AUSTRALIA
ABC – PM
MARK COLVIN: The Royal Commission into child sexual abuse is preparing to turn its attention to the North Coast Children’s Home in Lismore. Public hearings set down for November will examine how the Anglican diocese of Grafton, which ran the home, handled complaints of abuse. It will also revisit the civil legal action of 2006 and 2007.
Leading the charge against the church is one survivor, Richard “Tommy” Campion, who was in the Lismore home between the 1940s and ’60s. He launched the campaign to have the Anglican Church admit that it had a legal duty of care for the orphans who were sexually and physically abused in the home. He’s now hoping the Royal Commission will lead to public apologies to individual victims and compensation.
Emily Bourke reports.
EMILY BOURKE: Richard “Tommy” Campion lived in the North Coast Children’s Home from the late 1940s to 1963.
RICHARD “TOMMY” CAMPION: I can say it was a hellhole. Brutal bashings. Children were flogged with broomsticks, canes, pony whips, belts. Children were locked in cupboards. Children were made to stand on one leg and if they did fall over they’d be belted and flogged.
If the child wee’d the bed, they were paraded in the dormitory with the sheets over their head, telling this would be a lesson to you guys if you do this. And then they had to go out to the back into the laundry and wash them, and some of the children couldn’t reach the tubs. It was pretty sad.
EMILY BOURKE: When the trauma of the abuse surfaced decades later, he approached the Anglican Church which ran the Lismore orphanage.
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