'Bear Pit' Mentality at Salvo Home

SBS
February 2, 2014

http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2014/02/03/whistleblower-fired-salvos-inquiry

A former resident at the Salvation Army boys home has described the home as a 'bear pit'.

A Salvation Army worker who blew the whistle on a manager meting out extreme punishment to boys in a Queensland home was fired, an inquiry has been told.

Retired Salvation Army Major Clifford Randall told the royal commission into child sexual abuse that in 1975, while a house parent at Alkira, a boys' home at Indooroopilly in Queensland, he saw one boy's shoulder become dislocated during a beating.

The manager of the home, Captain John McIver, was whipping a 12-year-old boy with a strap, when the boy put his hand back and Mr McIver broke a cufflink, Mr Randall said.

"He went ballistic, McIver grabbed the boy and threw him up against the wall, bruising his face and dislocating his shoulder," Mr Randall said on Monday.

"I lost it and threw him (Mr McIver) into his chair."

Mr McIver forced the boy's arm back into its socket, the commission heard.

When he reported the incident to the department of children's services in Queensland, Mr McIver told Mr Randall and his wife their services were no longer required.

They were given 48 hours to leave Indooroopilly.

The Randalls were house parents at the home for two years.

Mr Randall said during that time children were viciously beaten by two managers, Lawrence Wilson and Mr McIver.

Both men are among five against whom many allegations of physical and sexual abuse have been made, the commission heard.

Mr Wilson died in 2008. Mr McIver, who is retired, was suspended by the Salvation Army on Friday.

Mr Randall said he was not long at Indooroopilly when he complained to Brigadier Reddy, the army's state social service secretary.

He said this and future complaints were met with the advice that all complaints had to be made to the manager, even when the complaint was about the manager.

He was also told that punishments did not go beyond what the state approved.

Mr Randall told the commission a boy told him he had been sexually abused by a former manager, Don Schultz.

Mr Randall said he reported it to Mr Wilson, who said the Salvation Army had moved Mr Schultz back to NSW in a hurry, "otherwise he would have ended up in jail".

Mr Randall will continue his evidence on Tuesday.