AUSTRALIA
lewisblayse.net
Yesterday, spry octogenarian Ralph Doughty (pictured above) gave evidence at the Australian Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.
Dr Doughty, a solicitor and barrister of the Supreme Court NSW and High Court of Australia, suffered unimaginable abuses during the ten years he spent at the Nazi concentration camp environment that was the Salvation Army Gill Memorial Boys’ Home in Goulburn, in New South Wales, Australia. Dr Doughty spent 10 years of his childhood in the home, experiencing multiple forms of abuse, of the most extreme nature.
The atrocities committed against innocent young boys committed at ‘The Gill’ have been documented well in various enquiries and media accounts, so the author will not recount these in this post, leaving the interested reader to instead learn more by reading the ‘Read more here’ links at the end of this post.
This post is to give something of an overview of Dr Doughty’s appearance, with a focus on how Dr Doughty appears to have been treated by the Salvation Army, and how he resisted the ‘authoritah’ of the Salvation Army.
Dr Doughty, a man of great courage, mounted, over the years, a fierce resistance to the Salvation Army’s fairly standard modus operandi in dealing with victims of its many, many children’s homes in Australia. While there are some variations, from media and enquiry reports to date, these might broadly be summarised as including the elements of the Salvation Army:
Apologising to the victim.
Offering a ludicrously low “ex-gratia” sum of money to the victim.
Calling the payment offered “a tangible expression of our regret.”
Denying liability to the victim “as alleged or at all.”
Withholding payment of said “ex-gratia” payment until the victim signs a Deed of Settlement and Release that, broadly, sees the victim agree not to pursue the Salvation Army in legal actions and also often agree to not speak to anyone about the ‘settlement’ made unless the Salvation Army allows them to.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.