by Adele on 12 November, 2010
Today is Forget-me-knot Day in which Adults Surviving Child Abuse (ASCA) asks all Australians to unite in support of the more than 2 million Australian adults surviving child abuse. More information can be found on their website.
by Adele on 8 November, 2010
On Tuesday November 16, 8.30 pm, SBSONE will be screening the documentary Forgotten Australians – the story of over 500,000 children placed in Australian institutional homes.
by Patricia Slatterie and Jeanette Blick (guest author) on 26 October, 2010
In 1961, John, Frank, Patricia and Jeannette Halliday, without explanation, were taken to Allambie Reception Centre, Victoria before being taken to court and made wards of the state and then sent to Orana Methodist Home, Burwood. The Halliday children were subject to medical testing. As a result of the associated severe symptoms, they often had to be admitted to hospital. Patricia and Jeanette write about their memories of life at Orana.
Suffer little children PDF (464kb)
by Rhonda Trivett (guest author) on 18 October, 2010
Rhonda describes how it’s been hard for her to get a job and who is helping her.
My name is Rhonda Trivett I was locked up from the age on 7 to 21 years old. I am 50 years of age. I was never taught any trades or anything. Just how to be bashed raped and see my friends being killed that was my life. Its sucks, hey? I never had a real job working for someone else in a normal environment. Cause I’ve never class my self as being normal. I’m a expert on the work rejection. People have always said I was a nothing all my life but they didn’t know the real me. Years ago all the doctors said I would never be able to even hold a job down. Really everything I’ve done I’ve taught myself. And man that was hard especially when you can’t read or write. But in my adult years I have learnt. And I am proud of myself. I’ve come along way. I’m still learning. I’m always a stuff up until now. It’s time for me to change. You only live once so I reckon live life to your fullest potential.
At Max Employment I done two courses and they really made me think of what I wanted to do in my life as well as a job and how to do it. It really hit me for once that I have got brains and lots of skills that need to come out and it’s time to use them. Also learning about different techniques and how to put them into practice and getting and keeping the job that made so much sense the way it was taught to us and how to be a person for the job. I suppose I’m a hell of a challenge for them.
Max Employment agencies at Belconnen is more than just a work place. In the last couple of weeks they have shown me how nice good hearted real people that do care are all about. They have as well shown me that they believe in me and in getting me a job. That makes me feel good because no one really has believe in me, let a lone told me they will get me a job, really spun me out. Being in Canberra I’ve met all kind of good people that really wants to help me no matter how who or what I am or do or think. I kind of really like them all a lot. I’m so screwed up inside they still want to help me. And they are just a job employment agencies. I still hate myself and want to get it right. But it’s good to know that there’s real down to earth caring people. I wish I was one.
Out in the world you hear about all the bad people but you never hear about the good ones. Because of my circumstances I think its good that these guys are around. I’m glad I’ve got some real good friends.
All the staff like me even as a person that really makes me feel good, and because I want to work and get off my DSS Pension. I don’t have to. But I want to. And especially where I come from. They are really trying to help me get a job. And get my own place as well. Even the boss is a nice young likeable caring person which has a great team. Well I like them all. Thank you Max at Belconnen.
by Nigel Owen (guest author) on 5 October, 2010
In this excerpt from his book Stolen Innocence: Memoirs of a Child Migrant, Nigel Owen describes being sent to Australia from Britain at the age of five. Read an excerpt on the archived Child Migrants Trust website.
by Adele on 29 September, 2010
Father Wally Dethlefs is Project Officer for Marginalised Students at Catholic Education in Brisbane but his involvement with the homeless and marginalised began way back in 1973 when he set up one of the first refuges for youth in Brisbane.
In an excerpt from Fr Wally Dethlefs’ book: Journey into Gospel Justice: The Faith Development of a Diocesan Priest (1998) (unpublished) Wally describes his experiences as a chaplain at Wilson Youth Hospital and his establishment, with Father Pat Tynan, of Kedron Lodge.
A History of Wilson Youth Hospital
1928 – The Queensland Government bought a property called ‘Eildon Hill’ for £1400 and established the Wilson Ophthalmic School and Hostel – named after the then Minister for Public Instruction, the Honourable T. Wilson.
1930s – The Wilson Hospital was a specialised facility where eye diseases in children from country Queensland could be diagnosed and treated.
1950s – During the Second World War patient numbers at the Hospital fell drastically and it was due to the diminised numbers that the Wilson Youth Hostel began to treat orthopaedic, rheumatic and crippled children.
1961 – By this time the original purpose of the Hospital had been subsumed. In its place a remand, assessment and treatment centre for young males between the ages of eight and fourteen was established – The Wilson Youth Hospital. Initially intended to accommodate trouble-makers, emotionally disturbed children, and those who had broken the law, the Wilson was also ‘home’ to many orphans and homeless children.
1971 – A section was added to the Hospital to accommodate girls aged twelve to sixteen. Girls were often held not for committing offences but for being ‘emotionally disturbed’, ‘exposed to moral danger’ or ‘incorrigible’. In the 1973–4 financial year, for instance, only 57 per cent of Wilson girls had committed offences.
1977 – The Justice for Juveniles Group, previously known as the Wilson Protest Group, was established to bring about much-needed changes in Wilson through community education and action. This group conducted successful campaigns around such issues as lack of education, solitary confinement, lack of legal representation in the Children’s Courts, etc.
By this stage the ‘Hospital’ accommodated 68 boys and 32 girls. It was considered a ‘closed’ institution meaning that children were not free to come and go at will.
1980 – The Justice for Juveniles Group assisted with formulating the proposal and seeking funding for the establishment of the Youth Advocacy Centre.
1981 – The Juveniles for Justice Group were eventually successful and Brisbane’s Youth Advocacy Centre was established.
1983 – Responsibility for the Wilson Youth Hospital was transferred to the Department of Children Services and it was renamed the Sir Leslie Wilson Youth Centre after the Governor, Sir Leslie Wilson.
1993 – The Centre was again renamed: Sir Leslie Wilson Youth Detention Centre.
1995 – The Wilson Detention Centre became the only facility in Queensland to accommodate young females.
1999 – The Forde Inquiry into the Abuse of Children in Queensland Institutions recommended that the Sir Leslie Wilson Detention Centre Close as a matter of urgency.
2001 – The Wilson Detention Centre was closed on February 7 by the local member Premier Peter Beattie. Later that year the Centre was demolished
An excerpt from Fr Wally Dethlefs’ book: Journey into Gospel Justice: The Faith Development of a Diocesan Priest:
Wilson Youth Hospital
In August 1973, we became involved in Wilson Youth Hospital, a remand, assessment, and treatment centre for young people, in fact a prison for juveniles, in the nearby suburb of Windsor. It was to change my life drastically. A woman phoned the Lodge. Her fourteen year old niece who was in Wilson and who wanted to see a Catholic priest. When Pat went to Wilson, he was told a Catholic priest had not visited for some six months. When he came home, he told me about his visit and asked me if I would be prepared to share the chaplaincy with him. I agreed.
In early September 1973, Pat and I formally applied to visit Wilson, as chaplains on a regular basis. In December 1973, permission was given for Pat “to visit when required” and for me to “visit at the present time whilst Father Tynan is on annual leave and also when Father Tynan is unavailable”.[1] It was never made clear that I was to be merely a stand-in when Pat was not available.
From August 1973 until December 1974, Pat and I shared chaplaincy responsibilities at Wilson Youth Hospital – a juvenile prison for young people between the ages of eight and seventeen years for girls, and eight and fifteen years for boys.
