Child Migrants Shipped to Western Australia Tell of Abuse by Christian Brothers

The Guardian
March 1, 2017

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/mar/02/child-migrants-shipped-to-western-australia-tell-of-abuse-by-christian-brothers

A placard held outside a hearing in 2014 of the Australian royal commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse in Perth. A separate inquiry into child sex abuse in London has been hearing evidence from two men shipped to WA and abused by Christian Brothers. Photograph: Eoin Blackwell/AAP

Two men who were shipped from Britain to Western Australia as children in the 1950s have told an inquiry in London of their abuse by Christian Brothers paedophiles.

One witness, now 72 and living in Perth and referred to as A4 to protect his identity, told the UK’s child sex abuse inquiry he had been in orphanages in Britain since he was a baby before being shipped to WA in 1953 at the age of eight as a child migrant.

He said he was sent to the boys’ home at Castledare where he was sexually abused by Brother Lawrence Murphy.

He said Murphy woke him up one night in the dormitory to say he must go to the toilet, but instead led him to his bedroom.

Holding back tears he told the inquiry how Murphy had abused him.

A4 said from then on he would freeze in his dorm bed at the sound of footsteps until they passed, feeling sorry for any other boy selected by the brother that night.

He said he could not tell anyone about the abuse as he knew he would just get a belting for lying.

A4 said he now knew the Christian Brothers were shielding a paedophile ring in WA. “It was a feast of kids at an orphanage, they had their own little pool, little school of boys that they could choose from.”

A4 said he finally broke his silence about the abuse he suffered when he saw Murphy deny any wrongdoing on a 60 Minutes report about the Christian Brothers in 1993.

Murphy was arrested in 1997 on child sexual abuse charges but died aged 80 before a trial could be held.

Former child migrant Oliver Cosgrove, who was sent to Australia in 1953 at the age of four, told the inquiry he too was sexually abused at Castledare.

The 67-year-old, also from Perth, said a choirmaster had got into his bed and fondled him and later forced him to perform oral sex on him in the dining room.

Cosgrove, who has waived his right to anonymity, told the inquiry he still had nightmares and had been through years of psychiatric treatment.

The witnesses also told of the constant canings and strappings they received as well as beatings at the hands of “sadistic” brothers at Castledare and Clontarf Boys Town in Perth where they were later sent.

They told of the poor schooling they received and the hard barefoot labour they had to perform at the homes, including clearing trees, digging a swimming pool and building a handball court.

Both witnesses said they had been told they were orphans but they subsequently learned their mothers had been alive all along, though by the time they traced them they were dead.

Cosgrove learned his father had been a priest in Ireland and his mother had been his housekeeper.