Survivors Paid Silent Price for 'Healing': Inquiry
By Ian Kirkwood
SURVIVORS of clerical child sexual abuse were only offered ‘‘healing’’ – including the chance of financial settlements – if they signed a statement saying they were not going to the police, the Special Commission of Inquiry has heard.
Helen Keevers, who was chosen by Bishop Michael Malone to bolster the diocese of Maitland-Newcastle’s response to child sexual abuse by clergy, has given evidence on Wednesday about her time with the church, which ran from 1978 to 2009.
A counsel assisting the inquiry, Warwick Hunt, took Ms Keevers to a section in her statement – which was tendered and is likely to be made public later today – that related to changes to the church’s Towards Healing policy dating from 2003.
Previous church figures have given evidence to the inquiry that the church would not undertake its own investigation of child sexual abuse allegations against its clergy if the complainant had gone to police.
Ms Keevers described herself as the only person who was not a devout, practising Catholic in the group assembled by Bishop Malone to advise on clerical abuse.
She had been working for the Catholic agency Centacare when Bishop Malone asked her to advise him.
Reading her statement, Mr Hunt took her to a section in which she said people were asked to sign a statement saying they were not going to the police before there would be any discussion of of ‘‘healing’’, which included ‘‘financial settlement’’.
Mr Hunt said such a clause was not in the 2000 version of Towards Healing but was added in 2003.
Mr Hunt asked Ms Keevers if she understood it to be an ‘‘either/or’’ situation – people could either go to the police or register for Towards Healing but ‘‘they could not do both’’.
‘‘That’s definitely how I understood it,’’ Ms Keevers said.
In earlier evidence, Ms Keevers spoke at length about the efforts that Bishop Malone took to understand the damage that clerical child sexual abuse was doing to people, and the criticism he endured from inside the church and out.
She said that early on, Bishop Malone was criticised externally for not doing enough.
But after his admitted ‘‘mistakes’’ with the Jim Fletcher and Denis McAlinden cases, he was ‘‘judged’’ within the church ‘‘for the changes he tried to bring in’’.
She said Bishop Malone gave her full access to all confidential or secret files held on priests in the diocese offices, and he also made sure the head of police strike force Georgiana had a letter giving them full access to whatever they wanted without a warrant.
Ms Keevers was followed into the witness box by Sean Tynan, who is the existing manager of Zimmerman Services – as Zimmerman House was renamed after a restructure.
Mr Tynan, who took up his role a few months after Ms Keevers left in 2009, said he found it hard from the start to resolve a conflict between caring for survivors and investigating new allegations.
He said helping organise ‘‘holistic healing’’ for survivors meant ‘‘aligning yourself very strongly with the victim’’ while a role as investigator required ‘‘neutrality with no preconceptions’’ and ‘‘going where the evidence took you’’.
Mr Tynan said the healing and investigative halves of Zimmerman Services were eventually separated ‘‘managerially’’ although they remained in the one building.
The inquiry continues on Wednesday afternoon but is expected to conclude its open hearings this week.
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