On my first visits to Wilson, I could not believe what I saw taking place. Most, but not all, of the young inmates found their way into Wilson through the Children’s Courts. Many young people – in fact, most of the girls on their first admission – were placed in Wilson for non-criminal offences. These were called ‘status offences’, like running away from home, being uncontrollable, living in moral danger, or likely to lapse into a life of vice or crime.[2] If these offences were proven, and hearsay evidence was sufficient, the young people often received a Care and Control Order, which meant that they were placed under the Care and Control of the Director of Children’s Services until they were eighteen years of age. Under this Order, the Director could place his charges in secure custody. Most of these young people were leaving home because of violence. For the young women, the violence was often sexual.
I found many things which horrified me in Wilson.
Indeterminate sentencing was one of them. Since most Care and Control orders were valid until the young person reached eighteen years of age, they could in theory, stay in custody until their eighteenth birthday. Indeterminate sentencing meant, in practice, that young people never knew when they were to be released. Their release depended on a number of factors: the way they responded to the ‘treatment’ they received while incarcerated, the availability of accommodation on the outside, and the way they reacted to being locked up. Once they were placed on a Care and Control Order, they could, after release, be placed back in Wilson without reference to the Children’s Court.
There was solitary confinement, either in Open Tantrum or, as it was often called, “the fish bowl” (a room with a glass wall), or in Closed Tantrum which was simply a cell with a bed base built into the floor and a small window high up on the wall. Regulations prescribed that young people should be placed in seclusion for one hour, and then only with a staff person in close attendance. However, these regulations were often contravened. In fact, many young people spent days at a time in solitary confinement. One fifteen year old girl, Teresa, spent three and a half weeks in solitary before she was certified as being mentally unbalanced and transferred to Osler House at Wolston Park Mental Hospital, the lock-up section for adult women who were judged to be criminally insane. But that was another long and sad story.
There were no trained teachers in Wilson and, therefore, no schooling, an obvious breach of the United Nations Declaration of the Rights of the Child, as well as of a State law requiring compulsory education to the age of fifteen.[3] In the words of the psychiatrist in charge of Youth Welfare and Guidance in the Health Department, Dr B.J. Phillips, “education for these children was contra-indicated.”[4] In fact, many children in Wilson were illiterate, but even they were not helped to gain basic literacy-numeracy skills. Moreover, even a young person who had not been truanting and had been coping well at school was way behind his or her classmates when he or she returned to school because he or she was unable to continue with schooling while in Wilson. Even if a young person spent only three months in Wilson, he/she was so far behind his/her classmates that he/she effectively lost a year of schooling.
Julie was fourteen years when she went to Wilson. She was doing quite well at school in Year Nine, and wanted to continue with her schooling while in Wilson. At first, she was refused. After six weeks of persistent requests, she was allowed to do her schooling by correspondence, which meant that she had to sit in a room by herself all day, without any assistance. She approached me, to see if I could obtain a book she needed for her French studies. She also needed a tutor for maths with which she was having some difficulties. I was able to obtain the book she requested and to enlist the voluntary services of a qualified teacher who was prepared to tutor her in maths one or two hours per week, at the convenience of management and staff at Wilson.
I approached the manager of Wilson, the Major, (he was a retired Army Major), to arrange for the handing over of the book and to organise for her to be tutored. The Major said neither was possible – it would establish precedents. “Other children would be wanting books and tutors,” he said, “and the whole thing could get out of hand very quickly.” Unbelievable stuff.
Wilson institutionalised violence. Most children had not committed serious crimes, contrary to what the Minister for Children’s Services, Mr John Herbert, often used to say: “Wilson is full of murderers, rapists and arsonists”. In the three years I worked there, I met two arsonists, but never a rapist nor a murderer. Most of the young people had run away from violence at home, been deemed uncontrollable by the court and incarcerated. Many young women I met in Wilson had been victims of sexual violence in their homes.
The young people who were sent to Wilson were dehumanised, brutalised, victimised and criminalised. On a number of occasions, staff told me that their young charges were “savages”. I saw young people with broken arms which they had received from staff who were supposedly “restraining” them. One girl suffered a fractured skull when staff dragged her upstairs by her legs. Her head bounced on the edge of the steps, and she was later admitted to the Royal Brisbane Hospital for treatment.
Vicki, a very intelligent and courageous girl, told me about this incident. She was so enraged by the violence of some of the staff that she fully intended to report the incident to the visiting magistrate who appeared at Wilson once every month. However, she was prevailed upon by staff not to take any further action. They told her, “Remember you have to live here. Staff will not take kindly to you reporting them. Also, staff members have families and your action could result in them losing their jobs and, if their families suffered, that would be your fault and on your conscience.” When Vicki told me that she did not have the courage to write up a report for the magistrate, she broke down and cried.
There is no doubt in my mind that some of the staff were sexually abusing both boys and girls. I knew of several cases that came before the courts, when staff were charged with sexual offences, but, as the courts were closed when minors were giving evidence, I was unable to find out the determination of the court.
In my opinion, staff were also using drugs to control the young people. Young people were often injected with sedatives. If some staff wanted to have a quiet shift, they were not above giving sedatives to their young charges. Some young people who did not have a drug problem when they entered Wilson certainly had a raging habit by the time they were discharged. I often spoke publicly about what I termed the misuse of legal drugs in Wilson. On one occasion, I was given a verbal warning, supposedly from Dr B.J.Phillips, saying that if ever I mentioned it again I would be brought before the courts. That worried me for a short time, but then I reasoned that a court case would be worth losing: the associated publicity would surely highlight the terrible things which were occurring in Wilson. I continued to speak publicly about the misuse of drugs in Wilson and heard no more from “B. J.”
In Wilson, all young people were ‘treated’ with incarceration, and seen by psychiatrists. If a young person was incarcerated for truanting, running away from a violent home situation, shoplifting, or a serious criminal offence, she/he was treated psychiatrically, with the result that the young person regarded themselves as “mad” because they had been treated by psychiatrists. And, because they had been incarcerated, most young people upon release were also convinced that they were “bad”. So the result of their time in Wilson was the double stigma of being “mad” and “bad”. Years later, many young people are still struggling with this slur on their character and their consequent negative self-images.
I must admit that I found it difficult to believe that our so-called civilised society could treat vulnerable young people in such a harrowing way. The only parallel situation which I had heard of was the psychiatric treatment of political prisoners in Siberia, by the government of the former Soviet Union. On many occasions, I was all but reduced to tears by the stories I heard from young people in Wilson.
One story, one of many similar stories, may illustrate what I have been saying. Glenn (a pseudonym) was the eldest of four children. His father had left the family home soon after the youngest was born. His mother battled on alone. When Glenn was twelve years old, his mother had a nervous breakdown and could not get out of bed. Glenn assumed responsibility for his mother, his brothers and sister for the next few days. He cut lunches, got the children off to school, did the cleaning and the cooking, but his mother seemed to be getting worse and Glenn did not know what to do.
He spoke to his class teacher, who couldn’t assist him in any practical way. He spoke to the neighbours, who didn’t want to become involved. There was no food in the house, so Glenn reluctantly decided to steal some fruit and vegetables from the local greengrocers. He told me three years later that he was not a thief, that he hated stealing, but did not know how else to feed his mum and the kids.
The greengrocer caught him stealing and called the police. ‘The welfare’ were called in. Glenn’s mum was placed in a psychiatric institution, his brothers and sister placed in children’s institutions, and his sister later fostered out. Glenn, however, suffered a worse fate. He was charged with stealing and placed on remand in Wilson Youth Hospital. He appeared in Court, unrepresented, and was placed under the Care and Control of the Director of Children’s Services until he was eighteen.
Two weeks later, he was placed in a Church-run boys home which he told me he hated, because of the violence of the staff who bashed the boys. The other thing he detested about the place was that, when a boy had infringed the rules, he was placed in a boxing ring with an older and bigger boy and thrashed in front of the other boys. Glenn loathed this violence. He coped in that place for three years by keeping his nose clean, his trap shut and learning to defend himself. He told me that, when he was placed in the boxing ring with a smaller boy, he would not hurt him. He would rather incur the wrath of the staff and the ridicule of his peers than participate in organised and institutionally sanctioned bullying.
