Church Faces up to Its Crimes

Northern Star
July 6, 2013

http://www.northernstar.com.au/news/church-faces-up-to-its-crimes/1934780/

PURSUIT OF JUSTICE: Former North Coast Children’s Home resident Richard Tommy Campion spoke to the Royal Commission into child abuse this week about the years of physical and sexual abuse he and other children endured at the Anglican church home in Lismore.

A VICTIM of physical and sexual abuse at Lismore's Church of England North Coast Children's Home unloaded decades of emotional distress this week, telling his stories to the Royal Commission into child abuse.

Richard "Tommy" Campion said he lived at the Keen St home from 1948 to 1963, and endured a decade of physical and sexual abuse. His back still bares the scars from the savage beatings he, and about 200 others, suffered.

"It was an abusive home where children endured sexual abuse and regular floggings and beatings. Children were flogged till they were bleeding and others were locked in cupboards and had their heads pushed down toilets," he said.

Mr Campion said after carrying the emotional burden for more than 50 years, after talking to the "brilliant" members of the Royal Commission at a Brisbane Hotel on Wednesday he felt "wonderfully relieved."

"I went through many stories of abuse...it was hard to do but I wanted to tell them about the years of abuse the children suffered."

At the age of 16, Mr Campion left the home when he got his dream job as a cadet photographer at The Northern Star.

He went on to work for News Limited for more than 35 years, winning awards for his work and photographing everyone from Prince Charles to Clint Eastwood.

That whole time he kept his emotions about the past bottled-up until it got too much.

"When I was 58, I was feeling the stress of the abuse and could see the children in my dreams being flogged so I wrote a letter of complaint about the abuse to the church," he said.

Over the next eight years, more than 1000 letters Mr Campion wrote to the Anglican Church about the abuse fell on deaf ears.

When Bishop Keith Slater resigned in May, the Anglican Church acknowledged the abuse and sent Mr Campion a letter apologising for its past failings in handling abuse complaints.

"I hope they will gather the information and work out the failings of the church so it doesn't happen again," said Mr Campion.