AUSTRALIA
ABC News
The Royal Commission into child sexual abuse will this week look at how the Anglican Dioceses of Newcastle and Grafton responded to allegations of abuse against a reverend of the church.
The third public hearing of the Royal Commission begins in Sydney today.
It will examine the response by the Anglican Diocese of Grafton to claims of child abuse at the North Coast Children’s home in Lismore.
The home was set up in the 1930s to look after orphans or abandoned children.
It is estimated that at least 200 children were sexually and physically abused there up until the 1980s.
One of the victims is Tommy Campion, who was sent to the home when he was just two years old.
His sister was four.
“My mother ran away, and so my father had us so he put us in the home,” he said.
The 65-year-old says the 14 years he spent at the home were hell, with children being sexually abused, humiliated and flogged by the matrons and clergymen in charge.
“Beaten with sticks, belts, electric cords. At times he would use a belt buckle until the kid was left there bleeding and crying.
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