North Coast Children's Home under Royal Commission Spotlight

By Jessica Grewal
The Daily Examiner
November 14, 2013

http://www.dailyexaminer.com.au/news/north-coast-childrens-home-under-royal-commission-/2083268/

THE treatment of abuse victims at the North Coast Children's Home will be the focus of public inquiry headed by the Royal Commission in Sydney next week.

Earlier this year, whistleblower Richard Campion told the Royal Commission into institutional child abuse, he and about 22 others had endured a decade of physical and sexual abuse at the home, which was run by the Church of England at Lismore.

For years Mr Campion wrote open letters to the Anglican Church detailing the abuse children had been subjected to but it wasn't until May this year that the church recognised and apologised for the way it had handled the allegations.

The public hearings will look into the response of the Anglican Diocese of Grafton to claims of child sexual abuse at the home and the policies adopted and applied by the diocese for handling such claims.

The inquiry will also look at the Grafton and Newcastle Diocese response to allegations of child sex abuse by "CL".

Mr Campion previously told the Commission that between 1948 and 1963 children were flogged until they bled, locked in cupboards, dunked in toilet bowels and sexually assaulted.

Public hearings begin in Sydney next Monday, November 18.