Alleged Salvation Army Pedophile Ring Exposed

9 News
February 4, 2014

http://news.ninemsn.com.au/national/2014/02/04/11/42/paedophile-ring-allegedly-operated-out-of-salvation-army-homes

A retired Salvation Army major has claimed boys living at a Queensland foster home run by the charity were enticed into a pedophile ring run by a wealthy businessman.

Retired Salvation Army Major Clifford Randall detailed the horrific allegations to a royal commission into the alleged sexual against young boys living in a foster home run by the charity in the 1975.

Mr Randall, who did not name the businessman, said the boys were then sexually abused, before being flown to the home of a top Sydney chef who assaulted them again.

One of the boys allegedly never came back, with one of his friends reportedly claiming he ended up "at the bottom of Sydney Harbour", according to the Brisbane Times.

Mr Randall told the hearing that boys would disappear from the home for days at a time and return with stories of participating in a child abuse ring that operated in Brisbane and in Paddington in Sydney.

"They were picked up as soon as they got outside the home boundaries; they would get out at night time," Mr Randall told the hearing.

Mr Randall told the royal commission that the manager of the Alkira 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.

"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 that their services were no longer required.

Mr Randall said during his time as a "house parent" 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".