Be less attractive, abuse survivor told

[The Straight Story]

A 10-YEAR-OLD boy was told by a priest to make himself less attractive so as not to be a target for sexual abuse, a royal commission has heard.

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse has also heard that Christian Brothers pimped boys out to a visiting photographer at St Joseph's Farm and Trade School, Bindoon, in the late 1950s.

A witness known as VV on Tuesday told the commission in Perth a Christian Brother who raped him suddenly announced he needed to confess his sins.

"Then Brother Parker came back and said I needed to see Father Gerard. Father Gerard sat me down and told me what we were doing was very wrong, and that I should make myself less attractive," VV said.

"I should stop leading Brother Parker on, because it was a sin. He told me it was my fault, all the while he sat there sucking a cigar, blaming a child for being assaulted."

http://www.news.com.au/national/breaking-news/abuse-survivor-thought-treatment-normal/story-e6frfku9-1226899665794

[intaglio]

1. Not that it is any consolation

But the Christian Brotherhood were not alone in shipping vulnerable kids overseas without permission into "homes" where they were abused - Bernado's springs to mind. My paternal grandfather was one such child, shipped to South Africa by "Home Children" the Victorian era charity.

[Jefferson23]

2. Horrific, and CRIMINAL bastards. One is expected to believe he spoke this way because he was

an ignorant priest? Come on, this is willful neglect and complicity.

The crimes against the child are sickening:

He was also savagely beaten numerous times, and has lost hearing in his left ear.

Meanwhile, VV's mother tried repeatedly to find him in England.

"She was told I was put into a good home in Australia, that I was cared for and loved and that I would receive an education," he said.

"She never gave permission for me to go to Australia."

VV never saw his mother again.

Years after he left Bindoon he was offered $20,000 compensation by the Catholic Church's professional standards office, which later upped it to $40,000 when VV said he found it insulting.

"This meeting was very intimidating," VV said.

"The brothers were not approachable or welcoming and I felt intimidated.

"I felt like a child again, trying to defend myself."

The hearings continue.