AUSTRALIA
The Guardian
Melissa Davey
@MelissaLDavey
Tuesday 24 November 2015
A detective told a teenager who was repeatedly the victim of sexual abuse she must have been wearing a “neon sign” above her head “asking for it”, and that there was not enough evidence to investigate her case.
Julie Stewart, now 40, gave evidence before the royal commission into institutional responses into child sexual abuse on Wednesday that she was sexually abused by a family member between the age of five and eight.
She was then sexually abused by the parish priest at the Holy Family church in Doveton, Victoria, Peter Searson, from when she was in year three, the commission heard.
Stewart told the commission Searson would force her to sit on his lap during confession, rather than on the other side of the confessional barrier, and would ask her to kiss him and tell him that she loved him.
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.