Salvation Army Captain Accused of Raping Boys Was Acquitted in 1990s
The Guardian
A Salvation Army officer who allegedly raped boys and sent them to the homes of other people to be sexually assaulted had been acquitted when brought to trial, an inquiry has been told. Detective Inspector Rick John Cunningham told the royal commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse on Thursday that the child protection enforcement agency investigated allegations made in 1996 about abuse at a boys' home in the southern Sydney suburb of Bexley and at the Gill Memorial Home in Goulburn, New South Wales. Both homes were run by the Salvation Army and the allegations were made during investigations arising out of the Wood royal commission into NSW police. At the Wood hearing, a witness identified as EP gave evidence about being sexually assaulted by Captain Lawrence Wilson at Bexley and gave names of others who were allegedly assaulted by Wilson and Captain Russell Walker while at Bexley. Wilson, who at one stage had a job as NSW police chaplain, died in 2008. Walker is still alive. Cunningham told the inquiry he investigated allegations made by a man identified as FV who told him that when he first went to Bexley he was called to Wilson's office and raped by him. After a few weeks he was called back to the office where he met a man and a woman dressed in a Salvation Army uniform. They took him to their home and both sexually abused him. The inspector said FV reported that when he tried to tell Wilson, the response was: “These are good people I sent you to” and he was caned 18 times. FV said he was sent out on three occasions to three different people. Once to two women who took him to their house and abused him, he said, and another time to a poultry farm. He was caned each time he came back. Cunningham gave evidence of trying to find the houses with FV, but he could only identify a street in Punchbowl which had changed over the 20 years since the assaults were alleged. No corroborative evidence was found but the commission heard that Wilson faced a trial, which ran for 19 days, charged with multiple accounts of buggery and indecent assault. He was acquitted on all charges. Simeon Beckett, counsel advising the commission, said on Tuesday the Salvation Army expressed surprise at this acquittal in 1997. Wilson had been identified as "a considerable problem to the administration almost for the whole of his career". He had resigned from the Salvation Army in 1982. Thursday's hearing was also told that in 1974 Walker was found guilty of two counts of buggery and indecent assault but released on a good behaviour bond and his own recognisance of $200. He was not interviewed by the DPP about Wilson in 1996 because he was unwell, the commission heard. The hearing continues.
|
.
Any original material on these pages is copyright © BishopAccountability.org 2004. Reproduce freely with attribution.