Upon release from the boy’s home, Glenn had nowhere to go. He hated Christians. One night, he rang me at the Lodge, I don’t know on whose suggestion. He had been living with two young men at Manly. The eldest of the three was working and paying the rent, and had decided to move on. Glenn said he needed accommodation and needed it immediately. I told him we had a spare bed. It was then that he told me his mate needed a bed as well.
I arrived there about eight o’clock. The electricity had been switched off, and Glenn and his mate were sitting on the floor in total darkness. I chatted with them for awhile and then asked them to get their gear together and come and stay with us at the Lodge. They had a small bag each, in which they carried all their possessions. They had no food. Glenn told me that he had asked the local shopkeeper for some food and was not only refused but threatened with the police. Glenn certainly did not want to steal, and absolutely did not want to have any involvement with the police. He had decided to ask for help.
Glenn was at the Lodge three days before he found out that I was a Catholic priest. He came to me and asked, “Are you a priest?”
“Yes,” I said. “Why?”
“If I had known that when you picked us up the other night, I wouldn’t have come with you. I hate priests and I hate Christians”.
It was then that he told me about the treatment that was meted out to him and others in the church-run boys home.
I asked him if he wanted me to find another place for him and his mate to stay.
“You’re all right”, he answered. “I’d like to stay on here until I get a job and can set myself up”.
Glenn did that. He was with us for six months. He kept on trying for work until he was taken on by a volunteer at the Lodge who ran his own business. Every Sunday, he would get dressed up in his best gear, jeans and T-shirt, and catch a train to visit his mother who was still in a psychiatric hospital, and then his brothers, and finally his sister who was living with a foster family on the north side of Brisbane. Glenn often said to me, “If only there had been help available, my family would not have needed to be split up”.
On a lighter note, I took Glenn to an interview for a job as a labourer one morning. Glenn was fifteen or sixteen, well built and strong, but not very articulate. There were thirty others applying for the one job and Glenn missed out. On the way back to the Lodge, we dropped into Toombul Shopping Town. I had to exchange a shirt I had been given for Christmas which was too small.
Glenn was dressed for work. The lady shop assistant I approached looked at Glenn and intimated to me that we may have stolen the garment. She said she could not do anything until she consulted her manager. We waited until he came. He was a little man whom I would describe as a ponce. He gave us a lecture and mentioned the word ‘shoplifting’. Finally, he offhandedly waved to a row of racks and told us to get another shirt from there. I found one that I liked. Glenn and I took it back to this little, impeccably groomed and well dressed manager who continued to berate us. In the middle of the scolding, Glenn took me aside.
“Would you like me to re-arrange his face?” he inquired.
“No”, I said. “He’s only doing his job.”
“I don’t like his attitude. Nobody should be allowed to talk like that, particularly to you. Just let me tap him on the face”.
“No”, I replied emphatically. “Thanks all the same, but violence is not the way to solve problems.”
We left the store soon afterwards. That manager never realised just how close he had come to having his features altered.
Another story. Mary Anne (another pseudonym) was still a baby when her mother sent her to her grandmother to be cared for. As Mary Anne grew up, she called her grandmother “Mum” because her grandmother was a real “mum” to her and the only mum she had anyway, as far as she knew. Nobody told Mary Anne anything different.
When Mary Anne was eight years old, her mother remarried and, on the wedding day, took Mary Anne from her grandmother to live with her and her step-father. The experience was traumatic. She tried hard to fit into the new situation, but could never bring herself to call her real mum “Mum.” She called her mother by her first name, which her mother resented. Her real mum and her step-father both drank heavily, and prevented Mary Anne from seeing her grandmother “mum”, who lived on the outskirts of Brisbane.
Mary Anne was a good student who caught onto things easily at school. However, as the home situation became progressively worse, with her parents drinking and arguing most nights until the early hours of the morning, Mary Anne started skipping out of school and spending time with her friends, because as she said, “They are in a similar situation as me and because of that everybody understands everybody else”.
Her parents resented her spending time in this way and reported her to the police. She was charged with being uncontrollable and, because she continued to skip out of home, she appeared before the Children’s Court and was committed to Wilson Youth Hospital where she stayed for six months. During her stay in Wilson, she was unable to continue her school work and got further behind in her studies. She asked to be sent to her grandmother upon discharge, but her request was refused and she was sent home to her mother and her step-father. Of course, she ran away again and, subsequently, was returned to Wilson. Her grandmother wrote to her while she was in Wilson, but the letters were withheld from Mary Anne. Mary Anne also wrote to her grandmother, but the institution did not forward the letters. Mary Anne often wondered why her grandmother never replied. When she turned sixteen, Mary Anne moved back in with her grandmother. She obtained a job in the supermarket in a neighbouring suburb, and never again came to the notice of the police.
These homeless, disadvantaged and incarcerated young people were an oppressed, voiceless and powerless group of people. What was my God saying to me about them? Verses from the Bible began to jump out at me: were these the poor Jesus wanted us to tell the good news?[5] If so, what was the good news he wanted them to be told? Were these the prisoners Jesus had come to release? Were these young people the oppressed Jesus wanted to set free?[6] There was no doubt in my mind that this was so.
Then I came across these verses from Isaiah,
“Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your doings from before my eyes; cease to do evil, learn to do good; seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow. Come now, let us argue it out, says the Lord: though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be like snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool.”[7] (my emphasis)
God, through Isaiah, was saying, that Wilson was where I ought to be, living gospel justice for these little ones who were voiceless, powerless and oppressed.
Pat and I attended Wilson for one half-day each week, and we saw young people mostly in one-to-one situations. When they were nearing release, we gave them slips of paper with our name, address and phone number, and encouraged them to make contact with us if they needed. We also went there on Sunday mornings to celebrate Mass. It was not too long after we started work at Wilson that the young people who had been incarcerated in Wilson began turning up at the Lodge requesting shelter. We took them in, and tried to help them to the best of our ability.
The first two young people whom we accommodated at the Lodge were girls from Wilson. It happened this way. I was woken by the phone very late one night. It was the Juvenile Aid Bureau at the Clayfield Police Station asking if I would come over. They had two young women, Katie and Karen, whom Pat and I had met in Wilson. The police had contacted their parents, in fact, one of their mothers was at the police station. The girls were homeless, the police said. Their parents did not want them. Karen’s mother said that she was about to enter into a new relationship with an airline pilot. She tearfully told me that she did not want her daughter around to complicate things. The police said that they were reluctant to place the girls back in Wilson as they had not committed a crime, and they were unimpressed with the way Wilson dealt with young people. However, they had no alternative except, as the girls had mentioned, maybe, the Lodge.
I knew enough about Wilson at that time to agree totally with them. I had never anticipated living with young people. Here was a genuine need. What else could I do but respond? I took the girls home and made up beds for them in one of the upstairs rooms.
The next morning at breakfast, I said to Pat, “Did you hear the phone go last night?” He hadn’t.
I said, “How do you feel about homeless young people living here?”
He was pleased that I had bought Katie and Karen home, rather than have them placed back in Wilson, but the questions were: what would we do with them, now that they were living at the Lodge? How would we deal with Children’s Services? What would these young people do each day?
From a Biblical perspective it was easy. We had only to reflect on such readings as Matthew,
“for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me ….. And the king will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me'”.[8]
The Last Judgement text, as it is often called, spells out in a practical way what is important in the eyes of Jesus. It points to a practical living out of our beliefs in the circumstances of our lives. It specifically focuses on the stranger, the prisoner, the ones who are hungry and thirsty and calls them “members of my family.” Who were Pat and I to argue?
