AUSTRALIA
Irish Examiner
By Jenny Johnson
A 10-year-old boy was told by a priest to make himself less attractive so as not to be a target for sexual abuse, a royal commission has heard in Australia.
The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse has also heard that Christian Brothers pimped boys out to a visiting photographer at St Joseph’s Farm and Trade School, Bindoon, in the late 1950s.
A witness known as VV told the commission in Perth that a Christian Brother who raped him suddenly announced he needed to confess his sins.
“Then Brother Parker came back and said I needed to see Father Gerard. Father Gerard sat me down and told me what we were doing was very wrong, and that I should make myself less attractive,” VV said.
“I should stop leading Brother Parker on, because it was a sin. He told me it was my fault, all the while he sat there sucking a cigar, blaming a child for being assaulted.”
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