Child sex abuse inquiry: Rockhampton priest 'raped me well over 100 times', Victims give evidence at Royal Commission into abuse at Queensland orphanage, Cruel treatment at Lisburn's Lissue House

- Child sex abuse inquiry: Rockhampton priest 'raped me well over 100 times', witness says
- Victims give evidence at Royal Commission into abuse at Queensland orphanage
- Childhood abuse drove me to prostitution
Carrickfergus man tells of the cruel treatment at Lisburn's Lissue House which drove him to become a rent boy in London.


Child sex abuse inquiry: Rockhampton priest 'raped me well over 100 times', witness says
By William Rollo and Marlina Whop  Apirl 14, 2015

A witness at a child sex abuse inquiry says she was raped "well over 100 times" by a priest at St Joseph's Neerkol Orphanage Rockhampton in central Queensland.

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse has heard the treatment of children at the orphanage was "vicious and sadistic", while an earlier inquiry found hundreds of children were sexually abused, beaten and forced into hard labour there.

The inquiry has begun hearings into how the Sisters of Mercy, the Rockhampton diocese and the state government responded to complaints made by former residents of St Joseph's Neerkol Orphanage.

The orphanage has already been the subject of several police and government investigations, and a 1999 inquiry led by former Queensland governor Leneen Forde.

After the so-called Forde Inquiry, the Queensland government at the time offered ex gratia payments of up to $40,000 to people as long as they dropped other legal action against the state.

Over the next two weeks, the royal commission will hear evidence from 18 witnesses, with 13 being former residents of the orphanage, who say they were abused by priests, workers, and nuns there from 1940 to 1975.... http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-04-14/child-sex-abuse-inquiry-neerkol-orphanage-rockhampton/6391002

Victims give evidence at Royal Commission into abuse at Queensland orphanage
Michael Madigan, AAP  The Courier-Mail    April 15, 2015

....A FORMER resident of an infamous central Queensland orphanage says she tried to blow the whistle on sexual abuse she suffered while in care but was ignored by authorities.

A royal commission sitting in Rockhampton has heard that sadistic punishments and sexual abuse were rife at St Joseph’s Neerkol Orphanage, which was run by the Sisters of Mercy from 1885 and 1978.

Former resident Diane Carpenter, 62, told the second day of a public hearing that while at Neerkol in Rockhampton she was sexually abused by a priest called Father Michael Hayes and by a member of a foster family who took her in during holidays....

A CATHOLIC priest is alleged to have hypnotised a 12-year-girl with a silver fob watch before raping her, while another forced his victim to “confess her sin of impurity” after each attack.

In some of the more sinister evidence to come before the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, two women yesterday told of a widespread climate of paedophilia mixed with religious piety in the Rockhampton Catholic community in the 1960s and ’70s.

Public floggings with a horse whip of runaway boys and ritual humiliation of bed-wetters, forced to stand in the communal dining room with their wet sheets on their heads, were alleged to be part of an often-sadistic climate at the Neerkol Orphanage, presided over by the Sisters of Mercy.

A 67-year-old woman told of being raped and attacked up to 100 times by local priest Father Reg Durham, the attacks continuing even as she trained to be a nun.... http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/queensland/victims-give-evidence-at-royal-commission-into-abuse-at-queensland-orphanage/story-fnihsrf2-1227304003352  

Childhood abuse drove me to prostitution
Carrickfergus man tells of the cruel treatment at Lisburn's Lissue House which drove him to become a rent boy in London.

By Lisa Smyth – 15 April 2015
A local man has told how he turned to booze and became a rent boy as a result of the horrendous abuse he suffered as a child. Carrickfergus man Chris Donnelly is a former resident of one of the facilities currently being examined by the Historical Abuse Inquiry....
"Lissue House was a hospital for children with mental problems but my only problem was that I had been bullied."

Mr Donnelly said official records of his time at the hospital show he was living in constant fear of beatings by staff and other residents.

"I was constantly looking over my shoulder and the records prove that," he said.

"There are so many examples of beatings, getting kicked or slapped just became a normal way of life.... http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/sunday-life/childhood-abuse-drove-me-to-prostitution-31144906.html