The text did not, however, answer the practical questions. It did not feed these young people or clothe them. It did not tell us how we were to deal with them, except to indicate to us that they were special and must be treated with respect. We trusted in our God, and decided to get on with it, reflecting as we went, acknowledging our mistakes and limitations, and often asking for assistance from our friends and those who had more skills than we did.
In a short space of time, the Lodge became a hive of activity. There were live-ins for YCS and YCW members on a regular basis, and some YCS and YCW people who needed time out from home because of alcoholism were using the place from time to time. There were various meetings, for example, YCS, YCW or Tertiary Students. We celebrated Mass several times each week, and those who wished were welcome to attend. Other groups used the place for one-off meetings. On top of all this, ex-Wilson young people were calling in for a chat, or asking to stay.
[1] Letter from Manager of Wilson Youth Hospital to the Director of Children’s Services, dated 17th December 1973.
NB. This and subsequent similar material was obtained from files released under Freedom of Information twenty years later.
[2] Children’s Services Act 1965: Sections 60 & 61.
[3] United Nation Declaration of the Rights of the Child states that the child is entitled to receive education which shall be free and compulsory (Principle 7.) Section 28 of the Queensland Education Act (1964-1974) states that “every parent of a child being of the age of compulsory attendance shall, unless some reasonable excuse exists, cause such child to attend a State school on each school day”. What applies to parents surely must apply to those acting in the name of parents (in loco parentis) and in the best interests of the child.
A number of the young people who had been incarcerated in Wilson and whose education had therefore ceased have often remarked that this played a significant part in condemning them to a life of poverty.
[4] See, for instance, the letter from the Hon. Mr Herbert, Minister for Welfare, to the Hon. Mr Knox, Deputy Premier and Treasurer, undated (but I estimate it to have been written in March or April 1978). Mr Herbert states, on page 2: “The children who are undergoing psycho-therapy under the control of Officers of the Division of Youth Welfare and Guidance do not (receive education) because, on the advice of the Senior Medical director, Division of Youth Welfare and Guidance, remedial teaching is contra-indicated for these children”. (my emphasis)
[5] Luke 4:16-18.
[6] Luke 4:18.
[7] Isaiah 1:16-18.
[8] Matthew 25:35 & 40
by Wayne Miller (guest author) on 17 September, 2010
The Betrayal – Born in Innocence Raised in Hell is Wayne Miller’s personal history of his life as a ward of the state, resident in St Vincent de Paul’s Boys Home, South Melbourne and St Augustine’s Boys Home, Highton, Geelong.
Wayne’s history was the basis of his submission to the 2004 Senate Community Affairs Committee’s Inquiry into Children into Institutional Care. Wayne’s testament is Submission no. 15 and may be downloaded from the Senate website.
by Diane Tronc (guest author) on 2 July, 2010
On 12 September, 2010 a convoy of 2000 cars, trucks and bikes will travel from the Brisbane show to the Gold Coast to mark the end of Child Protection Week. If you wish to join the fight against sexual assault, you can access the registration form: download the PDF (143kb)
by Diane Tronc (guest author) on 1 July, 2010
White Balloon Day will be held on Tuesday 7 September In 1999, White Balloon Day prompted an unprecedented 514% increase in the number of child sexual assault disclosures. This phenomenal figure indicates that White Balloon Day does raise awareness and protects children against sexual assault in Australia. The humble white balloon has been adopted by Bravehearts as symbolic of the issue of child sexual assault.
by Gloria Lovely (guest author) on 17 June, 2010
Gloria Lovely was taken to St Vincent’s Orphanage, Nudgee, Queensland, in 1943, when she was 18 months old. She was then sent to a foster family at the age of ten. Here, in an excerpt from the book Lives of Uncommon Children – Reflections of Forgotten Australians (2009, Micah Projects – Queensland), and her poem A Child’s Despair (2005), Gloria writes about her experience in foster care.
He was murdering me. He was murdering me every day. I didn’t want to wake up of a morning because I knew what I might face. Another day of fear. Have to hurry, do the chores, then off to school – an escape. I’m free of fear there for a while, a positive advantage. School is the best time of day, learning to be smart and a little educated, making me feel good.
I absolutely love to learn, anything and everything, trying to fill my mind with knowledge, and remembering it all. I loved going to school; it was my sanctuary, but then I had to go back to my foster home, my home of fear and dread. And my foster parents. My foster father was a sinful man, using my body for his sexual gratification. No on else knew he was doing it on a weekly basis. It was my hell; he was destroying my spirit, and my foster mother was very cruel, punishing me for not doing the chores right. Like scorching a white shirt, peeling too much skin off the potatoes and onions.
But to the people of the community, they were such wonderful people, because they fostered other children from the orphanage as well, and going to church every Sunday, letting people know they were looking after their foster children. What wonderful people, but behind the scenes, behind closed doors, we foster children were suffering daily. What a charade. We were their slaves, and I was his bedroom slave. I was the housewife in every sense of the word.
Hence my thinking of him killing me – killing every part of my being, my soul, my all. Who can I turn to? No one. Were the other foster children feeling the same as I? Are they living in their own hell? Do they fear them as much as I do? I feel they would like to go back to the orphanage like I would. Oh, please God, help us all. This is the part of my life which I was lucky enough to survive this living hell. It is in the past now, and I thank my lucky stars that it came to an end when it did, and I grew to adulthood.
A Child’s Despair
(From Orphanage to Foster Care)
A girl-child sleeps at night
A stranger, she is not, to fright
She wakes, suddenly,
“Will he come tonight?”
This poor unfortunate, in such a plight.
To these unkind people she was sent,
No one knew, they were so bent.
Her body, he took, by force, times again
“My God, protect me”, once again.
“Our secret”, he says, “do not tell”.
His sick mind, he hid so well
And her (so cruel) she could not tell
That belt, the belting she could foretell.
She screams in her soul, no one can hear
She cannot cry out, she lives in fear.
Her body tells day by day
People do not read that way
“The child is slow,
She was born that way”.
Over the days, months and years
She carried on, despite her fears.
She now has grown to womanhood,
And all she likes to give…..is good.
by Rhonda Trivett (guest author) on 25 May, 2010
Rhonda shares one of poems about life as a teenager, in the adult maximum security ward (Osler House) in Wolston Park Hospital, Queensland.
Raped and Bashed, Now D Day, It’s Time to Fight Back, you Hurt Me and Made Me this Way
I live in fear of what you did to me
You made me cry you hurt and bashed me
I thought I was going to die many times
In the dark I’m scarred for life
And I kicked and I stirred
But no-one heard me and no-one cared
And it’s hard but I tried to be strong
you done this deed why me I was just a child
I did nothing for this hell treatment
I was a lost child wanting her mother
and I stole a push bike and That was my only crime
what a price I paid what really did I do
I don’t understand and I never will
With a label I try to survive, which I can’t
stop the label then I will be able, OK
I’ve been silent too long, no more playing the nice life games
You hurt me too many times, made me like a wounded animal
Just waiting for my next feed to come along
Stripped of everything and without a choice
I used to be clean now just dirty and unclean
bad and just a piece of rubbish
the guilt is just killing me in so many ways
no-one ever listened it was very wrong
Just looked me up with a needle, stripped me of my clothes
I’m still to this day confused getting silly as ever
With a hurtful rage of hate just waiting to explode
Wanting to hurt back with all I’ve got waiting for the kill
I didn’t start this, but I can assure you all that I will finish it
I’ve, now, got nothing to lose so it’s time to gain
I’ve been waiting for this moment every day of my life
I’m on my own, it’s time to pay,
it’s time for sorry Rhonda all the way.
