Victims of a ‘reign of Terror’ Conducted by Nuns at Central Queensland Orphanage to Tell Their Stories
Courier Mail
A QUEENSAND woman has told a national inquiry she was repeatedly raped as a child by a Catholic priest, who then made her confess to her “sin”. The 67-year-old woman was 11 when Father Reginald Durham, her parish priest, began sexually abusing her at her Rockhampton home, the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse heard. The woman, identified by the commission only as AYB, said Fr Durham abused her more than 100 times over the following years, including at his presbytery at the Neerkol orphanage when she worked there as a teacher. She detailed how the now-deceased priest fondled her breasts, forced her to masturbate him, digitally raped her and penetrated her with objects. “After each time I was sexually abused, I had to go to confession to him and confess my sin of impurity,” AYB told the commission, which was sitting in Rockhampton on Tuesday. “He would say, ‘Are you sorry for your sin, my child?’ and I would reply ‘Yes Father’.” She said Fr Durham would then give her absolution. The priest was sentenced to 18 months’ jail in 1999 after pleading guilty to six counts of indecently dealing with the woman when she was a child. He was sentenced to seven-and-a-half years’ in prison for raping another child, but the conviction was overturned on appeal and he was ultimately ruled mentally unfit to stand trial. AYB told the commission she was ignored when she initially reported the abuse to other priests and was later humiliated during a psychological assessment set up by the Catholic Church Insurance company. She said she still suffers nightmares and had considered suicide. “I have spent the majority of my life struggling with the impact of sexual abuse that began when I was just a little girl of 11,” she said. “I have spent much of my life believing I was lower than a snake’s belly.” Several others are due to recount experiences of sexual abuse at the hands of Fr Durham and other priests at the Neerkol orphanage between 1940 and 1975. The commission is investigatiing historical allegations of child abuse at the Neerkol St Joseph’s Orphanage near Rockhampton, which was operated by the Sisters of Mercy until 1978. EARLIER: A GIRL who wet her bed at a Queensland orphanage was forced to stand among her peers in a dining room with the wet sheet draped over her head, a royal commission has been told. The woman, who wept constantly during her testimony to the Royal Commission into Child Sexual Abuse in Rockhampton, said she was also forced to wear a nappy to school until aged 12, slapped around the head and beaten with a skipping rope by a nun until her legs were covered in welts. She said she and other girls who wet their beds were herded into the dining room at Neerkol Orphanage near Rockhampton carrying their sheets. “We were made to stand with the wet sheets draped over our heads,’’ the woman said. The girls were formed to sleep in a room set aside for bed wetters on army style beds. “I could be very cold,’’ she said. The commission is sitting is hearing from men and women who attended the Neerkol Orphanage outside Rockhampton between 1940 and 1975. Earlier, a lawyer argued information provided by a witness to the royal commission was so lurid it should not be made public. One witness had provided a statement to the commission which contained a paragraph so “lurid” it could easily be sensationalised by the media, barrister Peter Callaghan, QC, told the commission. “It is just difficult to exaggerate the way in which it might be sensationalised,’ Mr Callaghan said. Mr Callaghan said it was difficult to believe such an accusation had taken so long to emerge. The hearing was told the man, who had been acquitted of criminal charges, had been named in earlier reports. An application to suppress the man’s name was rejected, and the man, known as Mr B, will be named during the hearings. Sophie David, SC, told the commission Neerkol accepted thousands of children between 1940 and 1975 and the population numbered between 150 and 500 at any one time. The children who included British migrants were not well educated and many children left the orphanage barely literate. Punishments were excessive and did not meet regulatory requirements, Ms David said. A priest at the orphanage Reginald Durham, now deceased, pleaded guilty to six criminal offences related to the abuse of children in was sentenced to 18 months prison in the late 1990s. The inquiry continues. EARLIER: Victims of a decades-long “reign of terror” conducted by nuns at a central Queensland orphanage are due to tell their stories at a royal commission. The Neerkol orphanage near Rockhampton has previously been exposed by the Forde Inquiry in 1998 and 1999 as a place where physical, sexual and psychological abuse was rife. The home, also known as St Joseph’s Orphanage, was operated by the Sisters of Mercy until 1978. About nine former residents are expected to detail their experiences at a public hearing of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse in Rockhampton this month. The scope of the hearing includes their experiences and the responses of the Sisters of Mercy, the Catholic Diocese of Rockhampton and the Queensland government to complaints of child sexual abuse. The Forde Inquiry into the abuse of children in Queensland institutions found the orphanage operated in a climate of fear in the period from the 1920s to the 1960s. Children were subjected to a process of depersonalisation and at times harsh or degrading discipline, including isolation and floggings. There were reports of sexual abuse from members of foster families, male orphanage workers, visitors, nuns and priests. The estimated two-week public hearing begins today at the Rockhampton Courthouse.
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