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The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse Has Shown Hunter Abuse Survivors Have Received Relatively High Average Compensation Payments

By Joanne McCarthy
Newcastle Herald
February 16, 2017

http://www.theherald.com.au/story/4472259/more-shocking-catholic-church-abuse-figures/

THE Catholic Diocese of Maitland-Newcastle has made some of Australia’s highest average compensation payments to one of the country’s largest groups of child sexual abuse survivors, new data about the distribution of $276 million in total Australian Catholic Church payments to survivors has shown.

A comparison of church authorities across the country, released by the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse on Thursday, shows 128 Hunter survivors of clergy abuse received significantly higher average payments of $208,000 than thousands of other Australian Catholic abuse survivors, with a total Maitland-Newcastle payout figure of $26.6 million.

The data release includes confirmation of a shocking 763 payments to abuse survivors from Christian Brothers institutions, including children’s homes, with an average payment of just $64,000.

It also includes payments of an average $109,000 to 286 men sexually abused as children at schools run by the Marist Brothers, including Hamilton and Maitland Marist Brothers, with a total payout of $31.3 million.

Maitland-Newcastle diocese had the second-highest number of compensation claims of any Australian diocese, behind Melbourne with 323 claims, and ahead of Sydney Archdiocese with 84 claims. Sydney paid a total of $17.2 million to abuse survivors between 1980 and 2015, while Melbourne paid $16.8 million, at an average of $52,000.

The highest average compensation payouts in Australia, by far, were an average $901,000 paid to nine abuse survivors of the Catholic order Daughters of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart, which ran missions in the Northern Territory.

The data showed survivors in other Catholic abuse hotspots in Australia received considerably less compensation than Hunter survivors, including 98 survivors from Ballarat in Victoria who received an average $51,000 from the church, 88 survivors from Brisbane who received an average $34,000, 11 survivors from Wollongong who received an average $46,000, and 15 survivors from Bunbury who received $25,000.

Counsel assisting the royal commission, Gail Furness, SC, said the highest number of claims of child sexual abuse related to a residential care facility operated by the De La Salle Brothers in Beaudesert, Queensland. There were 219 claims of abuse from the facility.

Claims of child sexual abuse identified 1049 separate Catholic Church institutions, with 46 per cent of all claims relating to schools, and 29 per cent to orphanages or residential facilities.

While the five male orders of the Christian Brothers, the De La Salle Brothers, the Marist Brothers, the Patrician Brothers and the St John of God Brothers made up only 5 per cent of all Catholic Church authorities, they represented 41 per cent of all claims made against Catholic institutions.

“Overall 3066 claims of child sexual abuse resulted in a payment being made following a claim for redress. A total of 2854 of these claims resulted in monetary compensation. A significant number of claims were ongoing at the time of the survey,” Ms Furness told the commission.

Data identified that the largest proportion of first alleged incidents of child sexual abuse – or 29 per cent – occurred in the 1970s.

The data found that 60 per cent of abuse occurred when children were younger than 13 years old.

 

 

 

 

 




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