Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse in the Newcastle Anglican Diocese | Live Blog

By Joanne McCarthy and Dominica Sanda
Newcastle Herald
August 2, 2016

http://www.theherald.com.au/story/4067884/live-coverage-day-one-of-the-newcastle-child-sexual-abuse-royal-commission/?cs=303

Day one recap:

•There was a full court room for the first day of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse in the Newcastle Anglican diocese with lawyers and members of the public standing.

•Today’s hearing focused on Father Peter Rushton and St Alban’s youth worker James (Jim) Michael Brown

•Evidence was given by victims Paul Gray and Phillip D’Ammond and Suzan Aslin, the mother of an abuse survivor

•Abuse survivor Mr Gray broke down in tears as he told the comission that on many occasions father Peter Rushton would cut Mr Gray’s back with a small knife and smear his blood on his back – which was symbolic of the blood of Christ – as he continued to rape him

•In an emotional speech, Mr D’Ammond told the commission Jim Brown would take him out during the day to do normal things like going shopping and working on his hot rod, but at night Jim would assault Mr D’Ammond

•Mrs Aslin and her son Ian went to dinner at Jim Brown’s house, where Mrs Aslin found stacks of pornographic magazines under Mr Brown’s bed

•Counsel assisting Naomi Sharp said it was expected that former archdeacon Colvin Ford would tell the commission that he perceived that Rushton was protected by the gang of three.

3.50pm

Day one of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse in the Newcastle Anglican diocese has finished. Day two will start on Wednesday, August 3.

You can follow and join in the conversation on Twitter using the hashtag #shinethelight.

3.37pm

Barrister Peter Skinner for Bishop Richard Appleby asked Ms Burns about what exactly was said at the meeting in the 1980s. She was 19 and naive, she said, “and I’d never been around anything like this before”.

Mrs Burns told the commission that they were telling here what they were doing and that she wasn’t to say anything to Jim about anything that she knew and she was not to tell any of the parishioners if they’d asked her questions.

Mr Skinner said “My instructions are that neither my client (Bishop Appleby) nor anyone else in his presence ever discussed with you in 1987 or, indeed, at any time, ever, the proposition that they were aware that CKZ had been assaulted.”

3.30pm

Former Newcastle Anglican diocese youth worker Teresa Burns gives evidence

She started in the diocese in 1987 and came to know victim CKZ. The victim’s father was reverend of the parish. Ms Burns gave evidence she knew Jim Brown who helped at church.

During a conversation with CKZ Ms Burns discovered “something happened” between CKZ and Brown, when the boy was 14. “I’m pretty sure I remember him saying sexual assault,” she said.

“Just after, I was called into the Reverend’s office and there was himself and Richard Appleby (Bishop of Newcastle at the time),” she said. Ms Burns said the conversation was about moving Jim Brown from Kurri to Maitland.

"He was at that meeting. He can say he wasn't, but he was,"

- Ms Burns

“I was just made to understand it was because of the allegations CKZ raised,” she said.

She said she could not remember which man made the statement. Ms Burns was told not to tell anyone.

3.20pm

Bishop Holland’s representative asks Mrs Aslin if there was a possibility she had not been speaking to Bishop Holland on the phone.

The chair said in response: “When someone else at the other end of the phone said they are Bishop Holland, where is the person supposed to go? All she can tell you is this is what that person said to her.”

Some responses to the public hearing on social media

Witness: Suzan Aslin speaks

Suzan Aslin, mother of abuse survivor, to give evidence.

Mrs Aslin moved to Kurri Kurri in 1972 with her husband and five sons. Two boys involved with Scouts, and from that they became involved in the Anglican Church.

Jim Brown arrived at her door one day. Mrs Aslin met Peter Rushton at Morpeth with some younger priests.

“I observed that everybody kow-towed to Peter Rushton,” she said.

“He was in the centre of this group.”

Mrs Aslin and son Ian went to dinner at Brown’s house, at Brown’s invitation, when Ian was 15. “It must have been in a very weak moment when I agreed to go.”

Mrs Aslin went into Brown’s bedroom after going to the toilet.