The next stanza in Rhonda’s poem explicitly describes an act of serious assault.
by Freda Briggs (guest author) on 26 March, 2010
Ninety-three percent of 4007 self-confessed child molesters claimed to be religious (Abel & Harlow, 2001, p39).
Predators in the Roman Catholic Church
It is now recognised that the sexual abuse of children by Roman Catholic clergy and monks is neither a new problem nor is it caused by ‘celibacy’; it has an extraordinary long history that goes back 2000 years as shown by Dominican priest Father Thomas Doyle, and two former Benedictines, celibacy historian A.W.R Sipe and theologian and canon law expert Patrick Wall in their meticulously researched book, Sex Priests and Secret Codes (2006) . They show that the Venerable Bede, (AD 672/3-735) decreed that clergy who committed sodomy with children should be given increasingly severe penances commensurate with their rank. Laymen would be ex-communicated and made to fast for three years while deacons, priests and bishops had to fast for seven, ten and twelve years respectively (p19). In the 12th and 13th centuries, the crime was labeled as sacrilege, then heresy. Penalties became harsher, including fines, castration, exile and even death. Accused clergy were dealt with by church courts then handed to secular jurisdictions for further punishment. That did not stop the crimes.
Celibacy was discussed from the C4th but only in the Western church. It wasn’t imposed until the second Lateran Council in 1139. One of the explanations presented for the introduction of celibacy was to prevent widows from inheriting church resources.
The introduction of celibacy removed legitimate outlets for sexual release and child abuse continued despite the threat of severe consequences. Reformers such as Martin Luther (1483–1546) and John Calvin (1509 –1564) rejected celibacy given that they could see no biblical or theological justification for it and there was widespread evidence that clergy were hypocritical sinners who violated their vows with men and young boys.
When face-to-face private confessionals were introduced, priests were allowed to hold them in their own homes. They were also given the authority to determine what constituted a sin. This increased the power that sex offenders needed to use young people for sex. Victims were threatened that they would not receive absolution if they were not compliant. It seems that they were afraid of the threat even more than they were afraid of being raped given the church’s teaching that without absolution they would go to everlasting purgatory. An additional hazard was that if victims reported the priest for abuse, they risked being accused of ‘false denunciation’ resulting in ex-communication and that, in turn, would send them to hell. The threat of ex-communication is still used by the Roman Catholic church to control the masses.
On May 30th 2008 it was reported that the Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano proclaimed that the Pope would automatically ex-communicate bishops and anyone who attended or was involved in the Ordination of women. This was meant to control and silence, through fear, the growing number of Catholics who favour women being admitted to the priesthood.
The culture of ‘blame the victim’ evolved as priests became more powerful. The Code of Canon Law 982 contained a canon stipulating that if victims confessed to being sexually abused by priests, the penitents were not to be absolved of sin until a retraction had been made and ‘damages repaired’. This code did not suggest that the priests who coerced and blackmailed parishioners to provide sex should be punished.
Doyle and colleagues claim that, in 2000 years all that changed about child sexual abuse by clergy and monks was the emphasis on secrecy to protect the church hierarchy. They show that this began in earnest in the Vatican in 1922. In 1962, church legislation gave bishops the right to process cases of sex crimes committed by clergy. All those involved, including victims and witnesses, were committed to total and perpetual silence with automatic excommunication if they revealed the abuse to other authorities.
On April 24th 2005, The British newspaper The Observer reported that the Pope was facing allegations that, as Cardinal Ratzinger, he ‘obstructed justice’ by issuing an order to ensure that the church’s investigations into child sex abuse claims be carried out in secret. The order was said to have been sent in a confidential letter to every Catholic bishop by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. The letter extended the church’s jurisdiction and control over sex crimes. It was said to have been co-signed by Archbishop Bertone who, in 2003, said that the expectation that a bishop should contact police to report a priest who confessed to paedophilia was unfounded.
The letter allegedly stated that the church can claim jurisdiction in cases where abuse has been ‘perpetrated with a minor by a cleric’ and the church’s jurisdiction ‘begins to run from the day when the minor has completed the 18th year of age’ and lasts for 10 years. Ratzinger ordered that ‘preliminary investigations’ into any claims of abuse should be sent to his office, which has the option of referring them back to private tribunals in which the ‘functions of judge, promoter of justice, notary and legal representative can validly be performed for these cases only by priests’. ‘Cases of this kind are subject to the pontifical secret’ Breaching the pontifical secret at any time while the 10-year jurisdiction order is operating carries penalties that include excommunication. A lawyer acting for American victims criticised the letter. He said, ‘They are imposing procedures and secrecy on these cases. If law enforcement agencies find out about the case, they can deal with it. But you can’t investigate a case if you never find out about it. If you can manage to keep it secret for 18 years plus 10 the priest will get away with it’.
It is ironic that six months previously, Pope John Paul stated publicly that the church was seeking open and just procedures to respond to complaints of sexual abuse and was committed to compassionate and effective care for victims, their families and communities. This was obviously not taken seriously given that a year later, the Dean of Canon law stated that church leaders should resolve abuse cases themselves without involving police.
Roman Catholic predators in Canada
In the meantime vast numbers of allegations were made public in Canada. On January 12th, 1988, Father James Hickey pleaded guilty to twenty counts of sexual abuse against boys in the various towns where he served as a parish priest over an 18-year period. In the following year, several other clergy were charged. For generations there was an unwritten rule that crimes involving Catholic clergy were dealt with by bishops but when Hickey’s crimes appeared in the news day after day, more victims found the courage to speak out. The church’s response was described as one of ‘self-interested chicanery’ with no concern at all for the victims. As time went on it became increasingly obvious that bishops knew what was happening and had ignored many sexual crimes committed by clergy. This fuelled the anger of the community .
In 1989, the Christian Brothers Mount Cashel Orphanage in St John’s, Newfoundland, was the subject of a state investigation (the Hughes Inquiry) over claims of severe physical and sexual abuse stretching back over decades. In 1975, detectives ‘bucked the system’ to uncover the abuse of the ninety-one young residents but higher authorities terminated their investigations and tried to have the words ‘sexual abuse’ removed from reports. Concerned adults who reported to police were allegedly shown the door with ‘How dare you make up such allegations about the good Brothers’. Fourteen years later, a clergy abuse survivor named Shane Earle called the newspaper office and met journalist Michael Harris. Shane was the first of many victims of the Christian Brothers’ Orphanage to go public. There was such an outcry that the state had little choice but to establish a Royal Commission.
The Hughes Commission proceedings became prime-time viewing throughout Canada. They laid bare a shining example of collective indifference, hypocrisy and failure of the police, judiciary, church and social services to protect the interests of hopelessly vulnerable children. It was revealed that over a 14-year period, 87 persons in positions of power had learned of the happenings at Mount Cashel and did nothing to stop the abuse of boys. Was this because these children, being without parents, were viewed as less than human or was it because, if their claims were taken seriously the state would have had to find alternative, more expensive accommodation; or was it because no one wanted to upset the monks who were held in high regard because they took in disadvantaged children?
In 1990, Harris published Unholy Orders, a best-selling detailed account of the widespread abuse and scandalous cover-ups of criminal behaviour by the Catholic Church and state government. Civil and criminal proceedings followed and 26 priests and Brothers were convicted of sex offences against children in Newfoundland alone, nine of them associated with Mount Cashel Orphanage. The Archbishop resigned and, over time, the provincial government arranged an out-of-court, $18C million settlement for victims and tried to recoup the money from the Brothers.
Roman Catholic predators in the USA
In the US, Catholic dioceses have paid millions of dollars in compensation settlements and some went bankrupt as a result of child sex abuse being covered up by bishops who simply moved accused priests to other parishes where they abused more children. It was reported that some dioceses had to sell schools in poor areas to pay compensation bills and even the poorest of parishioners were asked to contribute to the costs of the defence of clergy and contribute to the compensation bill.
