Girl was gang-raped in orphanage and gave birth at 14, abuse inquiry hears

The Guardian
April 15, 2015

http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2015/apr/15/girl-was-gang-raped-in-orphanage-and-gave-birth-at-14-abuse-inquiry-hears

Justice Jennifer Coate (centre), commissioner Helen Milroy (right) and commissioner Andrew Murray at the public hearing into Institutional Responses to child abuse in Rockhampton on Tuesday.

A girl was gang raped at a central Queensland orphanage and gave birth to a child when she was 14, a national inquiry has heard.

A woman made the claims at a public hearing of the royal commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse in Rockhampton on Wednesday.

The inquiry is investigating experiences of children at the Neerkol orphanage near Rockhampton between 1940 and 1975.

The woman, referred to as AYL, said she was 10 when she was sent to Neerkol in 1961.

There, she said, she was routinely raped by a male employee from 1963 and in claims aired publicly for the first time said on one occasion the man and two other employees bound, gagged and raped her at the orphanage.

AYL also said at age 14 she gave birth at a girls’ home in Mitchelton, Brisbane and the child was taken away by a nun who was present at the delivery.

“I do not know what happened to the baby,” she told the commission. “At the time, I was told that I was having the devil taken out of me.”

The woman said she had previously asked for the claims she gave birth to be included in her March statement to the commission but they weren’t. She told the inquiry she was made to scrub the floor with a toothbrush when she told a priest about the sexual abuse she suffered at Neerkol.

The commission has heard the nuns who ran the orphanage meted out savage and arbitrary punishments to children, and some residents were molested by priests who are now deceased.

Former residents told of being locked in rooms and cupboards, starved of food and water, being forced to drink their own urine for hydration and to lick their own vomit.

Three ex-residents told the hearing they either witnessed or experienced sexual assaults at the hands of Neerkol groundsman and bus driver Kevin Baker.

Diane Carpenter, 62, said she saw Baker sodomise a boy while sexually abusing another in a room. Another witness, known as AYN, said Baker “had free run of the place” and repeatedly sexually abused him, but was not comfortable going into detail. A third ex-resident, Joseph Kiernan, said Baker would touch boys while they were showering “to make sure we were clean”.

Baker was in 1998 indicted on 59 charges related to his time at Neerkol and faced several trials but was never convicted of any offence. He maintains his innocence.

The three former residents vigorously denied suggestions by Baker’s barrister Peter Callaghan SC on Wednesday their allegations were untrue.

“I am putting to you that he [Baker] rejects what you say about him, but you would nonetheless maintain that what you have said is correct?” Callaghan asked Carpenter.

“I regard my oath as very serious and yes, I do thank you,” Carpenter replied.

Kiernan and AYN also rejected Callaghan’s suggestion. “It did happen,” AYN said.

The inquiry continues.