Church 'Denied Controlling Orphanage Where Children Were Abused'

The Australian Associated Press
November 18, 2013

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/nov/18/victim-tells-royal-commission-of-sexual-abuse-at-anglican-orphanage-in-1950s

Tommy Campion gave evidence to the royal commission into child sex abuse on Monday.

The Anglican church denied it had control of a New South Wales orphanage where children were horribly abused when victims sought compensation, a witness has told a hearing in Sydney.

Tommy Campion gave evidence to the royal commission into child sex abuse on Monday saying that when a group of people pursued the church for compensation in 2005, the response was that it was not a church institution.

Campion, a former press photographer, has become the public face of those who survived the abuse. He was a resident at the North Coast Children's Home in Lismore, from 1947 when he was two years old until 1964.

He told the hearing he wrote a five-page letter to the Anglican Grafton diocese in 2005 outlining the "complete and utter hell" children went through at the home.

The immediate response from the then registrar at the diocese, the Rev Pat Comben, was sympathetic and he acknowledged the pain that had occurred in this Anglican place and offered counselling, Campion said.

However, Comben's attitude changed when other victims came forward after Campion wrote to newspapers around the country and a group claim for an apology and reparations was made.

Campion said he was told: "We [the Anglican church] did not own the home. We did not run the home, there were a few ministers who'd come now and again and they had a small involvement in the home but basically the church had nothing to do with the home.

"That was the end of it for me. I can tell you because I knew they were lies. I knew – I was there. You saw everything," he said.

A photograph has been submitted to the commission that shows a sign outside the home in the 1970s saying it was an Anglican church institution.

Campion said he and the other kids used to climb all over it.

He also told of his anger when a press release issued from Comben around the time of the claim said "some of the matters complained of might have been standard practice in Australia some decades ago".

Earlier on Monday, a witness known as CK told the hearing he and other victims of abuse at the orphanage felt like the walking dead, while those who took their own lives were the lucky ones.

He was two years old when he was placed in the home in 1949 and said he was physically, psychologically and sexually abused until he left in 1958.

CK told how his six-year-old brother protected him but was moved to another home when CK was eight.

CK was diagnosed with depression in the 1980s and attempted suicide several times.

CK told of being brought to a church belltower after services to be abused while a priest masturbated, crying as he described lying naked on the floor while the minister put something on his body in the shape of a cross before licking it to his groin.

"We had no words for it then. Now it would be known as a paedophile ring," CK said.

He told of beatings that left him scared and of being left at a table for 10 hours because he could not eat his food.

Campion also fought back tears as he told of brutal beatings by the then matron Ada Martin that left children trembling and bloodied on the floor.

The hearing continues.