Brown was absolutely furious with me.

“At that point it was time to go,” Mrs Aslin said.

Mrs Aslin and her son decided not to tell her husband because he was ex-Army, “he had a temper. I didn’t want anything to happen to my husband”.

“I went into his bedroom and under the bed were stacks and stacks of pornographic magazines,”

- Mrs Aslin.

Mrs Aslin said the pornographic magazines represented homosexual acts.

“There were, you know, sort of rampant penises,” she said.

She suspected Brown was preying on one of her children.

“I was trying to work out exactly which one of my children he was preying on,” she said.

“He turned up too often. It was just wrong. He was the odd man out.”

When asked by general counsel if Mrs Aslin reported the incident to anyone else, she replied with: “no because i felt like a twit for having put myself in that position in the first place”.

Mrs Aslin said she was horrified when she discovered Brown was involved with St Alban’s home.

Mrs Aslin told the commission that boy was Phillip D’Ammond.

Mrs Aslin decided to act. She told the commission that in 1979 she had Professor David Frost as her lecturer, who was part of the Anglican synod.

She said she told Professor Frost about Rushton and Brown fostering children and taking a “sex tour of Europe” visiting gay bars.

“I saw one of the boys and it was one of the saddest-looking kids you’ve ever seen and he was being - he wouldn’t join in with the other children. He was one of the St Alban’s boys. Jim was going to become his guardian and he was going to move in with Jim and that, I thought, was absolutely, you know, beyond the pale,”

- Mrs Aslin.

She told the professor she thought it was “inappropriate for Peter Rushton to be doing a sex trip of Europe”, and he was “absolutely astounded”. The professor said he would ring the bishop.

Mrs Aslin said soon after, she received a phone call from a man who identified himself as Bishop Alfred Holland.

Mrs Aslin told the bishop about St Alban’s, that the two men were fostering children, about their “sex tour” in Europe and she named Peter Rushton and James Brown in the conversation.

She did not know what, if anything, happened after that call.

She said she spoke to Father John West about the “sex tour” and the fostering but with little positive response.

After Brown was charged after 2010 Mrs Aslin told her son Ian.

“The effect on Ian was to dredge the whole thing up again. We may as well have been back in 1979,” Mrs Aslin said after her son Ian made a statement to police after Brown was charged with child sex offences after 2010.

“I don’t know what the bishop did and as far as I was concerned, who else was I going to tell? Yes, i probably should have gone to the police which I mentioned to the police years later, but at the time I thought I have done the right thing, I have told the bishop. The bishop will fix it,"

- Mrs Aslin

Victim Phillip D’Ammond shares his story

2.50pm

Counsel assisting Naomi Sharp has asked Mr D’Ammond about the lump sum payment he received from the church.

Sharp: “Can you describe what effect it had on you receiving that lump sum payment?”

Mr D’Ammond: “Oh, if someone - a normal person receives the lump sum that I got, they wuld have gone ahead in life. All that did to me was open up the heroin habit again. I’d been clean for four years before I got that settlement, and all of a sudden I’ve got a bank full of money and no financial advice, no advice what I should do. There it is, see you later.”

Mr D’Ammond told the commission he received $210,000 from the church.

2.45pm

Mr D’Ammond has asked the commission to look into medical and scientific research into the causes of pedophilia. He told the commission children need to be educated on signs to look out for and greater awareness needed to be taught.

2.40pm

Mr D’Ammond says Jim introduced him to alcohol when he was 13. He told the commission that Jim supplied drugs while he was living with him.

After Mr D’Ammond left the house, he started using heroin, he told the hearing.

He has had six jail sentences totalling 18 years.

The church needs to learn to live by the laws of the land and not make their own laws. They seem to make it up as they go,"

- Mr D'Ammond.

“”I have been involved in acts of violence including armed robbery, multiple assaults, malicious wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm. I was harbouring a lot of pent-up anger towards Jimmy and I was misdirecting it at others,” Mr D’Ammond told the royal commission.

“I did not think I could tell anybody about Jimmy’s abuse. At the time, I thought I would not be believed by the matron at St Alban’s. I thought I just had to comply with Jim’s behaviour to survive.”

