AUSTRALIA
Herald Sun
Royal commission into child sexual abuse hears more harrowing evidence against Anglican Diocese of Grafton
MATTHEW BENNS THE DAILY TELEGRAPH NOVEMBER 20, 2013
THE whoosh of the riding crop and the screams of the children echoed through the corridors of the Anglican Church children’s home, the royal commission into child sexual abuse heard yesterday.
“I remember hearing the whoosh of the riding crop every time Matron hit the child,” a victim from the former North Coast Children’s Home in Lismore said in a statement read to the commission.
“The whoosh noise filled me with intense fear,” said the victim, who can only be identified as CM.
Matron Jean O’Neill would take children into her office and close the door. “I heard her whipping children in her office with the crop and the children screaming.
“I would be whipped for the most trivial things like not using my manners,” said CM, who was seven when first whipped with the leather covered, steel riding crop. “It would leave red marks, bruises and cuts on me which sometimes took two weeks to heal.”
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