Family of Abuse Survivors Are "Secondary Victims', Can't Claim Compensation: Nsw Anglican Church
By Lucy McNally
A woman whose father was sexually and physically abused at an Anglican Church-run home in New South Wales says she will keep fighting for compensation money for her family, even though the church has rejected her claim because she is a "secondary victim". Kim Brannigan barely knew her father Wayne for the first 26 years of her life. Scarred by an horrific upbringing of sexual and physical abuse at the North Coast Children's Home in Lismore, he was a heavy drinker who would erupt in fits of rage when remembering the men and women responsible for robbing him of his childhood. But when Ms Brannigan reunited with her father as an adult, she formed a close bond with him and saw first-hand the devastating effects the abuse had on him. "When he had a few drinks he would change and the home would come up and that's when you knew 'look out' - he would get aggressive, angry, and black out," she said. "One time he smashed up everything in my home - I had to call the police." Mr Brannigan hated to be woken up in the night because it brought back raw memories of his abuse. "He would tell us 'if you have to wake me up use a broom - don't touch me'," she recalled.
Over time Mr Brannigan managed to control his drinking, because he desperately wanted to be a father to Kim and a grandfather to her daughter. "She [my daughter] loved her Poppy Wayne. In the end I was just so glad we became close because he was a wonderful man - he taught me unconditional love for the first time," Ms Brannigan said. That unconditional love was there until the end, when Ms Branigan held her father's hand as he lay dying from end-stage liver disease in Ballina Hospital. It was 2006, and Mr Brannigan had read in the local newspaper that Tommy Campion, another man who had been abused at the same Lismore home, had just started a class action against the Grafton diocese of the Anglican Church, involving 40 people. "He said to me: 'You follow that up Kimmy, I want you to have whatever money I am entitled to for what happened to me'," she said. Five-page letter to church outlined father's dying wish Years later in 2014, Ms Brannigan did follow it up. She wrote a five-page letter to the Anglican Church detailing what her father went through, and how it was his dying wish that she receive the money he never had the time to fight for. She sent her letter to the Grafton diocese about eight months after the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse began its inquiry into the diocese, where the church unreservedly apologised to Mr Campion and fellow victims for mishandling their compensation claims. Within weeks, Kim's family received an answer from the church - rejecting her request.
The Reverend Canon David Hanger from the Church's Professional Standards Committee explained that "financial settlements and victims' compensation have always been intended for primary not secondary victims". "Having outlined the reasons for our decision, it is important that I make it absolutely clear to you that the diocese accepts your account of Wayne's experiences at the North Coast Children's Home," he said. The issue went further up the chain, with the Bishop Sarah Macneil - the first woman to lead an Anglican Church diocese - penning her own response two months later. "The advice we have received is that any payment to the family of a deceased victim, where the victim has themselves not made a claim, would have implications far beyond the Diocese of Grafton, and indeed extending to a broad range of institutions," she wrote. Bishop Macneil ended the letter by describing the issue as "an important one" which should be considered by the royal commission. "I'm devastated," Ms Brannigan said. "I'm not a money person but it was my father's final wish and it would have meant the world to me to have them properly acknowledge the abuse," she said. The ABC asked the Anglican Church whether it had any plans to consider the issue regardless of whether the royal commission makes findings in this area. In response, the church provided a statement. "The diocese of Grafton recognises that abuse is insidious; it has implications much wider than on the direct recipients of abuse," the statement said. "However, the diocese needs to continue a strong focus on its restorative action with those who were direct victims of abuse and the diocese's changed behaviour to prevent a recurrence of this terrible situation."
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