Royal Commission to Investigate Salvation Army's Response to Abuse

The Guardian
January 26, 2014

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jan/27/royal-commission-to-investigate-salvation-armys-response-to-abuse

Justice Peter McClellan addresses the room during a previous hearing. Photograph: Jeremy Piper/AAP Image/Royal Commission

A national inquiry into the Salvation Army's movement of staff linked to child sex abuse between children's homes in two states will open this week.

The fifth case study by the royal commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse will start in Sydney on Tuesday.

The focus of the public hearing will be the response of the Salvation Army to allegations of child sexual abuse within four homes: the Alkira Salvation Army Home for Boys at Indooroopilly; the Bexley Boys in New South Wales; Riverview Training Farm in Queensland; and the Gill Memorial Boys Home in Goulburn in NSW.

As well as the movement of officers and staff, the Salvation Army's processes for dealing with allegations of abuse will be examined in the two-week hearing.

At a child abuse inquiry in Victoria last year it was revealed that since 1997 the Salvation Army has received 474 abuse claims, 470 of which arose from its children's homes, over 30 to 40 years.