AUSTRALIA
ABC – The World Today
SIMON SANTOW: As orphans in England they were promised an adventure and an education in Australia, but instead they were beaten and sexually abused.
The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse is in Perth for the next fortnight to publicly examine four homes run by the Christian Brothers.
The commission will hear the experiences of a number of men and how the Catholic Church responded when presented with the allegations and the evidence.
One victim says the hearing is a crucial part of the healing process but nonetheless, he says, he’ll take his suffering to the grave.
Thomas Oriti reports.
THOMAS ORITI: John Hennessey was 10 years old when he was moved from an orphanage in England to Western Australia.
He arrived on a ship at Fremantle in 1946 and remembers the Christian Brothers separating boys from their sisters.
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