AUSTRALIA
ABC News
A former resident of a Christian Brothers school in Western Australia has described living in constant terror at the institution where “violence was a way of life”.
John Hennessey is the first of a number of victims to give evidence at the Perth hearings of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.
He was a child migrant from the UK and told the hearing he was excited to come to Australia as an 11-year-old boy, considering it an adventure.
Mr Hennessey, who was a resident at the Bindoon Farm School north of Perth, broke down during his evidence today as he recounted the moment he realised “something was amiss”.
He was sexually and physically abused from age 11 until he was 16, when he left the school.
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