AUSTRALIA
The Australian

Salvation Army Commissioner James Condon apologises for child sex abuse cases

DAN BOX THE AUSTRALIAN FEBRUARY 10, 2014

A SALVATION Army commander broke down in tears today as he apologised for dozens of cases of child sexual abuse in its homes across Australia, describing it as the organisation’s greatest failure.

Commissioner James Condon, who reports directly to the army’s general in London, said the often brutal mistreatment of children in at least four boys’ homes between the 1950s and 1970s was “a betrayal … of everything the Salvation Army was meant to be.”

“Evil and damaged people were able to get away with child sexual abuse for too long. I think that is the Salvation Army’s greatest failure,” he told the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

To date, 157 former residents have complained of being sexually abused while living in the homes,…