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Royal commission told school ignored rape of disabled girl while in care

The Guardian
July 11, 2016

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2016/jul/11/royal-commission-told-school-ignored-of-disabled-girl-while-in-care

Counsel assisting Gail Furness on the opening day of the royal commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse’s public hearing into disability service providers in Sydney.

Hearing into disability service providers told no one ever charged after assault at Mater Dei residential school at Camden

The distraught mother of a disabled girl has made an emotional plea for reform to make sure the most vulnerable of children cannot fall prey to paedophiles.

The woman, using the pseudonym CIC, told a royal commission how her 13-year-old daughter was anally raped while in the care of a Mater Dei residential school at Camden, New South Wales, in 1991.

Her daughter, now 38, has the mental capacity of a three to five-year-old and no one was ever charged with assaulting her, the mother said.

On Monday’s opening day of a hearing into disability service providers, CIC told how her daughter, referred to as CIB, was living in a residential cottage on the grounds of a Mater Dei property at Camden in 1991.

A man referred to as CID was the houseparent and life skills educator in charge of Arnold Cottage, which housed four children – CIB and three disabled boys.

The mother said her daughter changed after she started at the school, becoming very lethargic.

The girl had a rectal haemorrhage and was taken to Nepean hospital where the initial medical assessment was anal rape, CIC said.

She reported the matter to the school and believed her ex-husband went to police. The NSW Family and Community Services department was also told.

CIC said she did not hear from the religious order, the Sisters of the Good Samaritan of the Order of St Benedict, who ran the Mater Dei schools until 1997, and she had rung a police hotline.

CIC said she raised concerns with police and the school that CID had abused her daughter.

“I never heard from Mater Dei, the Department of Community Services, the police about what was, or was not, being done about CID.”

She said Mater Dei acted as if it never happened.

The commission has heard that CID was allowed to resign and left Australia in early July 1991 and has not returned.

CIC described having a disabled child as living in “chronic grief”.

“It is so easy for people in positions of trust to abuse children under their care because they know a disabled child may not be able to communicate their abuse as easily as others can,” she said.

Her daughter is now in full-time care because she was diagnosed with schizophrenia.

CIC said anyone who takes care of disabled people should have checks similar to a working with children check and the law needed to recognise a person’s intellectual age over their physical age.

The current chief executive and principal of the school, Tony Fitzgerald, has been called to give evidence.

The hearing continues before Justice Jennifer Coate.




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