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Witness tells Royal Commission of abuse at St Mary’s Agricultural School in Tardun
By Emily Moulton
ENTERING a Brother’s room was like entering a lion’s den. Boys who were “chosen” would often start crying even before they stepped in, acutely aware of what would happen next. For VG, a young Maltese boy who was sent to Australia in the 1960s to further his education following the death of his father, there was nothing he remembered fearing more in his first few weeks at St Mary’s Agricultural School in Tardun. “When a brother chose a boy to take to a room, the boy would often start crying,” the man, whose name is suppressed, told the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses of Child Sex Abuse today. “At first I thought that the boys were being punished for something that they had done. After that I would often hear the boys say things like ‘No sir, please no sir’. After about 12 months at Tardun, VG’s worst fears came true. Brother Simon, who was a “huge man” that had been nicknamed “Tiny”, called him over to enter his ‘lion’s den’. Once inside the room, he told the hearing Brother Simon pulled down his trousers then shoved his finger up his backside. He then pushed him down on him. “I felt an agonising pain in my backside, then I realised that it wasn’t just his finger. He was hurting me and squeezing my hand to my chest. I somehow managed to get free and got hold of a chair and hit him with it.” VG said he was then hit by a strap across his head. He next woke up in Mullewa hospital with a needle in his arm and bandages over his head. He also remembers his backside hurting. He told the nurse what happened to him who then called over Matron Barden. He relayed his story once again but nothing happened and he was sent back to Tardun. Later he learned that Matron Barden was the sister of Monsignor Barden, who used to visit Tardun regularly. Upon his return to Tardun, Brother Simon beat him so badly that he could no longer feel the lashes against his skin. VG’s experience at the agricultural school got progressively worse. Besides the constant abuse by the brothers, at 16 he was essentially ‘pimped’ out to a local farmer, who was a friend of Brother Simon. VG said at first he thought this would be a reprieve from the life he had endured but in reality it was worse. He was stuck on this farm with a man who tried numerous times to rape him. He told the hearing that at one point suicide “seemed like the only option”. “I had already planned how I would do it because I saw Brother Kelly hang two puppies by tying a rope around their necks,” he said. “I tried to commit suicide. I jumped from a trailer with rope around my neck but it was too long.” The last time the farmer tried to rape him, he threatened him with a gun he found on the farm. He was then sent back to Tardun where he continued to be abused, which included Father Sullivan. VG also told the hearing that he was involved in the class action instigated by law firm Slater and Gordon and claimed he was never told how the process worked. He was disappointed with the payment which was around $6000. He said he was also upset about the $45,000 payment he received from Redress WA. But the real “issue” for him was to “punish those who are responsible”. “I lost my childhood, lack of family life, lack of education,” he told the hearing. “I am self educated. I only finished primary school. “I don’t believe in God anymore which is difficult because my wife is very religious. “I have been driven to suicide around the Senate inquiry, cut my wrists, overdosed. “I have nightmares that don’t go away. This trauma has taken my life.” He also told the hearing that he only told his wife of the sexual abuse last year, and his children very recently. The hearing, which is examining the responses of the Christian Brothers and successive WA governments to allegations of child sex abuse at Bindoon, Clontarf, Castledare and Tardun institutions, continues.
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