Police hunting for remains of children at former Ballarat orphanage

By Samantha Landy, Christopher Gillett
Herald Sun
April 15, 2015

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/law-order/police-hunting-for-remains-of-children-at-former-ballarat-orphanage/story-fni0fee2-1227304106351

Police search for evidence of human remains at the Ballarat Orphanage site. Photo by Ian Wilson

The search for remains at a former Ballarat orphanage

TWIN sisters who grew up at a Ballarat orphanage with a ­history of abuse and neglect are adamant a police search for bodies on the site will reveal the extent of the horror that unfolded there decades ago.

Phylis Read and Edith Orr, 49, have argued most of their lives that there are children’s bodies buried at the site but said they were always told to “keep our mouths shut”.

Their push for the dead to be respected went public in 2013 after the City of Ballarat asked for objections to a residential and commercial development on the site.

“We know they will find ­remains,” Ms Read said as she watched archaeologists and ­forensic crews dig up ground at the site yesterday. “We almost ended up in there with them.”

Ms Read’s voice trembled as she spoke of her time in the ­orphanage, describing what went on as “beyond horrible”.

“We cared for and raised the animals here far better than any of us children were treated, being raped and tortured and starved and drugged and bashed,” Ms Read said.

Detectives began excavating the grounds of the former orphanage in the town’s east on Monday.

As the painstaking search entered its third day yesterday, searchers zeroed in on a patch of dirt in the 1m-deep Olympic pool-sized hole in the ground.

The Herald Sun understands items of interest were found. The area was covered by a tent as work continued.

Police would not confirm if they had uncovered skeletal remains but the excavation zone is ­expected to be expanded today.

Ms Read and Ms Orr said they returned to the site every day, walking barefoot to connect, through the land, with the children who they claim rest there.

Ms Read said the burials ­occurred in the 1950s, ’60s and ’70s.

Housed at the orphanage at age five until 1982, she said she had “made a promise” to the children who had suffered at the orphanage that “they’d never be forgotten and that I’d be their voice”.

The orphanage housed 4100 children — among them members of the stolen generation — from its opening in the mid-1860s to when it closed in 1987 as the “Ballarat Children’s Home”.

Victoria Police said its inquiry related to alleged ­activities before it became the Children’s Home in 1968.