AUSTRALIA
The Australian
THE Christian Brothers had a prejudice against abuse survivors who pursued them through the courts in the 1990s instead of seeking pastoral care, a lawyer for the order has told a royal commission.
Howard Harrison, a partner at Carroll and O’Dea solicitors, gave evidence yesterday that there may have been an ill-informed categorisation that people seeking compensation through the courts were somehow less deserving.
Survivors of extreme sexual and other physical abuse received as little as $2000 each in a tough negotiation that ended with victims signing away their rights to pursue the Christian Brothers any further, the commission heard this week.
In Perth, the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse has heard the personal stories of 11 men who were sent to Australia from Britain as boys, then abused by the Christian Brothers at four West Australian institutions between 1947 and 1968.
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