18-12-2012, 05:42 AM
Published: 9 November 2012
Author: Angela Sdrinis
Hospitaller abuse allegations rivalled by claims against the Bayswater Boys Home
Allegations published in The Age today that children in care in orphanages run by the Hospitaller Order of St John's were pack raped and possibly killed are not new.
Nor are they unique.
They are matched by allegations that the Salvation Army Bayswater Boys Home was staffed by a group of paedophiles in the '70's and that boys there suffered serious sexual abuse and also disappeared without trace.
Statements from the victims are contained in the Ryan Carlisle Thomas submission to the Victorian Parliamentary Inquiry, along with other statements from hundreds of former residents of children's homes run by churches and other non-government organisations which include allegations of horrific abuse.
The Salvation Army allegations were the subject of a police investigation several years ago. One wonders how comprehensive that investigation was, in view of the allegations in NSW that investigations into child sex abuse have been hampered by the Catholic Church apparently with the collusion of senior members of the police.
While there are serious problems with the lack of resources at the disposal of the Parliamentary Inquiry, it has created a forum where these allegations can be heard and dealt with in the public arena.
There is no doubt that many more horrific allegations about child sex abuse in children's homes run by religious institutions at the hands of clerics and other religious personnel will come into the public arena over the coming months.
The public is now reeling as a result of national and international child sex abuse scandals which organisations like the Catholic Church have been trying to keep a lid on for decades. The truth however will not be silenced and victims and their families will not be satisfied until the perpetrators and those who shield them within church hierarchies and elsewhere are dealt with.
On this point, there is growing concern that the Victorian Parliamentary Inquire does not have the resources, the powers and the will to deal with these issues comprehensively. The cals for a national Royal Commission are growing.
http://www.rct-law.com.au/sexual-abuse-u...-home.html
''I believe that children may well have been killed or at least allowed to die. Children as young as eight were allowed to abscond, with no efforts made to find them or report to the police,'' Ms Sdrinis said.
''Many of these children would have had no family and no one to take an interest in their existence. Society regarded these children as worthless, and these attitudes were mirrored by police.'' The deaths of such children may well not have been investigated, she said.
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In other testimony, boys from Victorian orphanages later sent to prison said that was not nearly as bad as the boys' homes, according to the Care Leavers Australia Network.
It was another litany of horror at the inquiry as CLAN told of repeated and systematic rapes over years in many orphanages, physical and psychological abuse amounting to torture, and a callous indifference by police and authorities, whether church or state.
CLAN chief executive Leonie Sheedy said a sample of 18 years showed that 1352 children absconded from religious and non-government homes and 1877 fled state institutions.
''A great number were running way from child rape, and sexual and other criminal assaults. What did the police do? They simply returned them to their abusers. They did not ask why the children were running away or inquire into their wellbeing,'' Ms Sheedy said.
''The boys who ran away from homes and ended up in prison have told me over and over again that prison was much better than the boys' homes.''
Ms Sdrinis said the police searched the former Bayswater Boys' Home in 2009, but no charges were laid. One victim, Rod Braybon, told police in 2009 of reports of two wards of state who died of beatings in the 1950s and were allegedly buried in the Sugarloaf Hill area of the home, while three other boys disappeared in mysterious circumstances.
Ms Sdrinis said there was compelling evidence of the rape of many victims by serial abusers who were allowed to molest children for more than 20 years. ''In the 1970s the Bayswater Boys' Home was staffed by a paedophile ring, and staff not only sexually abused the children in their care but also allowed other paedophiles free access to boys, who were removed from the home and sexually abused at will.''
One such was John Bayer, who was jailed for nine years in 2008 for abusing 12 victims, five of them from the Bayswater home. In 2006, the Salvation Army secretly paid more than $1.5 million in compensation to more than 50 victims who were beaten, raped and tortured from the 1950s to 1970s by Salvation Army officers at the Bayswater home, Box Hill Boys' Home and East Kew Girls' Home, all now closed.
CLAN spokesman Frank Golding said the processes of dealing with child abuse had ''not improved at all'' in the past 100 years.
He said the responses of institutions over thousands of cases followed a similar pattern. This was disbelief (''you can't take the word of a child over the word of an adult''), denial, blaming the victim (''the girl was wicked and used her seductive charms against the priest'') and blaming the parents (''the children come from immoral families, what else could you expect?'').
Law Institute of Victoria president Michael Holcroft told the inquiry that under present Victorian law, there was no obligation to report suspicions of child abuse to police. The mandatory reporting required of some professionals was to the Department of Human Services.
He said failure to report reasonable suspicion to police should be a separate offence under the Crimes Act.
Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/paedop...z2FNLIm4Xs
As well as being heavily involved for decades in the trafficking of stolen babies through forced adoptions the Starvation Army is now replacing Serco as the government's multi national of choice to handle the rejected human cargo of the embarrassing refugees who have to temerity to arrive by boat from war torn areas of the world were were are currently making it unliveable for the locals and creating refugees.....
Author: Angela Sdrinis
Hospitaller abuse allegations rivalled by claims against the Bayswater Boys Home
Allegations published in The Age today that children in care in orphanages run by the Hospitaller Order of St John's were pack raped and possibly killed are not new.
Nor are they unique.
They are matched by allegations that the Salvation Army Bayswater Boys Home was staffed by a group of paedophiles in the '70's and that boys there suffered serious sexual abuse and also disappeared without trace.
