AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald
Jane Lee
Legal affairs, health and science reporter
It has spoken to 5111 survivors in private sessions, with 1544 waiting for future sessions. Over the past year, it has held about 37 private sessions a week.
But now, the child abuse royal commission is winding down its private sessions with survivors.
The commission, which is due to deliver its final report in December 2017, will stop accepting survivors’ applications to tell their stories to commissioners in private hearings after September 30.
The chairman of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, Justice Peter McClellan, will make the announcement at a hearing in Sydney on Friday.
“There can be no exceptions for any application received after that date,” his prepared statement says. “I know this will mean that some people will be disappointed. For that the commissioners are sorry.”
Survivors will still be able to send written accounts to commissioners and receive help from commission officers to do this.
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