Ballarat Abuse Survivor Gordon Hill Tells of "Dungeon" Assaults

By Fiona Henderson
The Courier
May 20, 2015

http://www.thecourier.com.au/story/3091191/ballarat-abuse-survivor-gordon-hill-tells-of-dungeon-assaults/

A SURVIVOR of St Joseph's orphanage in Sebastopol has given an emotional testimony to the second day of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

Gordon Hill told about being raped by a priest at the age of five and waking up bleeding down to his shins and with bite marks on his genitals.

"My genitals and bottom were the worst, they hurt like they were on fire," he said.

He was also forced to masturbate priests while they were in the confession box hearing parishioners' confessions.

It eventually escalated to "dungeon type" assaults.

"I used to be stripped down, tied up and sexually abused," he said.

Hill was hospitalised after an accident and tried to report the abuse but wasn't believed.

He was taken back to the orphanage and given a type of electric shock therapy to find out what he had told the doctors.

In his early working life at a pub, Hill lived in a flat behind the hotel where he was repeatedly raped by a priest and the priest's relative.

"One of them would hold me down and the other tied my legs up and blindfolded me," he said.

"The priest and the relative took turns to abuse me.

"Sometimes the priest's dad came in and sat on me while this was happening."