AUSTRALIA
Newcastle Herald
By JOANNE McCARTHY Nov. 18, 2013
IT was the Catholic Church in the witness box earlier this year at the NSW Special Commission of Inquiry into child sexual abuse.
For the next two weeks at the federal royal commission in Sydney it is the Anglican Church’s turn.
The Diocese of Grafton has already apologised to children raised at its North Coast Children’s Home at Lismore, who were physically beaten, sexually abused and emotionally neglected.
But on the first day of evidence yesterday the callous treatment of the adult survivors of that abuse when they sought the diocese’s help from 2006 was laid bare.
Documents showed the diocese denied responsibility for the home, ignored the truth, bullied victims and offered shockingly low financial settlements to some, while refusing others.
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