Queensland Government Official Covered up Abuse at Neerkol Orphanage: Inquiry

Brisbane Times
April 16, 2015

http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/queensland/queensland-government-official-covered-up-abuse-at-neerkol-orphanage-inquiry-20150416-1mmeui.html

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Warning: This article contains content that may distress some readers.

A Queensland government official who oversaw children's institutions in the 1950s helped cover up brutal sexual abuse, a national inquiry has heard.

A former resident of the Neerkol Orphanage near Rockhampton has told a royal commission an inspector from the state children's department told him to keep quiet about repeated sexual abuse inflicted upon him by a priest.

David Owen holds a photo of himself from the orphanage days. Photo: Peter Stroop

David Owen, 76, told the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse on Thursday he was abused so badly by priest Fr John Anderson as a nine-year-old altar boy at Neerkol, he often bled from his backside.

Mr Owen said when he was a teenager he told a state children's department inspector called Mr Paterson of the abuse during a visit by Mr Paterson to Neerkol.

"He said that he knew Fr Anderson was abusing me, but I wasn't to tell anyone, and that if I was caught bleeding I was to say that it was piles," Mr Owen said.

"Mr Paterson and Fr Anderson were friends, he would have dinner at the presbytery with Fr Anderson.

"It just made me feel terrible, you know, to think that he was a man in a position to be an inspector, and was doing nothing about the abuse."

The inquiry is into its third day of a public hearing investigating the experiences of children at Neerkol and the responses of the church and state government.

In often distressing testimony, Mr Owen said children at the orphanage were flogged with whips, belts and lantana branches by nuns.

Other punishments included being locked under floorboards for hours and being made to urinate in a corner, mop up the liquid with their shirt and wear the garment for a week, Mr Owen said.

The inquiry continues.