"I had no good role model to learn how to express my emotions honestly in close relationships. I learnt to hide my emotions with Jim because I feared he would see it as a weakness and a reason to attack me sexually,"

- Mr D'Ammond.

2.10pm

Philip D’Ammond is now giving evidence.

He was in a dormitory of eight boys at St Alban’s. Mr D’Ammond was made a ward of the state in 1975, aged 13, and committed to St Alban’s Children’s Home, Cessnock because his mother was dying. Ron and Dulcie Barry were caretakers at the time, and James Michael Brown was a youth worker.

Brown, who liked to be called “Jimmy”, was about 25. During school holidays in 1975, Mr D’Ammond was to be the only boy left at the home. Brown offered to look after him.

Mr D’Ammond has told the royal commission he said yes because Brown had a hot rod.

The inquiry has heard Brown knew Peter Rushton.

Mr D’Ammond says this sexual abuse went on for two weeks, getting worse and worse.

Mr D’Ammond told the commission Jimmy started to take him out on weekends regularly but there were many times when Mr D’Ammond would muck up at the boys home so the matron would ground him and not allow him to leave for the weekend.

"I see Rushton as a tradesman and Jimmy as his apprentice. Rushton infiltrated the boys home by just being a priest and brought Jimmy in,"

- Mr D'Ammond.

James Brown became a board member of the children’s home. Mr D’Ammond said he was openly naughty and did wrong things in an attempt to stop Brown from taking him away from the home for weekends, but it didn’t help.

“1975 and 1976 were the bad years. I did not tell anyone and I had no-one to tell,” Mr D’Ammond said.

"Within 20 minutes of being in his home, he offered me alcohol, which I took. By the time it was bed, I was drunk,"

- Mr D'Ammond.

He has told the commission Brown took him to Rushton’s house where he was abused. Sometimes married Anglican priest Michael Cooper “would come to Jim’s house and watch hard core pornographic videos that Jim had. He would do this while I was in the room with him.”

Brown stopped sexually abusing Mr D’Ammond after he punched him at the age of 15. Soon after, Brown became his legal guardian.

“During the day it was about working on the hot rod, going shopping, normal things, but at night Jimmy would assault me,”

- Mr D'Ammond.

Mr D’Ammond said he started using marijuana and LSD. Drug abuse “later became a way of life for me to avoid facing reality and memories of Jim’s abuse”. He became addicted to drugs, got involved in crime and was jailed. Brown visited him at Cessnock jail.

Mr D’Ammond explained why he continued to have contact with Brown, despite the abuse. Brown was MC at his wedding.

"It was like he was putting me on a pedestal to show me off, what he had, but didn't want to share me with Michael Cooper,"

- Mr D'Ammond.

“I didn’t want to be in the world on my own and this was a dilemma about reporting him,” Mr D’Ammond said.

In 1989 Brown visited Mr D’Ammond in jail and told him he had moved to the Baptist Church.

"I was 15 and did not want him to do this anymore,"

- Mr D'Ammond.

“I put two and two together with this. The Anglican Church knew about him and he just moved down the road to the Baptist church.”

Mr D’Ammond decided to stop Brown abusing boys. In 1996 he made a complaint to Newcastle police station, but he did not want to pursue the matter while he was in jail on another matter.

In 1997 he made complaints to Cessnock, Newcastle, Maitland, Kurri Kurri and Burwood police stations.

“The barrister for Jim used to be the Bishop’s private legal adviser, Paul Rosser,” Mr D’Ammond has told the commission.

The matter against Brown did not proceed. In 2010 Brown was charged with further offences involving other victims.

In 2012 Jim was convicted of abusing other victims including Mr D’Ammond, who told the commission Jim pleaded guilty so he didn’t have to go to trial. The commission heard Paul Rosser represented Jim again.

2.05pm.

“He was aggressive and hammered me. He made me out to be like the devil saving I was just looking for money. He went hard representing Jimmy. The defence went through each charge and just ripped me apart,"

- Mr D'Ammond.

Hearing resumes after lunch.

