Day 3: Royal Commission hears more horrific evidence...

By Emily Moulton
Perth Now
April 30, 2014

http://www.perthnow.com.au/news/western-australia/day-3-royal-commission-hears-more-horrific-evidence-about-abuse-by-wa-christian-brothers/story-fnhocxo3-1226900979942

Ted Delaney outside the Royal Commission after giving evidence today.

Day 3: Royal Commission hears more horrific evidence about abuse by WA Christian Brothers

AFTER more than five decades there is just one overwhelming question Ted Delaney wants answered – why?

Why was he taken from the orphanage his mother had to place him in and shipped off to Australia without her permission?

Why did the Australian Government want children from the UK only to abandon them when they arrived?

Why didn’t anyone check on their welfare while they were in the care of the Christian Brothers?

And why didn’t anyone question why so many children ended up in hospitals with injuries which clearly were not the result of accidents?

Mr Delaney was sent off to Australia when he was five and placed at Castledare when he was seven.

When he was nine he was transferred to Bindoon Farm School where he was sexually and physically abused by the brothers and the priest in charge, the retired investment broker told the Royal Commission into Institutional Child Sex Abuse today.

Mr Delaney is the 10th person to give evidence to the national inquiry about the horrific abuse he suffered at the hands of the Christian Brothers in WA.

He told the hearing that for 18 months he was raped regularly by Brother Parker, who used olive oil as a lubricant and treated him “like a woman”.

He was also sexually assaulted by Father William, who also later told him that he had to say three Hail Marys and ask for forgiveness when he confided in him about Brother Parker’s abuse.

Mr Delaney also told the hearing that he was brutally beaten by Brother Doyle, who would unleash his anger using a leather strap, fists and his boots.

Life at Bindoon boy’s home was so unbearable for Mr Delaney that at age nine he said he tried to kill himself.

He recalled being hungry most of the time, while the brothers ate like kings, and being taken out of school at 13 to work on the farms.

Once he broke his arm and leg after he fell while working but wasn’t taken to hospital until two weeks later.

When he was 15 he was struck down with rheumatic fever and had to crawl 1.5km from the field to the farm building. He then spent two bouts of five months at Royal Perth Hospital recovering. He saw no one until it was time to return to Bindoon.

After he left the orphanage, Mr Delaney said he was determined to make something of his life, so the brothers would not win.

He told the hearing what he and other “old boys” endured was wrong and was left devastated by the legal and governmental process that followed in the years to come.

He described the Slater and Gordon class action as “a joke” explaining he felt the law firm was not interested in “fighting for us”, just interested in “fighting for their commission”.

“We were kids who had been abused,” he said. “I think they thought we were a lower class of person. They made me feel like a second class person.”

Mr Delaney received $3000 as part of the settlement.

Hayden Stephens, a partner at Slater and Gordon, is expected to give evidence on Thursday.

Mr Delaney said he was also disappointed by the Redress WA payout, but did find the process helpful.

He also told the hearing that he intends to write to the Catholic Church in Rome telling them that he thinks priests and brothers should be allowed to marry.

“This would solve a lot of problems,” he added.

But most of all he wanted them and the Australian and UK governments to answer his main question – why?

The hearing continues.

Welfare checks ‘ad hoc’, inquiry told

CHILD welfare authorities carried out “ad hoc” inspections rather than routine checks at four Christian Brothers run homes in WA during the 1940s, 50s and 60s, a national inquiry was told today.

But none of those rare visits uncovered the horrific crimes committed against the children placed at the homes.

Emma White, acting director general for the WA Department of Child Protection, told the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sex Abuse, that there were no records concerning any allegations of abuse at any of the four homes currently being examined by the inquiry.

However documents obtained by the commission showed concerns about educational facilities were raised as early as 1947.

Ms White said based on those reports obtained by the commission, she was able to draw her own “conclusions” about the practice at the time.

“I drew some observations and conclusions from my observations of the records that the commission provided, which was they appeared to be quite to be ad hoc in nature, and certainly at the direction of the minister rather than predetermined criteria setting out time frames etc,” she told the hearing in Perth today.

Counsel assisting the commission, Gail Furness, told the hearing that an inspection report from November 1947 carried out by the Under Secretary of Lands and Immigration revealed concerns about the cleanliness and physical environment that many of the children were being kept in and that the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Perth was informed.

But there was no reference to the welfare of the young boys.

She said in the letter to the Archbishop it says: “I have no doubt that when I next visit in three or four weeks there will be a decided improvement along the lines I wish for and more particularly the educational facilities.

“I think you will agree as Minister for Education that boys of school age being brought out from England under the migrant scheme must at least be given a chance to be decently educated”.

Concerns regarding the living conditions at Tardun agricultural college were raised ten years later, in 1956, Ms Furness said.

Ms White said today the department was not just concerned about the education of children in care but also about their welfare.

“I think I’ve said in my evidence that the report sort of lacks comment on the welfare of children and by that I mean the welfare and wellbeing of individual children,” she said.

The hearing, which is examining the way the Catholic Church and successive WA governments handled allegations of sexual abuse at Bindoon, Castledare, Tardun and Clontarf boys homes, continues.