AUSTRALIA
Herald Sun
AAP
The child sexual abuse royal commission has announced it will close off applications for private sessions in September – more than a year before its final report is due.
The decision was announced on Friday by commission chair Peter McClellan who said requests for private sessions were still high but other constraints meant accepting applications beyond September 30 could see abuse survivors disappointed and this would be “intolerable”.
More than 5000 private sessions, where people met with a commissioner and gave personal accounts of the abuse they endured, have been held across the country since the commission started in 2013.
They have been crucial to the public investigations into church, state and other institutions where shocking levels of child abuse were exposed.
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