Lasting memento of clergy abuse for victim

AUSTRALIA
Sky News

Gordon Hill still has the two shillings, nine pence and a halfpenny he left St Joseph’s Orphanage with in 1959.

It is a memento of the 16 years he spent in Victorian orphanages, from the time he was five months old.

With his St Joseph’s coins in his car, Mr Hill has twice driven the 3600km from his Geraldton home in Western Australia to Victoria to be at child sex abuse royal commission hearings into the Catholic Diocese of Ballarat.

The 72-year-old is determined his story of physical, sexual and emotional abuse and those of others, including his sisters and brothers, are heard and not forgotten.

‘I’m their voice.’

Mr Hill – whose name at ‘St Joey’s’ was 29, his locker number – was five when he was first abused by a priest in the ‘horror rooms’ downstairs.

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