Child Sexual Abuse Victims Urge Other Tasmanians to Speak to Royal Commission

By Tyson Shine
7 News
October 3, 2014

https://au.news.yahoo.com/a/25180956/child-sexual-abuse-victims-urge-other-tasmanians-to-speak-to-royal-commission/

Hobart man Tony Rayner is urging people who worked at the St Virgil's school to come forward.

Two Tasmanian men who have appeared before the royal commission into child sexual abuse are urging others to come forward.

The men say they were victims of historic child sexual abuse at St Virgil's school in Hobart in the 1950s.

They want to convince witnesses to come forward to the Federal Government's Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Sexual Abuse.

Tasmania remains the only state or territory where the commission has not held an open session, but it plans to return and take formal evidence in an open hearing before the end of the year.

The ABC's 7.30 Tasmania spoke with two victims who spoke to the commission in private sessions about paedophile Christian Brother Patrick Timothy Farrell, who taught at the college in the 1950s.

Brother Farrell was the head of the junior dormitory where the sexual assaults took place.

Tony Rayner was just seven years old when he was sent to board at St Virgil's in 1956.

It was there, he said, he was sexually assaulted, raped and abused.

"This destroyed my life, it destroyed a couple of the other chaps' lives," Mr Rayner said.

"[Brother Farrell's] bedroom was inside the dormitory and you could only access it through the dormitory and the dormitory wasn't a particularly private place."

Mr Rayner claimed it was in Brother Farrell's bedroom where he was first sexually assaulted at age seven and later raped at age eight.

"At about 9:10 one night he came to my bed and and said, 'right you were told to wait outside my room, into my room now,'" Mr Rayner said.

"I assumed I was going to be punished for something, I didn't know for what.

"But that often happened actually, the brothers often flogged you and said 'oh, it was another boy, sorry about that'. They really were extraordinarily violent."

It was then when Mr Rayner said he was raped.

"He did an awful lot of physical damage to my body," he said.

"I went back to my bed sobbing and crying and all the boys, well they didn't know what had happened, but they heard me screaming.

"I mean, I'd been screaming for five minutes at that stage, perhaps 10 minutes, a long time."

Appeal for witnesses

In June, Mr Rayner appeared before the royal commission.

It was a private session and his evidence can therefore only be used as background information in the commission's investigations.

He said he hoped the royal commission would return to Tasmania and hold a public session, so the wider public could learn of what happened at St Virgil's.

"I've come here to tell my story in order to get people to come forward, to go the royal commission," he said.

"I want the people who were adults then, I mean some of the maids would only be in their early 70s, I want them to come forward and say, 'yep, I was there and it happened'.

"The simple thing is we need evidence. We need good people to come forward. If good people don't come forward, evil flourishes."

The royal commission had its funding increased earlier this year.

It will now run for a further two years and has the capacity to hold 30 more open sessions and 3,000 private hearings.

Mr Rayner made a desperate plea for witnesses to come forward to share anything they remember.

"The royal commission are wonderful, they will look after you," he said.

Mr Rayner was one of two victims to come forward to 7.30 Tasmania to share their stories.

The second victim's identity has been concealed.

About 12 months after Mr Rayner was raped, the second victim was sexually abused by Brother Farrell, also in his bedroom.

"And in the end ... three of us got together and told our parents what was going on," the second victim said.

When the second victim's father went to the school and demanded answers, he was told Brother Farrell was no longer in the state.

"And that was that, that was the end, they moved him on to somewhere else," the second victim said.

'They covered it up', Rayner says

The relocation of the Christian Brother was one example both victims used to allege a cover-up at the school.

Tony Rayner believed some staff at the school knew what was happening.

"They covered it up, and because they covered it up for 12 months, at least one of those boys, possibly two or possibly three of them, I'm not too sure, suffered appallingly," he said.

In a statement Christian Brothers Oceania Province said it had "concluded some settlements following allegations of abuse at St Virgil's dating back many decades".

"These complaints are taken very seriously, as indeed, are all abuse allegations that are received," it said.

"We reiterate our apology to those who have been harmed at any of our institutions no matter where or how long ago that abuse occurred.

"We recognise this inquiry provides a unique opportunity for those who have suffered abuse to have their voices heard and to provide evidence of the impact of the abuse on their lives."