Statements from the victims are contained in the Ryan Carlisle Thomas submission to the Victorian Parliamentary Inquiry, along with other statements from hundreds of former residents of children's homes run by churches and other non-government organisations which include allegations of horrific abuse.
The Salvation Army allegations were the subject of a police investigation several years ago. One wonders how comprehensive that investigation was, in view of the allegations in NSW that investigations into child sex abuse have been hampered by the Catholic Church apparently with the collusion of senior members of the police.
While there are serious problems with the lack of resources at the disposal of the Parliamentary Inquiry, it has created a forum where these allegations can be heard and dealt with in the public arena.
There is no doubt that many more horrific allegations about child sex abuse in children's homes run by religious institutions at the hands of clerics and other religious personnel will come into the public arena over the coming months.
The public is now reeling as a result of national and international child sex abuse scandals which organisations like the Catholic Church have been trying to keep a lid on for decades. The truth however will not be silenced and victims and their families will not be satisfied until the perpetrators and those who shield them within church hierarchies and elsewhere are dealt with.
On this point, there is growing concern that the Victorian Parliamentary Inquire does not have the resources, the powers and the will to deal with these issues comprehensively. The cals for a national Royal Commission are growing.
http://www.rct-law.com.au/sexual-abuse-u...-home.html
Quote:BAYSWATER Boys' Home was a paedophiles' paradise, with several unexplained deaths and missing boys, and others lent to outside paedophiles, a leading abuse lawyer said on Monday.Angela Sdrinis - whose firm has represented more than 1000 wards of state, including 137 from Bayswater - said systemic abuse by Salvation Army staff was so severe that in some cases boys were killed or allowed to die from their injuries.
''I believe that children may well have been killed or at least allowed to die. Children as young as eight were allowed to abscond, with no efforts made to find them or report to the police,'' Ms Sdrinis said.
''Many of these children would have had no family and no one to take an interest in their existence. Society regarded these children as worthless, and these attitudes were mirrored by police.'' The deaths of such children may well not have been investigated, she said.
Advertisement
In other testimony, boys from Victorian orphanages later sent to prison said that was not nearly as bad as the boys' homes, according to the Care Leavers Australia Network.
It was another litany of horror at the inquiry as CLAN told of repeated and systematic rapes over years in many orphanages, physical and psychological abuse amounting to torture, and a callous indifference by police and authorities, whether church or state.
CLAN chief executive Leonie Sheedy said a sample of 18 years showed that 1352 children absconded from religious and non-government homes and 1877 fled state institutions.
''A great number were running way from child rape, and sexual and other criminal assaults. What did the police do? They simply returned them to their abusers. They did not ask why the children were running away or inquire into their wellbeing,'' Ms Sheedy said.
''The boys who ran away from homes and ended up in prison have told me over and over again that prison was much better than the boys' homes.''
Ms Sdrinis said the police searched the former Bayswater Boys' Home in 2009, but no charges were laid. One victim, Rod Braybon, told police in 2009 of reports of two wards of state who died of beatings in the 1950s and were allegedly buried in the Sugarloaf Hill area of the home, while three other boys disappeared in mysterious circumstances.
Ms Sdrinis said there was compelling evidence of the rape of many victims by serial abusers who were allowed to molest children for more than 20 years. ''In the 1970s the Bayswater Boys' Home was staffed by a paedophile ring, and staff not only sexually abused the children in their care but also allowed other paedophiles free access to boys, who were removed from the home and sexually abused at will.''
One such was John Bayer, who was jailed for nine years in 2008 for abusing 12 victims, five of them from the Bayswater home. In 2006, the Salvation Army secretly paid more than $1.5 million in compensation to more than 50 victims who were beaten, raped and tortured from the 1950s to 1970s by Salvation Army officers at the Bayswater home, Box Hill Boys' Home and East Kew Girls' Home, all now closed.
CLAN spokesman Frank Golding said the processes of dealing with child abuse had ''not improved at all'' in the past 100 years.
He said the responses of institutions over thousands of cases followed a similar pattern. This was disbelief (''you can't take the word of a child over the word of an adult''), denial, blaming the victim (''the girl was wicked and used her seductive charms against the priest'') and blaming the parents (''the children come from immoral families, what else could you expect?'').
Law Institute of Victoria president Michael Holcroft told the inquiry that under present Victorian law, there was no obligation to report suspicions of child abuse to police. The mandatory reporting required of some professionals was to the Department of Human Services.
He said failure to report reasonable suspicion to police should be a separate offence under the Crimes Act.
Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/paedop...z2FNLIm4Xs
As well as being heavily involved for decades in the trafficking of stolen babies through forced adoptions the Starvation Army is now replacing Serco as the government's multi national of choice to handle the rejected human cargo of the embarrassing refugees who have to temerity to arrive by boat from war torn areas of the world were were are currently making it unliveable for the locals and creating refugees.....
"The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways. The point, however, is to change it." Karl Marx
"He would, wouldn't he?" Mandy Rice-Davies. When asked in court whether she knew that Lord Astor had denied having sex with her.
“I think it would be a good idea” Ghandi, when asked about Western Civilisation.
"He would, wouldn't he?" Mandy Rice-Davies. When asked in court whether she knew that Lord Astor had denied having sex with her.
“I think it would be a good idea” Ghandi, when asked about Western Civilisation.