It was reported that 600 children were known to have been abused during the period when Boston’s now notorious Cardinal Bernard Law was in office. He resolved the problem by moving paedophiles to other parishes. He allegedly assured concerned parents that these same priests had unblemished records. Although the Archdiocese closed 65 parishes before Cardinal Law stepped down, his name became synonymous with the nationwide church scandal. Law resigned on December 13th 2002. He moved out of the $20 million three-storey house and initially took a lowly position with Sisters of Mercy. In 2004 victims were further angered when Pope John Paul rewarded Law with a prestigious appointment in Rome which provided its previous incumbent with a salary of US$12,000 a month. In addition to a long interview on ABC news and lots of photo opportunities, Law was invited to a US Embassy reception for President and Mrs Bush. He was even selected for a role at Pope John Paul II’s funeral. According to a report in the New York Times, when asked whether his concealment of child sex offences entered into the decision to give him new visibility, the Vatican spokesperson said: “I don’t think so.” Cardinal Law is now said to live in opulent surroundings far from unpleasant reminders of his past transgressions. Given the cost of compensation to victims, his successor in Boston had to be satisfied with more modest quarters. Those representing the victims of abuse tolerated by the Cardinal concluded that the Vatican either doesn’t understand the problem of clergy sex abuse or the damage inflicted on victims’ lives, or it simply doesn’t care.
Religious predators in Australia
In 1993–94, Briggs, Hawkins and Williams researched with 198 self-selected male victims of child sex abuse including 84 convicted sex offenders in seven Correctional Centres in Western Australia, New South Wales and South Australia. We asked them how old they were when they had their first sexual experience and overall 15% revealed that they were abused by Catholic priests. In the case of prisoners abused by religious figures when they were aged 11–15 years, one third said they were abused by house-masters in Christian Brothers’ schools and 17% by Catholic priests. In the group of men who had no convictions for sex offending, 29% of those abused between the ages of 11 and 15 years claimed to have been used for sex by Catholic priests, 10% by Christian Brothers, 10% by church youth leaders and 10% by clergy in other denominations. In other words, 59% of the 11–15 year old boys who were abused were the victims of religious figures. Prisoners were 23% more likely than non-offenders to have been abused by monks in school settings.
All those abused in institutions regarded the sex as one comparatively minor aspect of a totally violent and damaging environment that exposed boys to emotional and spiritual abuse, sadism, bestiality, violent and senseless punishments and a continuous process of dehumanisation. When this finding was published with sensationalist headlines a year later in The Australian, the Archbishop of Sydney’s media secretary Fr Brian Lewis told the media that he had conducted his own investigation and found that the researchers’ methodology was unscientific and only Roman Catholic subjects had been interviewed. This was a classic case of ‘dismiss the message and shoot the messengers’. First, it was physically impossible for Father Lewis to have checked out the subjects in three states between the arrival of his newspaper and going to air a few hours later given that interviews were one-hundred-percent anonymous and prisoners were interviewed when they were about to be released. Second, Father Lewis had clearly not read the report published a year earlier by the Australian Institute of Criminology (Criminology Research Council (CRC)) in July 2004 or he would have known that only 21% of subjects interviewed claimed to be Roman Catholics. Third, to receive CRC funding, the methodology obviously had to be approved not only by the university’s ethics committee but by Correctional Services in three states.
Fr Doyle et al (2006) noted that lying by Catholic clergy is supported if it is to protect the institution of the church.
Boarders in West Australian Christian Brothers schools said they were sexually abused from their day of arrival by both housemasters and older boys who, as a rite of passage, were required to become abusers at the age of twelve for the sexual and sadistic pleasure of the monks . Having served their apprenticeship as victims from age 5–12 years, they were required to sexually abuse younger children. In some boarding schools where there were farm animals, monks engaged in bestiality. Not surprisingly, we learned that brothers and priests recruited victims for the brotherhood and priesthood, thus ensuring that child abuse became inter-generational. At the age of eighteen, residents had no experience of relating to the opposite sex or the outside world and remaining in the organisation became an easy option. Some victims said that, after they left boarding school, they were shocked and disgusted to learn about heterosexual sex.
Western Australia’s Christian Brothers’ victims said that abuse was confined to residents who had no visitors. Day boys seemed to have been unharmed and, of course, they supported the Brothers when their crimes were eventually revealed.
The greatest confusion was experienced by boys who were subjected to appalling acts of sexual and physical violence and degradation in the name of God. Victims also carried a great deal of guilt because they experienced jealousy when they saw monks picking up other children from their beds to take to their offices for sex. Although they hated what happened, they said this was the only time they could please the monks and the boys were desperate for approval given that at other times they were beaten with belts with crucifixes until they bled. Some had elastic bands tied tightly around their penises overnight as a punishment for bed-wetting. This practice caused great pain and embarrassment. As adults they continued to suffer from flashbacks, low self-esteem, night-fears, nightmares, mental and physical ill health, depression, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, feelings of inadequacy and self-destruction. Some could not cope with tenderness or being touched and some became (convicted) child sex offenders.
Only 26 of the 198 Australian male victims interviewed by Briggs et al tried to report one of 1700 offenders. Only one succeeded. The parents reported a priest to a senior clergyman and, typically, the priest was sent to a retreat for a few months then moved to another parish. The remaining mothers disbelieved their sons and punished them for dirty talk. A trusted grandma told her grandson that God would rip off the victim’s arms and legs if he told anyone about what the priest had done. When a West Australian social worker reported the Christian Brothers to senior police, she received the same treatment as her Canadian counterparts. State wards in boarding schools were trapped and had no one to tell. A boy in a Catholic College confided in a friend and learned that he, too, was a victim. They reported this together but no action was taken.
On rare occasions, Brothers were moved to other schools in Western Australia then South Australia where they allegedly continued to abuse boys. If bishops knew that child sex offending is lifelong habitual behaviour, they ignored it. More recently, instead of sending them interstate, some have been sent to work with disadvantaged children in Papua New Guinea, Cambodia and developing countries where justice systems can sometimes be manipulated.
Christian Brothers were not the only Australian monks involved in hiding sex crimes. Court reports show that Marists allowed one of their Canberra teachers to continue teaching long after they knew that he was a sex offender. Documents tendered in court revealed that a teacher and one headmaster were told by victims that Brother Kostka had molested them, but the school allowed him to teach for many more years. One alleged victim told police that he reported Kostka because he was concerned that the monk was spending a lot of time with another young boy. He said he was told the next day that “nothing was going to be done regarding his allegation and concerns”. The victim said he returned to the school several years later and told the then-headmaster of the assault. Court reports show that the headmaster challenged the offender who denied the crime and the matter was passed on to Kostka’s “superiors”, not police. The alleged victim was so intent on preventing Kostka from re-offending that he met a senior Marist, Brother Alexis Turton, who became professional standards officer for the organisation. The witness said he was asked “what he wanted” from the Brothers, and was offered counselling. Brother Turton later informed him that Kostka had retired to the Marist’s Mittagong farmhouse. The alleged victim’s brother visited the farmhouse and found Kostka running a drop-in centre for boys. Victims told police he won their trust and confidence before developing a pattern of systemic abuse, some boys being molested on a daily basis. He would often put his hands down boys’ pants while other students were in the room. At other times, he exposed himself and forced boys to touch his genitals. One victim, who was molested in the school cinema, told his parents who, instead of reporting to police, told the headmaster. He is said to have offered to handle the matter “in-house” and Kostka taught for another seven years. Another victim, to whom six of the admitted eleven offences relate, said Kostka abused him for three years “almost daily” and sometimes in the classroom while other students were present. In turn, Kostka “showered him with kindness”. On one occasion, the teacher threatened another victim with expulsion if he told anyone. Kostka’s offences are also the subject of a civil claim for compensation. He pleaded guilty to offences committed in both his office and residence.
