Salvation Army Worker Physically and Sexually Abused Boy of 11, Inquiry Told

The Guardian
October 8, 2015

http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2015/oct/08/salvation-army-worker-physically-and-sexually-abused-boy-of-11-inquiry-told

Ross Rogers told the royal commission details of the horrific treatment he received at the Salvation Army’s Box Hill home in 1965.

A Salvation Army worker threatened a boy with a knife and broke his nose during four years of almost constant physical and sexual abuse at a boys’ home in Melbourne, an inquiry has heard.

Ross Rogers was just 11 when he was sent to the Box Hill home in 1965 and has detailed the horrific treatment he received at the hands of Willem Willemsen, which started within months of his arrival.

Woman tells inquiry of shaming and sex abuse as child in Salvation Army home

The odd-job man and medical officer took every opportunity he could to abuse the boy, often putting a hand over his mouth to stop him screaming.

“On more than one occasion he held a knife to my throat to threaten me,” Rogers told the royal commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse in Adelaide on Thursday.

On another occasion Willemsen became aggressive and hit Rogers with a plank of wood, breaking his nose.

Willemsen repeatedly warned the boy against revealing what was happening.

“He would pause and look me in the eyes and his voice would change,” Rogers said. “He said to me: ‘I can get to you any time if you tell anybody what is happening.’

“I understood this to be a threat to keep quiet about the sexual abuse.”

In 1995 Willemsen pleaded guilty to three counts of indecent assault after Rogers went to the police. Three years later, Rogers, 61, settled a compensation claim with the Salvation Army for $32,500, which left him with about $11,000 after legal fees.

He told the commission the Salvos should reopen all settlements with victims to provide more adequate compensation.

In other evidence on Thursday, the Salvation Army was urged to change its attitude and better recognise the horrific abuse suffered by children taken into its care. In a statement read to the hearing, David Wright, who died recently, said the Salvos needed to acknowledge what happened to the “beautiful children” who went into their homes.

“They seem unprepared to turn their minds towards what happened, to what their employees were capable of,” Wright said.

Wright spent two years at Box Hill in the 1950s from the age of nine. He said the culture of punishment and fear was horrific: boys were beaten with broomsticks and straps or with whatever staff members could get their hands on.

“There was no rule book, but you seemed to always be breaking the rules,” Wright said.

He settled a compensation claim with the Salvation Army in 2013 for $45,000. He also received a letter apologising for what happened, but did not believe it was “worth the paper it was written on”.

“No officer ever wanted to sit down and listen to what I had to say. They just don’t care to even know what happened in their name,” he said.