Anglican priest's godson weeps as he tells inquiry of rape by gang of men

The Guardian
August 2, 2016

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2016/aug/02/anglican-priests-godson-weeps-as-he-tells-inquiry-of-by-gang-of-men

Naomi Sharp, counsel assisting the royal commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse, says Michael Elliott, the Newcastle Anglican diocese’s professional standards director, will give evidence.

Paul Gray broke down in the witness stand at a royal commission hearing when he told how he was repeatedly raped by a gang of men at a boys’ home run by the Anglican church in the New South Wales Hunter Valley.

Gray wept as he recalled on Tuesday 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 Gray to St Alban’s Home for Boys where he was locked in a room and a number of men would rape or have oral sex with him, the royal commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse was told.

Gray told how Rushton would cut his back with a knife and smear the blood on his body, “symbolic of the blood of Christ”.

He was taken to St Alban’s regularly by Rushton for 18 months. He recalled how once a number of boys were made to lie 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.

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. 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,” he said.

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

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