Paedophile ring headed by a senior Anglican priest forced children at a boys' home to have group sex in a locked room - and cut them to symbolise 'the blood of Christ'

By Cameron Phelps
Daily Mail
August 2, 2016

http://goo.gl/boHi9x

Priest Peter Rushton is the alleged head of a paedophile ring that an anglican boys home in Newcastle to access and abuse boys

House of horrors: St Alban's Home for Boys was where Rushton and others allegedly sexually assaulted children

Commissioners Robert Fitzgerald, Justice Peter McClellan and Bob Atkinson (left to right) arrive at the opening day of the Royal Commission into child sexual abuse

Chief Commissioner Peter McClellan said for some victims the impacts of abuse were so overwhelming it led to people 'taking their own lives'

Naomi Sharp, counsel assisting the Royal Commission, gives the opening address

An Anglican home for boys in the Hunter region of NSW was used by a paedophile ring headed by a senior clergyman to access and sexually abuse children.

On Tuesday the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse opened a two-week hearing into what the Anglican Diocese of Newcastle did to stop priest Peter Rushton and a pedophile network of clergy and laypeople who preyed on children for decades.

Victim Paul Gray gave evidence and said he was taken to St Albans School for Boys in the Hunter Valley in the 1960s, where there was a locked room called the 'f***ing room' where boys would be forced to have group oral and anal sex with adult men.

Mr Gray broke down in the witness stand when he told how he was repeatedly raped by a gang of men at the boys home.

Mr Gray wept as he recalled how his godfather Father Peter Rushton, who was a priest at Cessnock, had anally raped him when he was just 10.

In the mid-1960s Rushton began taking Mr Gray to St Alban's Boys Home where he was locked in a room and a number of men would rape or have oral sex with him, the commission was told.

Mr Gray told how Rushton, who died in 2007 without being convicted, would cut his back with a knife and smear the blood on his body - 'it was symbolic of the blood of Christ'.

He was taken to St Alban's regularly by Rushton over an 18-month period. He recalled how on one occasion a number of boys were made to lie down on beds and six or eight men would choose a boy and take him to a separate room.

Once 'Father Peter' took him to a church camp at Yondaio where there were about five men and one other boy.

Mr Gray said he knew what was going to happen so he ran.

Two men chased him. He hid in the bushes near a cliff edge. The men caught him and raped him, and he heard the other boy screaming so he too was being assaulted.

He told the commission he totally blocked out the abuse but had recurring memories of a green room - it was a bedroom in Rushton's house.

It was not until 2010 when it became public that Rushton had been abusing boys that memories came flooding back to him. Mr Gray had a major breakdown.

He asked the commission to allow a minute's silence for all the victims who could no longer face the struggle of carrying the scars of their childhood abuse and took their own lives.

'I would like them to be able to testify before the royal commission through our silence for one minute.'

Chief Commissioner Peter McClellan said after three and a half years of investigation into child abuse in institutions it had emerged that for some the impacts were so overwhelming 'they do take their own lives'.

The hearing which runs for two weeks will hear from a number of bishops who were based at Newcastle.

Naomi Sharp, counsel advising the commission, said Michael Elliott the current professional standards director in the Diocese of Newcastle would give evidence.

He is expected to say he believes the diocese is harbouring a large number of active offenders 'with little or no accountability in place', Ms Sharp said.

# For support and information about suicide prevention, call Lifeline on 13 11 14 or MensLine Australia 1300 78 99 78.