AUSTRALIA
ABC News
The Royal Commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse is preparing to publicly examine the North Coast Children’s Home in Lismore. The public hearings slated for the next two weeks will investigate how complaints of abuse were handled by the Anglican Diocese of Grafton, which ran the home, and the legal action that occurred in 2006 and 2007. In the face of dozens of claims, the Anglican Church resisted the legal action by denying it had a duty of care to the orphans who were abused in the home. Later, it offered a financial settlement and apologised to victims.
Transcript
TONY EASTLEY: When victims began to make claims of abuse at an Anglican run children’s home in Lismore in New South Wales in 2005, the Anglican Church argued it didn’t have a duty of care to the orphans who were abused at the home.
The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse will begin its third public inquiry today, and the focus is on the North Coast Children’s Home.
The public hearing will investigate how complaints of abuse were handled, how the group claim was settled and what happened when other former residents of the orphanage came forward.
AM’s Emily Bourke reports.
EMILY BOURKE: The Anglican Church ran the North Coast Children’s Home in Lismore from the 1940s to the 1980s.
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