AUSTRALIA
ABC News
[with audio]
The Royal Commission into child sexual abuse has been told that boys at the Salvation Army’s Bexley home in Sydney’s south were ‘rented out’ to strangers who sexually abused them and that a ‘network of pedophiles’ had access boys in their dormitory. The inquiry has also heard that police efforts to bring the matter to court in the 1990s came to nothing.
Transcript
MARK COLVIN: As if the harrowing accounts of routine sexual and extreme physical abuse at the Salvation Army boys homes weren’t bad enough, the Royal Commission into child sexual abuse today heard that boys at the Bexley home in Sydney’s south were ‘rented out’ to strangers who sexually abused them.
Today, the public hearing heard serious allegations that a ‘network of paedophiles’, including women, were able to get to boys in their dormitory and take boys to their private homes in the 1970s.
The inquiry has also heard that police investigations in the 1990s came to nothing – and that one alleged offender, who was a Salvation Army captain, is still alive.
Emily Bourke has the story – and a warning that some of the material in this report is distressing.
EMILY BOURKE: The Salvation Army’s home for boys at Bexley in Sydney’s south operated from 1915 to 1979. It took in boys who were abandoned or relinquished by their families, but care and comfort were rare.
Today, the Royal Commission was told that the perpetrators of child sexual abuse were inside and outside the home at Bexley.
The manager of the Bexley home in the early 70s was captain Lawrence Wilson. He’s been described as the Salvation Army’s ‘most serious offender’.
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