Child Abuse Inquiry Reopens in Sydney

SBS
January 19, 2014

http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2014/01/20/child-abuse-inquiry-reopens-sydney

The royal commission into child sexual abuse will hear further evidence this week on the YMCA in NSW and the Catholic Church's handling of complaints.

The national child sex abuse inquiry will sit this week to hear further evidence on two case studies - the YMCA NSW and the Catholic Church's abuse complaints procedure.

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse ended 2013 with a report criticising YMCA NSW senior management over systemic failures, which led to pedophile Jonathan Lord working at child-care centres in south Sydney for two years.

Lord was jailed in January 2013 for six years over 13 offences he committed against children while with the YMCA.

When the hearing resumes on Tuesday, the commission will hear from YMCA NSW, which has asked the commission to reject findings in the report presented by commission senior counsel Gail Furness.

Then on Wednesday the commission will continue a hearing into Towards Healing, the Catholic Church process for abuse complainants.

In December this fourth case study, and the first involving the Catholic Church, was adjourned.

The commission has heard from senior Catholic clergy including the Archbishop of Brisbane, Dr Mark Coleridge and Br Jeffrey Crowe, Provincial Superior of the Marist Brothers as it examines four individual cases of people abused by either priests or brothers who went through Towards Healing.

To date evidence showed the process failed some abuse victims who found it as traumatic as the original abuse because of the legalistic approach taken by the church.

Towards Healing will be the subject of several case studies by the commission which will hold public hearings in Queensland, South Australia and Western Australia as well as in NSW before June this year.

The Australian commission's scrutiny of the church comes as the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child seeks answers from the Vatican on its protection of pedophile priests.

A Vatican delegation promised answers at a public session held by the committee in Geneva last Thursday.

The royal commission in Australia is continuing private hearings at regional and capital city locations across the country.

On Tuesday, January 28 it will open its fifth case study at a public hearing in Sydney when it examines the response of The Salvation Army to child sexual abuse within homes operated by it in NSW and Queensland.

June 14 is the scheduled date for an interim report from the commission on its work since its establishment in 2013.