AUSTRALIA
Brisbane Times
April 21 2016
Jamie McKinnell
Sadistic nuns at a notorious Queensland orphanage dished out abuse in a toxic environment that festered due in part to inadequate government scrutiny, supervision and training, a royal commission has found.
The child sex abuse royal commission last year examined cruel treatment of 13 former residents of St Joseph’s Orphanage at Neerkol, near Rockhampton, which was operated by the Sisters of Mercy between 1940 and 1975.
The men and women – now aged from their 50s to 80s – recalled abuse at Neerkol, ranging from public floggings and being walked on by high heels to being made to drape urine-soaked sheets over their heads.
Commissioners Justice Jennifer Coate, Professor Helen Milroy and Andrew Murray explored the responses of the Sisters of Mercy, the Catholic Diocese of Rockhampton and the Queensland government to complaints, which had often fallen on deaf ears.
The commission found punishment administered by some nuns was “cruel and excessive” and was against regulations in place at the time.
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