AUSTRALIA
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The Australian Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse will resume hearings tomorrow. It will be the third “case study”, and will focus on Allan Kitchingman (see previous posting) against the background of events at the North Coast Children’s Home (see previous posting).
The commission officials need to heed the comments of victims and their supporters, following the release of the Victorian Parliamentary enquiry, which was released last week (see previous posting). While the officials admit to a steep learning curve in their own interactions with victims, the process of understanding, and appropriate responses for their future investigations, will be enhanced if they take serious note of those victim comments made last week.
Space does not permit a full listing of comments, but more will be covered in other postings where possible. Here are some of the comments on the Victorian report.
Anthony and Chrissie Foster’s daughters, Emma and Katie, were repeatedly raped by their parish priest, Father Kevin O’Donnell, at their primary school in Melbourne’s south-east, from 1987 until 1992.The Catholic Church had received numerous complaints about O’Donnell’s crimes dating back to the 1940s, but no action was ever taken. Emma Foster suicided and her sister Katie was seriously disabled when she was hit by a car, and now requires 24-hour care.
Mr. Foster commented that “There’s mixed feelings, of course, it brings back some sadness with our children. But we feel that this report has the basis for everything that we want. We need to make sure that the Church and other organisations can’t just draw a line today and say ‘we’re forgetting about everything behind and we’re on with the future and yes we’ll toe the line now’. There are some big organisations out there that are going to be trying to protect their wealth, because this has always been about the wealth and reputation of organisations like the Salvation Army, the Catholic Church.”
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