Child abuse survivor worries community 'fatigued' by issue

By David Marchese
ABC News
November 28, 2016

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-11-28/child-abuse-survivor-worries-community-fatigued-by-issue/8061772

Clergy abuse survivor Peter Gogarty is calling for real reforms from the child abuse royal commission.

Justice Peter McClellan is chairing the royal commission.

A child abuse survivor says his biggest fear is that the momentum generated by the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse will dissipate, stopping any meaningful reform.

Peter Gogarty was abused by a Catholic priest in the New South Wales Hunter region as a child and now spends his time advocating for other survivors.

He will address a hearing of the royal commission beginning in Sydney today.

The hearing is examining issues raised in a consultation paper on criminal justice that has been prepared by the royal commission.

Mr Gogarty said it was crucial politicians and the community were not allowed to be "fatigued" by the topic of child abuse.

"Unless there is a real effort to do the law reform, there's a real risk that we'll slip back into the same behaviour," Mr Gogarty said.

"All of these institutions will say they're going to do the right thing and then over a period of time, they'll go back to behaving as they have behaved before and that would be a tragedy."

The consultation paper discusses the importance of a criminal justice response for victims and survivors of institutional child sexual abuse.

According to the paper, the criminal justice system is "often seen as not being effective in responding to crimes of sexual violence".

"Many survivors have told us that they feel the criminal justice system is weighted in favour of the accused," the paper stated.

Police and public prosecution agencies are also deemed to be 'institutions' under the terms of reference for the royal commission.

Mr Gogarty praised the work of specialist police, but said there still needed to be more education for all police officers, lawyers and court officers.

"If you can imagine a busy police station and somebody, often not a child anymore, goes into the counter and says, 'I need to talk to somebody about the fact that I was abused when I was a child'," he said.

"It is very easy for a duty officer to be fairly abrupt or dismissive or come across as being a little disinterested.

"For a child abuse survivor, if they're put off at that point, they may never go back."

The Sydney hearing follows the royal commission's long-running probe into Newcastle's Anglican church.

The Newcastle hearing concluded last week, with evidence high ranking church officials were made aware of abuse but did not pass the information on to police.

Royal commission chairman, Justice Peter McClellan, said the case study was of "real significance" to understand how institutions may fail or succeed in responding to abuse allegations.

Mr Gogarty said national law reforms were needed that would make it easier for those caught concealing abuse to be brought to justice.

"At the moment it's very complicated, it's very convoluted," he said.

"Not a single person in this country has ever been successfully convicted for concealing the offences of a child abuser.

"I think that is a huge issue that the royal commission needs to sort out."