AUSTRALIA
Business Insider
SIMON THOMSEN
FEB 6, 2017
The royal commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse opened its first hearings for 2017 in Sydney today, once again turning its attention to the Catholic church.
Senior counsel assisting, Gail Furness SC, gave the opening address to case study 50, which is looking into the policies and procedures of Catholic church authorities.
She outlined shocking levels of alleged abuse, including 4,444 people allegedly abused between 1980 and 2015 in around 1000 different Catholic institutions.
Here is her opening address:
This is the Royal Commission’s 50th public hearing. Its scope and purpose is to consider:
a. The current policies and procedures of Catholic Church authorities in Australia in relation to child protection and child-safe standards, including responding to allegations of child sexual abuse.
b. Factors that may have contributed to the occurrence of child sexual abuse at Catholic Church institutions in Australia.
c. Factors that may have affected the institutional response of Catholic Church authorities in Australia to child sexual abuse.
d. The responses of Catholic Church authorities in Australia to relevant case study reports and other Royal Commission reports.
e. Data relating to the extent of claims of child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church in Australia.
f. Any related matters.
As with other review hearings being conducted by the Royal Commission, the purpose of this public hearing is not to inquire into individual sets of facts or particular events in a forensic manner as has occurred in previous Royal Commission case studies.
Over the last four years, the Royal Commission has conducted public hearings in relation to 116 institutions.
The matters examined in a public hearing were carefully chosen. There were a large number of institutions reported in private sessions and elsewhere and there were necessary limits on the Royal Commission’s resources.
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