Wa at the Evil Heart of Child Abuse

By Tim Clarke
West Australian
February 16, 2017

https://thewest.com.au/news/wa/evil-heart-of-child-abuse-ng-b88388026z

Bindoon Farm School

WA was at the shameful heart of the most rampant paedophilia within the Catholic Church, the royal commission on child sex abuse has revealed.

A commission analysis released yesterday of cases and payments covering 30 years showed the Church had paid $276.1 million to victims.

The commission released a list of Australian church institutions where most-reported incidents of alleged child sexual abuse occurred from 1980 to 2015.

The data showed 4445 people made claims. Almost 750 abuse claims were continuing at the time of the survey.

Three of the top four institutions were in WA.

St Vincent’s Orphanage, Clontarf, was the subject of 152 complaints, Castledare Junior Orphanage in Wilson had 142 complaints and St Joseph’s Farm and Trade School in Bindoon had 118 complaints. All were run by the Christian Brothers.

Only the BoysTown residential school near Beaudesert in Queensland, run by the De La Salle Brothers, had more complaints, with 219.

The latest figures back up a royal commission report handed down in 2014 about abuse by the Christian Brothers in WA.

The 2014 findings laid bare the harrowing details of sexual, physical and emotional abuse, neglect and unpaid child labour at the Bindoon, Clontarf and Castledare orphanages and St Mary’s Agricultural School in Tardun.

In the latest analysis, Tardun was listed tenth by the number of complaints, with 49.

Eleven former residents of the homes told the commission their stories of abuse, including being groomed as “sex pets”, sadistically beaten, raped, neglected in appalling living conditions and not believed or ignored when they reported their treatment.

Sixteen Christian brothers were named as perpetrators of abuse.

The analysis also revealed that the Perth archdiocese had made 24 redress payments to victims totalling $1.5 million, with an average payment of $64,000.

One alleged perpetrator within the Perth archdiocese was the subject of nine separate claims of abuse. They were not identified.

The Benedictine Community of New Norcia, which was last week named as one of the worst institutions in the nation for alleged child sex offenders, reported 65 claims that resulted in total payments of $869,000. One perpetrator was the subject of 26 separate claims.

Andrea Musulin, a former WA police officer who runs the Perth archdiocese Safeguarding scheme, told the commission there were now more than 200 officers in parishes to hear new complaints.

But she said she wanted more help, particularly with information from police about sex offenders living in parishes.