makes clear the pressing need to provide avenues through which survivors can obtain appropriate redress for past abuse."
The paper suggested the elements of appropriate redress appeared to be:
* A direct personal response by the institution if the survivor wishes to engage with the institution, including an apology, an opportunity for the survivor to meet with a senior representative of the institution, and an assurance as to the steps the institution has taken, or will take, to protect against further abuse.
* Access to therapeutic counselling and psychological care as needed throughout a survivor's life, with redress to supplement existing services and fill service gaps so all survivors can have access to the counselling and psychological care that they need.
* Monetary payments as a tangible means of recognising the wrong that survivors have suffered.
However, it acknowledged there would be challenges to designing a model that took into account the varying levels of abuse and re-abuse at both government and non-government institutions, across all states and territories.
"We accept that many survivors and survivor advocacy and support groups will not consider that any approach to redress that we recommend is capable of delivering 'justice', unless it seeks to achieve equality or fair treatment between survivors," the paper states.
The royal commission said there would be advantages and disadvantages to schemes, whether they were institutional, national, or state and territory based.
But it made it clear that redress should be about providing justice to the survivor, not about protecting the institution's interests.
It also said access to redress should be "obtained with minimal difficulty and cost and with appropriate support or facilitation if required".
Survivors 'deserve to be treated with respect'
Survivors said the consultation paper was one of the royal commission's most important documents to date.
"It is about facing responsibility for an appalling abuse of absolute power against the most vulnerable in society," spokeswoman for SNAP Australia (Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests), Nicky Davis, said.
"Acknowledging the harm done, and that the situation always was wrong and should never have been allowed to happen.
"It is not appropriate to use redress discussions to continue to undermine survivors or to focus on affordability in an effort to manipulate us into accepting less than we deserve.
"Survivors deserve to be treated with respect for our honesty, bravery and resilience, and for our generosity in trying to prevent others from having to suffer as we did."
Ms Davis is concerned the institutions will attempt to use a "good works" excuse to deny survivors their rights.
"The good works excuse threatens that charitable works and social services may have to be cut back or shut down," she said.
"It paints survivors of horrific abuse as placing an unreasonable burden on the selfless religions and charities who do so much good for society."
Ms Davis said crying poor was no longer an option.
"There have been plenty of promises, but we are yet to see effective action likely to protect children rather than predators," she said.
"While institutions and individuals are allowed to avoid both criminal and financial responsibility for their actions, those actions will continue.
"That alone is reason to dismiss the good works excuse and insist on full and proper redress."
If churches need to sell assets, 'so be it' [see below]
Leonie Sheedy from the support group Care Leavers Australia Network said she supported a national redress scheme.
"If they need to sell assets, then so be it," she said.
"The Christian Brothers in Canada went bankrupt, and the Catholic Church in Minnesota is bankrupt because they've had to pay out.
"Why should it be any different in this country?
"They need to pay for the damage that was done to children in their institutions."
Francis Sullivan from the Truth, Justice and Healing Council within the Catholic Church also welcomed the paper.
"The days of the Catholic Church investigating itself are over," he said.
"We need a national scheme."
The consultation period runs until March 2, with a final report on the issue expected to be released in mid-2015.
First posted about 5 hours ago Fri 30 Jan 2015, 9:39am
Eleven U.S. Catholic dioceses have filed for bankruptcy protection during the ongoing sexual abuse crisis in the Catholic church. The Oregon Province of the Jesuits and the Congregation of the Christian Brothers have also filed. On this page we assemble basic information and documents on each of these bankruptcy filings, as well as general information on the process and the issues involved. http://www.bishop-accountability.org/bankruptcy.htm
A witness at a child sex abuse inquiry says she was raped "well over 100 times" by a priest at St Joseph's Neerkol Orphanage Rockhampton in central Queensland.
The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse has heard the treatment of children at the orphanage was "vicious and sadistic", while an earlier inquiry found hundreds of children were sexually abused, beaten and forced into hard labour there.
The inquiry has begun hearings into how the Sisters of Mercy, the Rockhampton diocese and the state government responded to complaints made by former residents of St Joseph's Neerkol Orphanage.
