Legal Fight like Being 'Raped' Again, Child Abuse Victim Tells Royal Commission

By Dan Box
The Australian
November 20, 2013

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/in-depth/legal-fight-like-being-raped-again-child-abuse-victim-tells-royal-commission/story-fngburq5-1226764366655

A VICTIM of child abuse, who was repeatedly raped as a young girl while living in a children's home, has said the experience of dealing legally with the Anglican church about what took place "was like being raped all over again."

In a written statement read to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse this morning, the woman said she was seven when she entered the home in the Anglican Diocese of Grafton, northern NSW.

"It smelt terrible, like faeces, and there was vomit on the ground. I could see about twenty-odd children, all dirty.

"It was horrific. I felt that I couldn't protect myself or my sister ... I was told, and I heard other children being told, that we were 'dirty little heathens'," her statement said.

Decades later, the woman joined roughly 40 other former residents seeking compensation from the church, which spent years challenging their claims and denying any liability for what happened at the home.

"I asked for a written apology, which I never got ... At the end of that case, it was like being raped all over again. So it made me feel just like I felt when I was in the Home, like I was lying and worthless.

"I will not walk into a Church again unless I have to - because of both the abuse I suffered in the Home, and because of the way they handled the court case," her statement said.

The commission heard that the head of the Anglican Church in Australia, Phillip Aspinall repeatedly attempted to encourage the then-Bishop of Grafton, Keith Slater, to be more receptive to the victims' claims.

In one 2006 letter to the bishop, Archbishop Aspinall wrote "the Church has learned, painfully, that taking a hard-line legal approach to these matters is not helpful to victims or the church."

Another, 2012, letter to Bishop Slater reads, "Over many years ... you have rejected or ignored possible solutions I have suggested" about the issue.

"I cannot and do not intend to speak on your behalf to explain or defend your decisions in this matter," Archbishop Aspinall wrote.

Bishop Slater, who resigned earlier this year, is expected to give evidence later in the hearing.