Boys Made to Fight for the Enjoyment of Salvation Army Officers: Inquiry

By Dan Box
The Australian
January 29, 2014

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/boys-made-to-fight-for-the-enjoyment-of-salvation-army-officers-inquiry/story-e6frg6nf-1226813018582

An undated image of the Salvation Army's Riverview children's home, tendered to the royal commission. Source: Supplied

ORPHANED and abandoned children were subjected to public "punishment parades" and made to fight each other by Salvation Army officers who appeared to enjoy the spectacle, an inquiry has heard.

Giving evidence to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, one former resident of the Riverview boys' home near Brisbane described being publicly caned until "I felt blood running down the back of my legs".

Such beatings were frequent and held in full sight of other boys and Salvation Army staff, the commission heard, with the boys told to strip from the waist down and bend over before being flogged.

The man, who cannot be named, also told the commission he was repeatedly forced to fight other boys bare-fisted "for their enjoyment ... these officers they didn't have much to do, they thought we'll get the boys out and get them to beat the crap out of each other."

Another former resident of the home, Wally McLeod, said the home's manager, Major Victor Bennett, also forced him to take part in boxing matches with other boys.

"He'd make us punch each other until one of us got mad and really fight. And I'm sure that was his way of gratification," Mr McLeod said.

The commission is investigating the treatment of dozens of boys, many of whom were orphans or who had been abandoned or removed from their parents before being sent to one of four boys' homes run by the Salvation Army during the 1950s and 1970s.

The physical and sexual abuse endured by these boys was extreme, the commission has heard, with a number of the victims subsequently attempting suicide.

The first former Riverview resident also told the commission that a Salvation Army officer, Lieutenant Neville Spratt, would come into the boys' dormitories at night "in the dark, so no one could see what he did".

"I do not wish to describe what happens to the boys when Lieutenant Spratt goes into the boys' beds at Riverview," he said.

"I tried to explain to the new boys when the Salvation Army officers were not watching me to 'let them do what they want to do to you because if you don't you're going to cop something you don't ever want'."

Another former resident, who also cannot be named, told the commission he was violently raped by an older boy at the home but this was ignored when he attempted to report it to Major Bennett, the commission heard.

The boy subsequently ran away but was brought back to the home by police and flogged by Major Bennett, who has since died.

The hearing continues.