Patterns in offending
The sexual abuse of children by Catholic clergy and monks follows set patterns:
Naïve, trusting parents have allowed priests to occupy the same room and even the same bed as their sons when they’ve had too much whisky. Parents were flattered when priests chose their children to be altar boys. They were prouder still when their sons were chosen to accompany priests on outings to other parishes or have sleep-overs in seminaries . Parents did not listen when the boys said they didn’t want to go. Some hoped that the priests’ attention might lead to their children choosing a religious vocation. Others hoped it would provide them with a place in heaven.
Such is the power of the church that when parents in Adelaide and rural Victoria reported priests and monks for sex offences against their sons, the families were ostracised by their Catholic communities and they, not the offenders, were deemed to have brought the church into disrepute. Despite the publicity given to reports of child sex abuse, the idea that clergy can harm children is completely alien to those responsible for their safety, The author was present when a priest walked into a Catholic school at lunchtime, saw a group of eight year old boys in the corridor and asked them if they would like to go to McDonalds. He opened the staff-room door, called out that he was taking kids for Big Macs and away they went. Staff said, ‘Isn’t he cute’. When the author asked whether he had parents’ permission to remove children unsupervised and whether he was insured in case of an accident, the principal said she should conduct her research elsewhere.
Protestant predators
The author was co-author of the Inquiry into the Handling of Child Sex Abuse Cases by the Diocese of Brisbane and the then Governor-General Peter Hollingworth in his capacity as Archbishop. In addition, she acted as consultant to lawyers and professional witness for very large numbers of boys who were abused by clergy and teachers while attending elite church schools in Adelaide and Queensland. All except two cases involved the abuse of boys. We know from Abel and Harlow’s (2001) research with 4007 child sex offenders that men who abuse boys start at a younger age and abuse many more victims than those who abuse girls. The abusers were mostly single; colleagues thought they were gay. While Roman Catholic, Anglican priests and Christian Brothers used their authority to abuse children in state care and were often sadistic and violent, the Protestants tended to have less power than Roman Catholics and were more likely to have to resort to the grooming methods commonly associated with paedophilia.
Paedophile priests and church leaders typically befriended the parents of selected victims, choosing those most dedicated to their church. This improved their access to boys and greatly reduced the risk that parents would report them to police if their behaviour was discovered. They visited the families, stayed for dinner and found ways to involve prospective victims in activities outside their homes. Adelaide Anglicare worker Robert Brandenberg attended the author’s local church and ran the Church of England Boys’ Society (CEBS) for 37 years. The Society accommodated a tri-state paedophile network. The published history of CEBS in Tasmania includes the names of at least four men who were subsequently charged with child sexual abuse. Tasmania’s former Archdeacon Louis Daniels pleaded guilty to thirteen counts of sex offences against young boys between 1973 and 1993. Abuse survivor Steve Fisher said that priests would go to each other’s houses taking boys with them to be sexually assaulted. Victimised by the Rev. Garth Hawkins, Fisher alleged there was an organised paedophile ring in Tasmania involving doctors and MPs as well as clergy.
In 2003, the author was invited to provide seminars for clergy and parishioners in the Hobart Diocese. The request was made because, uninformed about the nature of sex offences and the grooming methods used, clergy and the church community found it difficult to believe that their beloved and highly respected Archdeacon led a double life.
Robert Brandenberg also gained everyone’s trust. He asked parents’ permission to take groups to football matches. Some parents were suspicious about a single man spending all his time with boys instead of adults and when their sons returned home, uneasy parents asked, ‘Is everything alright (or OK)?” They later learned that young people don’t associate ‘alright’ and ‘OK’ with sex. Assured that everything was alright, they gradually relaxed and when Brandenberg sought permission to take boys to a camp in the country, parents agreed, assuming (wrongly) that there was ‘safety in numbers’. Sadly it is as easy to abuse a group of boys as it is to abuse an individual .
Brandenberg made his home attractive to young people with poker and pinball machines, alcohol, pornography and popular music by the Clash, the Buzzcocks and Sex Pistols. He took kids to Chinese restaurants and let them drive his Datsun (illegally). He also had a spa pool that he used to persuade new victims to undress. A victim described him as being ‘really good if you did what he wanted but he would dump you if you didn’t’. Brandenberg routinely gave boys marijuana and alcohol before abusing them at home, in his Anglicare office and at three camps in South Australia and interstate. He displayed photographs of an estimated 200 victims on a 3m by 1m notice board in his home.
“It was a trophy room, there were about 200 photographs of boys,” a victim said. “He used to brag about how many boys he had done it to and then dumped.”
Brandenberg suicided (1999) after being charged with offences against 26 boys,) It was later estimated that he had abused and raped more than 200 boys aged from 7–15 years.
In 2003 the rector of the parish, the Reverend Donald Owers and the brother of a victim, the Reverend Andrew King were concerned that the authorities had known about Brandenberg’s crimes for several years and chose to ignore them and his victims. They called for an independent inquiry to investigate the response of the Church, saying they had raised concerns for the past four years, only to be ignored. Finally, the synod decided to establish a two-person board of inquiry to deal with the claims . One outcome of the public call for an inquiry was that the South Australian Police set up a task force to investigate 65 complaints involving 17 different child sex offenders connected with the Anglican church.
In the meantime, it was alleged that, despite mandatory reporting legislation, an accused chaplain at Adelaide’s prestigious St. Peter’s College, the Rev. Mountford, had been given the opportunity to leave the country before police were informed of reports of sexual crimes involving students.
In 2003, Governor-General Peter Hollingworth submitted to pressures to resign one month after the publication of the report by O’Callaghan and Briggs on the handling of child sex abuse by his diocese when he was Archbishop of Brisbane. It was widely thought that Hollingworth ‘shot himself in the foot’ in media interviews where he was perceived as blaming victims. A year later, Adelaide’s Archbishop George also took early retirement following pressure to resign.
So why did sex offenders get away with their crimes?
First, according to Doyle et al (2006) Catholic church was only interested in the preservation of the institution and its assets. They saw the wave of bankruptcy as a means of concealing assets and the colossal sums spent on defending criminal clergy. Legislation dating back to 1517, provides an interesting definition of the roles of priests presented in the following order:
The diocese ‘had no need for laity interference’ (Doyle et al p280)
Second, too many bishops and clergy were seen to have violated the celibacy rule and through their violations, they relinquished moral credibility in every aspect of sexuality. Evidence also shows that clerical candidates were often subjected to homosexual sex in seminaries – both Catholic and Anglican. Corruption does not stem from the bottom up; it rains down from the top (Doyle et al, p278). However it is not celibacy that causes paedophilia; rather it is that paedophiles are unaffected by the ban on marriage and are attracted to positions that give them power over people and children in particular. Third, the grooming process targets devout families. Parents who felt honoured that their children had been chosen for special attention unwittingly facilitated the abuse by permitting overnight stays and encouraging their children to take on a role beyond that of the alter boy.
Fourth, when the cleric introduces sex, victims typically freeze and are paralysed or stunned into cooperation and disbelief. Moral and spiritual confusion are inevitable when a child has been reared in an environment that teaches that any form of sexual expression outside marriage, (especially homosexuality), is a sin. And yet here we have the priest – God’s representative and the personification of strict sexual morality – demanding sinful sexual acts. Confusion, guilt and shame are especially toxic if victims’ bodies respond to sexual touch… as most do. An additional dilemma is that the sinner is expected to confess to the priest who, being supposedly the very source of relief from sin is also the cause of it.
Fifth: Many victims felt powerless as they became trapped in ongoing abuse that often lasted for years. They could not report it because they thought (often rightly) that they wouldn’t be believed or, when in orphanages, there was no one to report it to. Those who tried to make reports were disbelieved, returned to the monks and beaten. They had to accept abuse as normal because they had to live with it. Unfortunately acceptance is linked to victims becoming victimizers.
