NT victims say 'house parents abused us'

Sky News
September 23, 2014

http://www.skynews.com.au/news/national/2014/09/23/nt-victims-say--house-parents-abused-us-.html

A horrifying picture of sustained physical and sexual abuse suffered for decades by mixed-race and Aboriginal children at a home in Darwin is unfolding at a national inquiry.

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse is sitting in Darwin to examine the Retta Dixon Home, which from 1946 until 1980, housed children of mixed descent as well as some unmarried mothers.

The home was run by the Aborigines Inland Mission (AIM).

Monday's evidence from a number of former residents told of immense cruelty by 'house parents' who oversaw cottages housing up to 12 children at a time.

One witness alleged a girl who failed to properly tidy a kitchen was woken by house mother, Judy Fergusson, and stabbed multiple times on her hands with a can opener until she bled.

Children up to the age of 12 who wet the bed would be undressed and paraded in nappies in front of the other children, she said.

Former resident Kenneth Stagg said children became overly sexualised because of abuse by staff and other children.

One witness, whose identity was suppressed, said boys at the home sexually abused her from the age of five.

'I thought it was normal behaviour and a part of life,' she told the commission.

She was sent to foster care in NSW and said one of her foster parents told her it was because Retta Dixon staff were concerned girls would get pregnant.

'I think this shows the staff probably knew that sexual activity was taking place but they failed to protect the children from it,' she said.

Mr Stagg told the commission under privilege that house parent Donald Henderson 'was well known amongst all the children as a molester'.

'All the children knew Mr Henderson was doing terrible things to the children in No. 2 cottage ... all of the children thought of him as a bad man.'

A witness known as AKU who lived in a cottage overseen by Henderson said he sexually abused her about twice a week between the ages of five and 13.

He once put her on his bed facing a mirror as he made her touch his genitals with her feet.

He raped boys in the chook shed, she said.

AKU said she was terrified of physical abuse at his hands.

When she was 12, she 'accidentally slammed the car door and Don Henderson swung around and backhanded me in the face and broke my nose'.

She said she bled for three days until Henderson's wife Barbara finally took her to hospital for treatment, telling the doctor she'd fallen out of a tree.

Beatings for small infractions were common.

None of the witnesses had sought redress, mostly they spoke of wanting an apology from AIM and the government, of erecting a memorial, or of receiving counselling.

'The physical, emotional and sexual abuse I suffered at Retta Dixon took my childhood away and I can't get that back. No amount of money can give that back to me,' AKU said.

Sandra Kitching told the commission her house parent, George Pounder, force-fed an infant cabbage and cauliflower until she was coughing and choking.

When Ms Kitching spoke up in protest, she said he tore her clothes off and chained her to her bed overnight on chains so short she couldn't sit or sleep properly.

The baby died not long after, she told the commission.

None of the witnesses reported the abuse when it was happening.