The orphanage has already been the subject of several police and government investigations, and a 1999 inquiry led by former Queensland governor Leneen Forde.
After the so-called Forde Inquiry, the Queensland government at the time offered ex gratia payments of up to $40,000 to people as long as they dropped other legal action against the state.
Over the next two weeks, the royal commission will hear evidence from 18 witnesses, with 13 being former residents of the orphanage, who say they were abused by priests, workers, and nuns there from 1940 to 1975.
A witness, known as AYB, today told how she was abused by a former priest at the orphanage, Father Reginald Basil Durham.
--- "I felt so powerless, so robotic. He had so much power over me." Witness AYB ---
She said the abuse started when she was 11-years-old and Father Durham came to the family home on Christmas Eve.
"Father Durham had sexually abused and raped me well over 100 times," AYB said.
"I felt so powerless, so robotic. He had so much power over me.
"I believed that I did not have choices. It was almost like being enslaved."
AYB recalled one incident in which Father Durham forced her to kiss him while he fondled her.
She said Father Durham would sometimes take her down to an old toilet block.
AYB said she was forced to rub his body and Father Durhan raped her — which he said was to prepare her for when she had a baby.
--- "All I could focus on was the crosses on his shirt, so I yelled at him, 'Father, you are committing a mortal sin'." Witness Mary Adams ---
"Even today there are times when I experience nightmares and call out in my sleep 'go away, stop and don't touch me'," she said.
"I am doing this so we can claim our lives back to try and live out the rest of our lives with courage and peace and without the demons from the past dominating our memories with shame, guilt and regret."
Mary Adams, a former resident at Neerkol and the second witness to give evidence at today's inquest, described being sexually abused by a priest, Father John.
"All I could focus on was the crosses on his shirt, so I yelled at him, 'Father, you are committing a mortal sin'," she said.
Ms Adams also broke down as she addressed the hard punishments dished out by nuns.
She described one beating by a sister who belted her with a rubber rope.
"I had welts on my body for days after," she said.
Children too scared to tell their stories of abuse
She said at the time, the children were too scared to tell their stories because they were afraid of harsh punishment.
Ms David said the age of children at the orphanage ranged from newborns to 15-year-olds.
The number of children residents at Neerkol varied from 150 to 500, depending on the year.
The Sisters of Mercy staffed, supervised and operated Neerkol from 1885 until it had no further child residents in 1978.
The inquiry heard there was serious sexual, physical and emotional abuse of children.
In one case, a former resident will give evidence that he was sexually abused by a priest, beaten with instruments and flogged with a whip.
Ms David said from 1993, long after the orphanage closed, former residents came forward to the church and the Queensland Police to report allegations of sexual abuse.
She said as a result there were criminal proceedings in respect of Father Durham, now deceased, and a former employee of the orphanage, Kevin Baker.
The court heard Queensland Police charged Father Durham on February 6, 1997 with 40 sexual offences against five former residents of the orphanage and a former member of his parish.
On February 15, 1999, Father Durham pleaded guilty to six counts of indecently dealing with a former resident, identified by the inquiry as AYB.
All other charges were discontinued and he was sentenced to 18 months in prison, with a recommendation for release on parole after a period of four months.
The hearing was told that on March 31, 1998, Mr Baker, who was an employee of the orphanage as well as being a former resident, was committed for trial on 69 mainly sexual offences, related to 12 former residents.
He was never convicted of any offence.
The inquiry was told today that former residents had complained about Father Durham as one of the main perpetrators.
Mark Bunting, from support group Lotus Place, said the horrific ordeals of the victims would be painful to recall.
"For a lot of people, their childhood memories they've tried to forget, it's going to be quite difficult to relive those stories," he said.
"It wasn't just sexual, there was a lot of physical and emotional abuse, so for a lot of people it'll be very painful."
Bishop who denied abuse claims to appear at inquiry
Former Rockhampton bishop Brian Heenan is also expected to appear at the inquiry next week.
In 1996, Bishop Heenan outraged the victims of Neerkol by denying their claims about abuse by priests and mistreatment at the orphanage.
But in 1997, he was forced to apologise.
"I regret having expressed my reaction the way I did - I recognise now that they were not accurate," Bishop Heenan said at the time.
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