How Could You? Hall of Shame-Australia-Swan Homes Orphanage

This will be an archive of heinous actions by those involved in child welfare, foster care and adoption. We forewarn you that these are deeply disturbing stories that may involve sex abuse, murder, kidnapping and other horrendous actions.

From Middle Swan, Australia, “for the first time, The Sunday Times can reveal at least four children were abused at the orphanage.

That kid was going to go through what I’ve been through. Probably took them into the same place they took me — an office with a big bloody table in there,” said David, which is not his real name, and whose identity The Sunday Times has protected.

“The kid would be saying, ‘I don’t want to go, I don’t want to go,’ but they’d just manhandle him out. I used to sit there and sob because I knew what was going on.”

David suffered a further five years of abuse in the 1950s before he was adopted out of the orphanage, run by the Anglican Diocese of Perth. He has kept the abuse a ­secret for six decades — until now.

Last month David, now aged in his 60s, received $80,000 compensation from the Anglican Church and a formal ­apology from Archbishop Roger Herft.

David said he knew his abuser and provided his name to the Royal Commission. The man died in the early 1990s.

It took three failed marriages and decades of torment before David worked up the courage to speak out last year.

He contacted the Royal Commission into Institutional Response to Child Sexual Abuse after he watched a report on the testimony given by a victim of abuse at the WA Christian Brothers-run Bindoon Farm School.

“It’s been 18 months now since I started this and it’s been nothing but stressful, and it hasn’t finished,” David said.

He described compensation from the Anglican Church as ­“insulting” and told how, more than half a century since the abuse, he showers up to four times a day but feels “like a grot”.

Swan Boys’ Orphanage was founded in 1868 and renamed Swan Homes in 1943.

It has been known as Swanleigh since 1960 and is now a camps and conferences facility. It continues to be run by the Anglican Diocese of Perth.

Archbishop Herft said he had appeared before the Royal Commission and apologised for the ­“immense pain, suffering and ongoing anguish caused to those who have survived child abuse”.

“In respect of Swan Homes the Diocesan director of professional standards is aware of two persons who were abused presenting their cases before the Royal Commission in the private hearings held in Perth,” Archbishop Herft said.

“Four complaints have been made to the Professional Standards Committee and three of these persons have accessed the pastoral care and support scheme of the Diocese which includes counselling, pastoral care, an apology and financial redress.”

The Diocese has not been told a Royal Commission public hearing would be held into Swan Homes.

ORPHANS’ HORRIBLE HISTORY REPEATED

DAVID’S harrowing account of his abuse at Swan Homes comes more than a century after The Sunday Times exposed the mistreatment of children at the Perth orphanage.

Between 1907 and 1911, this newspaper investigated the Anglican Church-run orphanage to expose “clerical child slavery”.

An article published in April 1907 revealed a “bully boy” reverend at the orphanage refused to allow a mother to reclaim her children.

The Sunday Times decried the taking of children as private property as a “shrieking anachronism and a gross abuse of privilege”.

“The Sunday Times is going to get those children out,” the page five ­article states.

“This paper is going to burst the bubble of ecclesiastical arrogance which usurps proprietary rights over human flesh and blood.

“The real guardian of these children is the STATE. The church is merely a deputy guardian liable to be removed at any time.”

The next month, the children were released and the reverend was forced to step down.

Four years later, an inquest was ordered into the death of a 10-year-old boy at the orphanage. The boy died of toxaemia and rheumatism, but the inquest found his death was accelerated by gross negligence.

It was discovered that orphans were underfed and lacked clothing.

The Anglican Orphanages Committee was accused of being lax in its supervision, leading to unjustified use of corporal punishment.”

Child sex abuse victim speaks about shame of Swan Homes orphanage [The Daily Telegraph 9/5/15 by DANIELLE LE MESSURIER]

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