Big demand by abused for private hearings

Echo Netdaily
April 1, 2014

http://www.echo.net.au/2014/04/big-demand-abused-private-hearings/

The royal commission into child sexual abuse is receiving about 40 requests by abuse survivors for private sessions each week.

After about 12 months of private and public hearings, the royal commission chairman Peter McClellan says the demand for private hearings with a commissioner is not abating.

Almost 1500 private sessions with sex abuse survivors have been held since the commission started and more than 1000 people are waiting to be heard.

‘I still cannot identify how many people will ultimately want to come and talk,” Justice McClellan said in Melbourne at a conference on Monday.

‘We have only just begun to engage with people in prisons, people with disabilities, and people in remote communities.’

He said many people in the private sessions said that their story has been heard and accepted for the very first time.

The demand is so huge that if the royal commission stops its public and private hearings at the end of 2015, as initially expected, about 2,000 people would miss out on private sessions.

Justice McClellan said he has raised this issue with the attorney-general.