Shocking allegations continue of child abuse at Neerkol orphanage

By Michael Madigan
Courier-Mail
April 15, 2015

http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/queensland/shocking-allegations-continue-of-child-abuse-at-neerkol-orphanage/story-fnihsrf2-1227305509523

The Royal Commission is expected to finish in 2017.

Protesters outside Rockhampton court.

The Neerkol orphanage at the centre of the hearings.

A NUN forced a boy to perform oral sex on her at Neerkol Orphanage while another Sister of Mercy forced a child to eat his own vomit, a Royal Commission was told.

Joseph Kiernan, a former resident of the orphanage outside Rockhampton, has told the Royal Commission into Child Sexual Abuse of sadistic physical and sexual abuse at the notorious orphanage, west of Rockhampton, in the 1960s.

Another witness Diane Carpenter, 62, alleged she was once locked in a hot room and forced to drink her own urine to remain hydrated.

Other allegations aired yesterday in the commission, which has convened in the central Queensland city of Rockhampton for two weeks, include the alleged rape of a girl by a man wielding a broom stick.

A teen was alleged to have had the baby of a Neerkol worker after a rape, and boys were alleged to have had their penises struck by nuns who told them the penis was “the devil”.

Mr Kiernan said he was so brutally battered around the ears he was left technically deaf.

He said he was also molested by Father Reginald Durham, alleged to have molested and raped a girl more than 100 times.

Mr Kiernan said Father Durham would sit him on his lap and sexually interfere with him, sometimes rubbing semen down his legs.

A witness known as AYN alleged he was circumcised at age 12 despite being ignorant of the nature of the procedure, then suffered without medical assistance as the incision became infected.

This growing catalogue of some of the more extraordinary allegations aired in the Royal Commission, now entering its third year, are being greeted by the Catholic Church with a calm acceptance.

Francis Sullivan, CEO of the Truth, Justice and Healing Council, said outside the commission yesterday: “The whole purpose of why we are here is for the truth to come out.”

One man said he was once forced to “eat his own sick’’ by a nun and alleged two other nuns would hit boys around the legs and on the penis, telling them it was the devil, “that it was wicked and that it was evil”.

AYN said “the Sisters just took me to hospital without telling me why. After I came out of hospital, I had to care for myself”.

“The nuns were no help,” he said.

“For months I had scabs and I had to put up with it all.

“There was no help and no extra treatment.’’

Mr Kiernan said one nun punished him one day when he forget to bring his hat home from school by forcing his head under her skirts after removing her underwear.

Another woman, known as AYL, said a Neerkol employee raped her using a broom handle and, when she complained, was made to scrub a floor with a tooth brush.

The woman also alleged she gave birth to a baby after being raped at the orphanage.

The inquiry continues today.