1.01pm

The commission is breaking for lunch. We will be back with our live coverage shortly. If you would like to join the conversation on Twitter, use the hashtag #shinethelight.

For background information on the hearing, here are some stories written by Joanne McCarthy in October and November 2010.

•Newcastle Anglican Bishop Brian Farran has revealed allegations that well-known priest Father Peter Rushton was a serial child sex abuser throughout his 40-year career in the Hunter. More here.

•It has been revealed that Newcastle Anglican priest Father Peter Rushton priest whose long-term "involvement in the sexual abuse of minors", sat on church panels that investigated child sex abuse allegations for more than a decade, church records show.

•Shock allegations of a possible paedophile network that included the late Newcastle Anglican priest Peter Rushton have been heightened after confirmation a former Wallsend parish colleague of Father Rushton's was jailed for child sex offences.

•The Anglican diocese of Newcastle announced Professional Standards Board hearings involving a former church worker and four clergy, including retired dean of Newcastle Graeme Lawrence.

Survivor Paul Gray tells his story

1.00pm

Mr Gray has asked for one minute silence for all victims who could no longer face the struggle of carrying the scars of their childhood abuse another day and chose to end their suffering by taking their own lives.

A one minute silence was granted.

“We’re very happy just before we take the luncheon adjournment we might just all reflect upon these matters and the tragedy that it represents for so many people who have suffered in this way,” Justice McClellan said.

12.55pm

Barrister for Bishop Farran, Mr Hazlewood, has asked Mr Gray if he might have been mistaken about a meeting Mr Gray said he had with Bishop Farran. Mr Gray said he was not sure. He was told it was Bishop Farran.

Mr Hazlewood told the inquiry Bishop Farran retired in 2012.

12.50pm

Mr Gray was questioned about a full page advertisement placed by the Newcastle Anglican diocese, in which it said it had paid $5 million on redress.

He said if you divided $5 million by 250 victims, it represented $20,000.

"We are deeply conscious of the impact which the sexual abuse of children may have upon their subsequent lives,"

- Royal Commission chair Justice Peter McClellan.

“What’s the real cost to families? What’s the real cost to society?

12.40pm

"This article triggered me and I felt a lot of anger after seeing it,"

- Mr Gray.

Royal commission resumes.

Mr Gray said he was told in 2010 about a newspaper article in which Peter Rushton was identified as a child sex offender.

Mr Gray had a breakdown in the period after that.

Mr Gray said diocese professional standards director Michael Elliott arranged for the diocese to pay for support at a private hospital and the Heal for Life Foundation.

Mr Gray said when he asked for further support from the church it was refused. He was treated at James Fletcher Hospital. He later took legal action against the diocese after he was told the church would no longer pay for his treatment.

Mr Gray has told the inquiry about communication with the diocese from April, 2012 after a psychologist recommended he have intensive treatment.

The diocese, in a letter, said it would not pay for the treatment “Where no notable outcomes were apparently achieved”. The diocese settled in June 2013.

“Throughout the process of dealing with the church, I felt that the response of the church was not adequate in any way, shape or form,” Mr Gray said.

“What is the cost of losing your friend, your parent, your partner, your sibling or your child to suicide because of sexual abuse. Now tell me the real cost,"

- Mr Gray

It had not shown an understanding how long it takes for survivors “to come to terms with, and attempt to address their abuse”, he said.

12.33pm

Mr Gray has asked to take a short break. Justice McClellan has left the inquiry room to allow Mr Gray time to compose himself.

Read more about Mr Gray’s story here.

"On August 25, 2012, i was admitted to the trauma and disassociation unit at Belmont Hospital...I paid for the admission myself,"

- Mr Gray.

12.30pm

Mr Gray said on many occasions father Peter Rushton would cut Mr Gray’s back with a small knife and smear his blood on his back – which was symbolic of the blood of Christ – as he continued to rape him.

After the sexual intercourse, Mr Gray said Mr Rushton would clean his wounds.

Mr Paul Gray tells the inquiry a woman walked into a room where he was performing oral sex on Father Peter Rushton, and walked out.