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Royal Commission hears from victim...
By Emily Moulton
Royal Commission hears from victim: Priest told me to say three Hail Marys after abuse’ WHEN Ted Delaney finally found the courage to reveal he was being sexually abused, he didn’t receive help - he was simply told to say three Hail Marys. The priest attached to Bindoon boys home, who took the confessional, Father William, didn’t care a crime had been committed against a young boy, all he wanted to know was had the former resident been a willing participant. “When I was about 13 years old, I went to confession and fessed to Father William that Brother Parker was sexually abusing me,” Mr Delaney told the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sex Abuse today. “I didn’t use those exact words, but I think I said something like ‘I wish to confess that one of the brothers is having sex with me and he is treating me like a woman’. “Father William asked me who, and I said Brother Parker. Father William said ‘Did you participate?’ and I said ‘No’. Father William told me to say three Hail Marys and pray and I would be forgiven.” This response was typical of the Christian Brothers, whose role in handling allegations about atrocious crimes against children over a 20 year period in WA in is being examined as part of the national inquiry. Mr Delaney, a retired investment broker, told the hearing today he was sent to Australia from England and placed in the care of the Christian Brothers without his mother’s permission. At first he stayed at the Castledare orphanage but then was transferred to Bindoon Farm School at age nine. It was there he said he was sexually and physically abused which included being raped by Brother Parker and sexually assaulted by Father William who he went to for help. He said life at Bindoon boy’s home was so unbearable that he said he tried to kill himself when he was nine. He also revealed that when Brother Parker as “sent to Tasmania” following what he believed was because of the abuse, Brother Doyle, who used to beat him with a leather strap, his fists and boots, told him to never speak of the abuse he suffered at the hand of Brother Parker. “If I hear that you’e told anybody, you’ll be punished,” Mr Delaney said Brother Doyle told him. He said he never told anyone until many years later but he did try to report the abuse to police when he was 18. He said he went to Mount Lawley police station and told the officer what he had endured but he was quickly shut down. “I was told by the police that if I continued on with this conversation I would be charged,” he said. “They did not believe me.” In the years after, Mr Delaney said he refused to let what had happened to him destroy him, and ensured he received an education. But years of brutal treatment, he said, did leave leave scars. 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 at the hearing on Thursday. He said he was also disappointed by the Redress WA pay out, but did find the process helpful. He told the hearing that he intends to write to the Catholic Church in Rome telling them that he thinks priests and brother 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.
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