Police Beat Boys Who Ran Away from Salvation Army Home, Hearing Told

The Guardian
February 3, 2014

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/feb/03/police-beat-boys-who-ran-away-from-salvation-army-home-hearing-told

One former resident of the Salvation Army home said his face had been rubbed in the wet sheets when he wet his bed as a five-year-old. Photograph: Dean Lewins/AAP

New South Wales police beat boys who ran away from a Salvation Army home where they were being abused, a hearing in Sydney has been told.

Mark Stiles told the royal commission into child sexual abuse he was 12 when he was sexually abused at the Gill Memorial Home in Goulburn, NSW, by Captain Russell Walker, who would create circumstances to be alone with him.

Stiles said he would be woken up at 3am and taken to the bathroom by Walker. He said the abuse happened four times a week over the 14-month period he was at Gill, in 1971 and 1972.

He was too scared to tell anyone, the commission heard. He ran away twice. The first time he and another boy were picked up by a police car not far from the home.

Stiles said he had told police he had been physically abused by Captain Lawrence Wilson, who was managing the home, and sexually abused by Walker.

The commission has received numerous allegations about both men. Wilson died in 2008, while Walker has been notified of the hearing.

"Police just gave us a flogging by belting me across the neck and the side of the head and took us back to the home," Stiles said.

After police informed the management at Gill about complaints "the beatings and punishment was so severe that I said nothing from then on", Stiles said.

He told John Agius SC for the NSW police he would be willing to help identify the police officers.

Stiles described Wilson as a violent man who had once kicked an eight-year-old boy down the length of the dining hall and Walker had kicked him back again.

Another witness said when he was five years old at the home he was punished repeatedly for wetting his bed. His face was rubbed in the wet sheets. He was also forced to sweep the playground with a toothbrush.

The commission also heard from Kevin Marshall, a resident at a Salvation Army boys home in Bexley, in southern Sydney, for eight years from 1966.

He said the manager of Bexley at the time was a Captain Wilson and he had arranged for boys to go to a camp on weekend outings.

"I was also aware of boys being sexually abused at camp and in some cases being sent to Salvation Army members' houses after church where sexual abuse occurred," he told the commission.