UNITED KINGDOM
BBC News
A woman who was sent from England to Australia as a child was molested and left so hungry she ate grain meant for pigs, an inquiry has heard.
Marcelle O’Brien was sent to a home in Pinjarra, western Australia, run by the Fairbridge Society, at the age of four.
The then-Queen, wife of George VI, later intervened to ask whether she could return to the UK to be adopted.
But Fairbridge said it would not be in her “best interests”, the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse heard.
Mrs O’Brien said she suffered “mental cruelty” and “sadistic” treatment at the home where she was forced to do “slave labour”.
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