AUSTRALIA
9 News
A Royal Commission has heard harrowing evidence of child sexual abuse at Catholic institutions around Ballarat, west of Melbourne.
Stephen Woods, one survivor who was raped and later blamed for what had happened, spoke in court today.
“I want to share about how it has really affected me so personally, so deeply, and it’s affected my family, it’s affected my friends, it’s affected my life on so many levels,” Mr Woods said.
“I was told as a child that I was bad, that I was evil, and that this was my fault.”
The group of abusers included Gerald Ridsdale, jailed for eight years for molesting more than 50 children across a dozen parishes and churches in Victoria.
At one school Ridsdale had molested every male child aged between 11 and 16.
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.