‘I was exploited and abused by criminals’ in a place ‘devoid of love’

AUSTRALIA
The Guardian (UK)

Australian Associated Press
theguardian.com, Monday 28 April 2014

A survivor of severe sexual and physical abuse at a Christian Brothers boys institution in Western Australia says the orphanage was “devoid of love” and run by men who believed the children were born of the devil.

John Hennessey has told the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses into Child Sexual Abuse that when he was 12 he was publicly stripped and nearly flogged to death by a Christian Brother while at St Joseph’s Farm and Trade School, Bindoon.

“No one came to my aid,” said a visibly upset Mr Hennessey, the first witness at the 11th case study examined by the commission.

“I am now left with a stutter.”

The man who beat him, Brother Paul Keaney, also repeatedly sexually abused Mr Hennessey.

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