Sixth: Apart from fear and shame, victims had to deal with the church hierarchy. Those who made reports to bishops were often treated as the victimizers and sinners. In other religious organizations (eg Jehovah’s Witness), some victims were made to forgive their abusers in public but the latter did not have to apologise to them.
Seventh: Some abuse, such as that experienced in some Christian Brother Orphanages, met the definitions of terrorism and torture. Victims were terrified into submission.
Eighth: There were often strong traumatic emotional ties based on an imbalance of power. The victim suffered intimidation, threats and violence combined with awe and fear.
Finally, when abusers were church organists, choirmasters and teachers, they provided something that victims needed such as a mastery of music, a place in a coveted team or they professed to love their victims.
In Anglican church schools there appears to have been a great deal of ignorance relating to the habitual nature of abuse and its damaging effects. Church responses were typically directed by insurers’ lawyers who instructed bishops and archbishops not to apologise to victims. Happily, the current Anglican Primate chose to ignore this tradition that caused so much distress and anger.
When child sex abuse occurred in religious schools, it was invariably facilitated by unsafe practices. The schools lacked child protection policies and child protection/personal safety curriculum that has been available in some state schools since 1985. Uninformed staff and principals seem to have been ignorant of grooming methods and the harmful effects of abuse on victims’ lives. Perpetrators gained their trust so that they missed or ignored the cues. The counsellor who abused hundreds of boys over many years was not monitored. With 50 minute lessons, he was able to remove students for hours at a time because teachers did not talk to each other and check absences. He was able to lock his room. When victims exhibited angry behaviours and were suspended he was able to provide counselling in his home where he lived alone and, of course the abuse continued. Being a counsellor he saw the most vulnerable children. He indicated to staff and victims that he was a friend of the headmaster and that gave him power. Teachers didn’t report their suspicions. When he suicided after being charged, the school held a memorial service that angered victims because it lauded him and ignored the circumstances of his death.
Ignorant head teachers often give evidence in court that the accused was the most enthusiastic and popular teacher the school ever had. They then describe the typical paedophile/pederast. He provided a range of out of school activities that gave him unsupervised contact with students at camps, drama and choir rehearsals and weekend sport. He related to the children at their own level. Kids vied to go on his camps; of course they did, he provided alcohol, dirty-talk, cigarettes and porn. When offenders present the image of being dedicated to the community, colleagues and parents support them even when they have been apprehended.
At a world conference in 2007 the author chaired the presentation of American research findings showing that child sexual abuse by clergy causes more long-term psychological harm than intrafamilial or stranger abuse because of the spiritual dimension and the fact that when they disclosed abuse to trusted people, they were not believed or supported. In a survey of 342 male victims 34% said that the person to whom they turned for help ignored them and only 7% experienced any action to protect them from religious offenders.
Are we there yet?
Have the churches learned their lesson from the massive compensation payments they have had to pay – the buildings they had to sell and the schools they had to close? Abuse survivors are under the impression that church authorities ‘still don’t get it’. There is evidence to suggest that complacency quickly returned. Last year when the author was invited to present child protection seminars for schools that paid out vast sums in compensation, staff didn’t think they needed to attend because ‘it happened a long time ago and he’s dead (or moved on)’. Some of the offender’s peers didn’t believe he was guilty anyway so child protection wasn’t perceived as relevant. Although child protection protocols had been introduced, child protection curriculum for children had not.
Since 2004, dioceses have been adopting policies for the reintegration of convicted sex offenders. The rationale is that they cannot prevent people from attending church other than by obtaining restraining orders via the courts and someone banned from one church could join another. A convicted priest who sought the retention of Holy Orders, had received no treatment in prison and continued to blame the victim but was welcomed into a church choir that included children and, from the responses on the Internet, he quickly groomed the congregation. Other parolees suggested that he had not been rehabilitated because treatment helps offenders to avoid places of temptation, not return to them.
Churches are wonderful places for paedophiles because they attract good-hearted people who believe in forgiveness and give others the benefit of the doubt. Offenders can say sorry on Sunday and re-offend on Monday confident that God will forgive them again next week. We know that offenders are highly skilled manipulators who will groom whole congregations. Some church leaders don’t seem to realise that paedophilia is not akin to a traffic offence or even robbing a bank; convicted paedophiles and pederasts may have paid their debt to society according to law but that doesn’t mean that they won’t re-offend. There is no evidence to show that religion cures paedophilia – to the contrary – and the church’s eagerness to follow the teaching of Jesus and forgive offenders could prove to be yet another costly exercise, placing it and children at further risk.
It seems that we have a long way to go before those responsible for church communities have a sound understanding of child sex offending. Quite clearly, there needs to be an educational programme of substance for church leaders of all denominations as well as for new recruits in theological colleges. All schools need child protection curriculum for children from pre-school through to secondary as has been available in New Zealand and, to a lesser extent, in state schools in New South Wales since 1985 and now in South Australia. All teachers need to be trained to recognise abuse and the grooming methods used by abusers. Community education would also be helpful.
On June 17th, 2008 the Premier of South Australia and heads of all the churches apologised to victims of abuse that happened while in their care. The Premier said that ‘sorry’ is not enough. There has to be action too. The families of victims made it clear that they are a forgotten constituency and there needs to be church-sponsored research into their needs. In terms of possible re-connection with their faith and the possibility of finding healing in that re-connection, there needs to be research into what abuse victims, family members and other ‘church damaged’ people would find helpful.
Four years ago, church leaders saw the need for research into the methods used by convicted clergy and church personnel in both Anglican and Roman Catholic churches to seduce children and their families. They needed to know what power structures helped to perpetuate abuse and how the church could re-organise itself in order to prevent a re-occurrence in the future. Has that research been done? If not, why not?
No doubt some think that churches have moved on… that there is an awareness of the prevalence and destructiveness of abuse and that protocols are in place to make children safer. The churches can’t take credit for that. In Queensland it was the persistence and courage of journalist Amanda Gearing, Bravehearts’ Hetty Johnston and survivors such as Beth Heinrich, who, often at great personal cost, led to the Inquiry into the church’s handling of abuse. In SA it was the Rev. Don Owers and (now deceased) the Rev. Andrew King, survivors and the media who forced the church to live up to its values.
Recent changes and new measures must not be seen as an end in themselves but as an intermediate stage in an organisational process. The next stage must be to ensure that espoused aims in responding to victims are adopted in church culture. Owers points out that there is little evidence of the Anglican church being willing to engage realistically with survivors, their families or advocates. Despite the apology, the Healing Steps protocol was launched in Adelaide without any consultation with survivors . Despite protests there was no attempt to create structures that would allow stakeholders to have any input into relevant church policy. Owers found that, at best survivors were only asked to comment on documents already written. And were survivors involved in the production of the draft on the reintegration of convicted sex offenders into their parishes.
Sadly, from the victim’s perspective the church response is characterised by controlling, paternalistic attitudes that assume the right to impose solutions, thus continuing the pattern of disempowerment that contributed to their victimisation in the first place. This creates barriers to healing and deprives the church of unique opportunities for learning. Genuine and committed dialogue between survivors and church leaders would offer the promise of new knowledge, better prevention and capacities for healing. Church leaders could then hold up their heads and truthfully say that they have taken the complaints seriously.
Emeritus Professor Freda Briggs AO is a researcher and lecturer in child development at the University of South Australia, Magill Campus. In 2003 she was co-inquirer into the handing of sex abuse cases by the Diocese of Brisbane. She is the author of 17 books relating to child protection and has researched in Australia with child sex offenders, victims, their families and professionals reporting abuse. Her awards include:
