'You Hope for Death to Stop the Pain' Abuse Survivor Tells Royal Commission

By Dan Box
The Australian
November 18, 2013

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/you-hope-for-death-to-stop-the-pain-abuse-survivor-tells-royal-commission/story-e6frg6nf-1226762537457

FOR the child abuse survivor known as CK, a recent cancer diagnosis was the best news he'd ever had. "The pain will stop," he told an inquiry today.

In graphic evidence given this morning to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Assault, the former resident of a children's home, placed there when he was just three years old, described a "pedophile ring" operating there.

Children living at the home in the Anglican Diocese of Grafton in northern NSW were beaten, raped and sexually abused by priests, only for the church to spend years fighting their subsequent attempts to seek compensation, the inquiry heard.

So great was the damage done to him and dozens of other children, that many, including his brother, had since committed suicide.

In a broken voice and sometimes in tears, CK told how his six-year-old brother protected him but was moved to another home when CK was eight. CK was never told where his brother was or allowed to contact him.

He said own recent diagnosis as suffering cancer was "the best news I've heard in my whole life. The pain will stop. That's the effect that you have all your life from these events," he told the commission.

"It doesn't go away. It haunts you and all you hope for is death to stop the pain."

The man, who has not been named, said he was also sexually abused by priests following church services inside a nearby church, while the commission has been told some priests also raped boys at the home.

"I remember going to the rectory and I would be made to lie naked on the floor and the minister would put this stuff on my chest like a cross and then he would lick it off, right down to my genitals," the man told the inquiry.

"That was called a cleansing process.

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

"The priests seemed kind, but I did not know what sex was. The affection they showed was of a sexual nature."

Despite this, the Diocese spent years fighting attempts by the victims to seek compensation and an apology, the commission heard, specifically by denying any association between the church and the home.

"How can I believe in the church when they take you on that sort of journey?" the man told the commission.

"The ones who suicided are the lucky ones. We are the walking dead who remain.''

The hearings into the Anglican church opened yesterday with counsel assisting the commission Simeon Beckett saying the inquiry would explore in depth the manner in which the Diocese of Grafton handled a claim by 40 residents of the home.

Mr Beckett said evidence will reveal that members received no more than about $10,000 after legal costs.

The last witness will be the Most Rev Dr Phillip Aspinall, the primate of the Anglican Church of Australia and the Archbishop of the Diocese of Brisbane, who will be asked about church procedures.