AUSTRALIA
lewisblayse.net
Dear all,
As readers of this blog would know, this blog was started by my father, Lewis Blayse, who was a survivor of the notorious Salvation Army Alkira / Indooroopilly Boys’ Home. Readers would also be aware that I have been battling the Salvation Army regarding compensation for my father’s family, in continuation of my father’s lifelong but failed struggle for justice. Readers would also know that I hope, through achievement of a satisfactory outcome in relation to compensation for my family, to establish a strong precedent for a new, fair approach to compensation that will flow on to other victims of Salvation Army abuses and their families.
After digging in its toes for too long, the Salvation Army has recently contacted me (through its head lawyer, Luke Geary) to indicate that it IS now willing to enter into formal talks about restitution to the family for the damage it inflicted upon my father and his extended family. In so doing, it appears to have reversed its previous decision, communicated to me by ‘commissioner’ James Condon, which was to deny it had any further responsibility to set wrongs right beyond the pathetic and cruel responses of the past. This is a limited but potentially positive development, and I am cautiously optimistic that when presented with even more documentation than has already been provided to it, someone in the Salvation Army will see the grievous errors in its earlier approaches, and finally do the right thing by our family. So that Dad’s wishes are finally met.
It must also be said that it’s a potentially positive development in the sense that the Salvation Army now appears to be acknowledging that families of people hurt by child abusers within its ranks are also people who have to be considered in its responses to its organisational failures. I hope that the Salvation Army is extending the same offer to talk about restitution to affected families. Because it must make amends to everyone it has hurt. So that a foundation stone for real healing among all those the Salvation Army has hurt is laid.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.