Melb Church to face abuse royal commission

Daily Mail (UK)
July 23, 2014

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/aap/article-2702381/Melb-Church-face-abuse-royal-commission.html

Melburnians who survived child sex abuse within the Catholic Church will have a chance to have their stories heard by the royal commission next month.

Over two weeks of public hearings to be held in Victoria, the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse will investigate allegations of abuse in the Melbourne archdiocese and the church's response.

The church says its formal course of action in Melbourne, adopted in 1996 and known as The Melbourne Response, is the first institutional response in Australia.

The archdiocese will have to explain to the royal commission why it has the Melbourne Response and what it was supposed to achieve.

"This will be a warts-and-all examination of what is arguably the first institutional redress scheme developed in Australia, perhaps the world, to address clerical child sexual abuse," the CEO of the church's Truth, Justice and Healing Council Francis Sullivan said.

"Survivors of abuse who have been through the scheme will also have an opportunity to tell their stories of abuse to the commission and also their experience with the Melbourne Response and how they were treated."

The Melbourne Response was criticised by a Victorian parliamentary inquiry into child sex abuse for being overly legalistic and re-traumatising victims.

The hearings will start on August 18.