AUSTRALIA
Daily Mail
EXCLUSIVE: ‘That man was hand-picked by God!’ What a six-year-old girl was told by a nun when she tried to report sexual abuse by a priest during CONFESSION
By EMILY CRANE FOR DAILY MAIL AUSTRALIA
A woman who allegedly suffered horrific sexual abuse by a Catholic priest when she was just six years old has finally broken her silence after almost 50 years.
Gina Swannell claims she was abused several times over a six month period by Father Charles Holdsworth when she was a student at St Francis Xavier’s boarding school at Urana, in south-west NSW, in 1966.
For decades she kept the abuse secret as her life spiraled out of control, but now the 55-year-old is suing the Catholic Diocese of Wagga Wagga, which oversees the church, and the Presentation Sisters who ran the school at the time.
Ms Swannell was placed into the St Francis Xavier boarding school with her elder sister Kerrie in 1966 when their mother Patricia was diagnosed with ovarian cancer and told she had six months to live.
The alleged abuse started shortly after when Ms Swannell, who was only six years old at the time, was required to attend confession with Fr Holdsworth to prepare for her First Holy Communion.
‘I was told to go into the confessional box and tell him the things I had done wrong,’ Ms Swannell told Daily Mail Australia.
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