AUSTRALIA
WA Today
April 4, 2013
Barney Zwartz
Religion editor, The Age.
Analysis
Twenty years ago Bill Nelson left court a crushed man, his solicitors telling him to give up his quest for redress as a child sex abuse victim because the Catholic Church had all the power.
On Wednesday he sat in room 3.3 of the County Court awaiting the opening hearing of the royal commission on child sex abuse and reflected: ”Now I’m in court, and it’s on our side. It’s huge, it’s historic!”
His eager anticipation exemplified the mood of the victims who filled the courtroom to hear commission chairman Peter McClellan outline the plans, processes and priorities for the coming years.
And what they heard was highly encouraging. Justice McClellan was frank and forthright. The commission will be expensive. It will struggle to finish by the end of 2015. It is an enormous and complex undertaking that will hear from thousands of victims, and from many institutions, mostly taking a highly defensive posture.
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