AUSTRALIA
9 News
Ballarat will begin its healing process when Victoria’s inquiry into sexual abuse in the church arrives in the city – at the centre of some of the scandal’s worst offending.
At least 40 former students of pedophile Christian Brothers Robert Best, Edward Dowlan, Stephen Farrell and priest Gerald Ridsdale at St Alipius Primary School in Ballarat have taken their lives and countless more are still scarred by the abuse they suffered as schoolboys four decades ago.
The conviction and 14-year sentence given to Best last year helped trigger the Victorian parliamentary inquiry, which on Friday will hear evidence in the central Victorian city for the first time.
Individual survivors of abuse will give evidence, while one man’s testament will be heard behind closed doors.
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