AUSTRALIA
Brisbane Times
A Queensland woman has told a national inquiry she was repeatedly raped as a child by a Catholic priest, who then made her confess to her “sin”.
The 67-year-old woman was 11 when Father Reginald Durham, her parish priest, began sexually abusing her at her Rockhampton home, the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse heard.
The woman, identified by the commission only as AYB, said Fr Durham abused her more than 100 times over the following years, including at his presbytery at the Neerkol orphanage when she worked there as a teacher.
She detailed how the now-deceased priest fondled her breasts, forced her to masturbate him, digitally raped her and penetrated her with objects.
“After each time I was sexually abused, I had to go to confession to him and confess my sin of impurity,” AYB told the commission, which was sitting in Rockhampton on Tuesday.
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