Church Abuse Inquiry Moved to Tears after Hearing Victim Impact Statements

By Dan Cox
ABC News
August 1, 2013

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-08-01/abuse-inquiry-moved-to-tears/4859764?section=nsw

Maureen O'Hearn, the Maitland-Newcastle Catholic Church's coordinator for healing and support, speaks to the media outside the NSW special commission.

The public gallery was moved to tears today after two victim impact statements were read to the NSW inquiry into clergy sexual abuse in the Hunter Valley.

The public hearings have wrapped up after eight weeks and more than 40 witnesses.

The inquiry is investigating claims the Catholic Church covered up abuse by paedophile priests, James Fletcher and Denis McAlinden.

Maureen O'Hearn, the Maitland-Newcastle diocese coordinator for healing and support, has given evidence saying she has dealt with around 28 victims of McAlinden since she started in the job in 2007.

She said the earliest reported abuse was in 1949.

Ms O'Hearn told the commission victims of both men are still coming forward, some from interstate and as far as New Zealand.

She said, from her experience, any fear of repercussion from the Church after coming forward with abuse allegations is "ill-founded".

She told the commission most of the victims referred to her service for support come from police referrals.

She concluded her evidence today by reading statements written by two victims of McAlinden.

Ten years old in 1954, the woman known to the inquiry as AQ, wrote that she was always the last to be driven home by McAlinden

She said he would stop in nearby bushland.

She described him as an "evil, sexual predator kept hidden by the Church".

AQ wrote, "Why did no one stop him before he got to me?

"I often wonder what life would have been like had this not happened to me.

"If the inquiry finds that there were people who knew about this and allowed this to happen, we the victims might find some peace in knowing that at last, after all these years, something has been done and someone has been held accountable."

Outside the commission Ms O'Hearn said abuse leaves lifelong scars.

"For some people it's a bit of a journey to complete healing," she said.

"But I think that complete healing is difficult to achieve because along the way there are often triggers that set people off again."

She said "the abuse won't ever go away", "can never be undone" and "will never be completely over".

The commissioner Margaret Cunneen is due to report her findings to the New South Wales Governor by the end of next month.