By Donna FieldPosted Tue 10 Nov 2015 at 2:27pmTuesday 10 Nov 2015 at 2:27pm, updated Tue 10 Nov 2015 at 5:11pmTuesday 10 Nov 2015 at 5:11pm
Gregory Knight gave evidence to the child sex abuse royal commission via video link.(AAP Image: Dan Peled)
A convicted paedophile teacher has accused students of making up stories about him after he was convicted of a child sex offence.
Key points:
– Convicted paedophile teacher Gregory Knight claims students made up stories
– In 1994, Knight was convicted of child sex offences in NT
– He taught music at Brisbane’s St Paul’s in the 1980s, 1990s
– He was convicted of sexually abusing a St Paul’s student
The conduct of former music teacher Gregory Robert Knight, as well as that of former counsellor Kevin John Lynch, is under scrutiny at the child sexual abuse royal commission underway at the Brisbane Magistrates Court.
Both men worked at Brisbane’s St Paul’s School during the 1980s and 1990s.
Knight later resigned from St Paul’s and moved to the Northern Territory to work at Darwin’s Dripstone High School, where serious allegations of child abuse were made against him in 1993.
The school and the NT Department of Education refused Knight’s offer to resign, with the school sacking him on the spot.
In 1994, Knight was convicted and sentenced to eight years in jail with a three-year non-parole period for child sex offences in the Northern Territory.
In 2005, he was subsequently convicted of sexually abusing a former St Paul’s student, identified at the inquiry as BSG.
He appeared this afternoon at the commission via video link.
“Now in Darwin as I have stated I went off the rails, I behaved badly and I’m not dodging around that one bit,” Knight said.
“It was after that and at the time when compensation was being handed out to students who had been at St Paul’s well after I’d left there that we had BSG come along and start asking ‘Oh, can I put in a bit of a story’ and away it went.”
BSG’s lawyer, Roger Singh, challenged Knight’s statement.
You are a disgrace. It cannot be denied that you are a paedophile.
“You were charged, convicted and sentenced for horrific sexual violation against BSG,” he said.
“There was no successful appeal, and for you to proclaim your innocence is absurd and delusional.
“You are a disgrace. It cannot be denied that you are a paedophile.”
Counsel assisting the inquiry David Lloyd also reminded Knight of his paedophile conviction and suggested: “It’s just delusional isn’t it, your position?”
Knight replied: “No, it isn’t.”
Knight sacked by BBC before being being employed by St Paul’s
Former Brisbane Boys College (BBC) principal Graeme Thomson told the inquiry he sacked Knight after hearing reports of questionable conduct from students in 1980.
Mr Thomson employed Knight unaware of crimes he had committed in South Australia, but said when boys from BBC came to him about strange behaviour around boarders in the showers, he took action.
I took cognisance and gave pre-eminence to two well-known truths, where’s there’s smoke there’s fire and prevention is better than cure.
He said he subsequently told St Paul’s principal Gilbert Case about the behaviour, yet Knight was still employed by the school.
“He [Knight] made no effort to offer an explanation and did not refute the details,” Mr Thomson said.
“I was confounded by his inability or his unwillingness to make a comment [about the allegations].
“When Knight did not respond with any denial, I took cognisance and gave pre-eminence to two well-known truths, where there’s smoke there’s fire and prevention is better than cure.”
Mr Thomson said he then registered his concern with BBC’s governing body and they agreed Knight had to go.
“I told Knight that his position was summarily terminated and I instructed him to make sure he left the school in the next 24 hours,” Mr Thomson said.
Former SA education minister ‘could have done more’
Knight had worked as a teacher in South Australia, where a 1978 inquiry held by the Education Department found he had engaged in disgraceful conduct towards students.
Dr Hopgood and Knight were in a band together at the time of the abuse.
That inquiry recommended Knight be dismissed from teaching, but Dr Hopgood instead accepted Knight’s resignation and gave him a positive reference “in the way in which he was able to lead a band”.
Knight admitted he had likely used the reference to gain a teaching job in Brisbane.
“It was a nice reference and it wasn’t drawing him into any conflict,” he said.
How much of “unfair smear-campaigns that will be initiated at breakneck speed to everyone the parents know, the lack of compassion, understanding and support from others, and the loneliness, confusion and grief to process after we sever ties.” … #dysfunctional family? (1 of 2)
…understanding and support from others, and the loneliness, confusion and grief to process after we sever ties.” … are experienced by those who’ve withdrawn from a #dysfunctional family? #nationalredress is approaching settlement for 1 CSA surviving-victim: ‘Apologies’ awaited. (2 of 2)
Although we’re each taught that toddlers-teenagers are to be treated with “purety + innocence”, as ‘children of god’, Institutions of #BaptistChurch, #BrisbaneBoysCollege + #BoysBrigade have had their past behaviours brought into question. -(twitter)- #DSS-#NRS will now research their inclusion, in preparation for assessment of these #ChildSexualAbuse impacts. Bless each of you.
In what may be a day to be remembered, our 1st recording of the ‘Problem Solving Radio’ has been shared. Following is a link to where it can be listened to & related APPs should soon be added.
iCloud link (click on image)
Sorry to all the survivours lost, those who are lucky to be alive, their witnesses and family, justice members + even the criminals behind these events.
For those of us who had been denying everything + are slowly realising the past, many decades after is the average until speaking to someone else.
While most previous locations have since been cleaned-up, a fewer amount of Predators are still able to ‘sneak in the shadows’.
One of the aims of this podcast of the RoyalCommBBC Blog, is to allow an audio channel viewers can take with them, share with their family/friends and build up more of a library of resources.
Many of those, who’ve already made text comments, will be asked to add their spoken version.
Another addition, will be Relaxation strategies including suggestions of calming music-scents+interviews.
This initial post is being made to give a Preview of what’s being planned for release, within the next few weeks.
Hopes are to arrange regular events, suggest extra channels and to create a Board of CSA Survivours-Family-Supporters.
You’re not in this alone and there are huge amounts of impacted Child Abuse Survivours, that wont ever enjoy breaking out.
GHISALINE Maxwell won’t reveal who she is secretly married to, say American prosecutors.
Evidence, however, points to this secret husband being millionaire tech company CEO Scott Borgerson, 43, who has previously been linked to Maxwell and is now believed to be offering £19 million as part of a bail package for Ghislane.
Scott Borgerson, 43, is believed to be Ghislane Maxwell’s secret husbandCredit: Medium
Who is Scott Borgerson?
Scott Borgerson is the 43-year-old CEO of CargoMetrics, born in 1976.
The company processes data-analytics for maritime trade and shipping.
He has most recently been valued at $100million (£76m).
Borgerson lives in a sprawling £2.3million ocean-front mansion in Massachusetts.null
Borgerson is the multimillionaire CEO of a tech companyCredit: Vimeo/Arctic Circle Secretariat
Is Scott Borgerson Ghislaine Maxwell’s husband?
It’s thought that Borgerson is Maxwell’s secret husband, after her matrimonial status was revealed on Tuesday, July 14, as Manhattan prosecutors accused her of purposely hiding her wealth, reports the New York Post.
“The defendant also makes no mention whatsoever about the financial circumstances or assets of her spouse, whose identity she declined to provide to Pretrial Services,” Assistant US Attorney Alison Moe told Manhattan federal Judge Alison Nathan.
The court heard how Maxwell is claimed to have purchased her bolthole with an ex-military man named “Scott”.
Both “Scott” and Ghislaine – going by the name “Jen” – also used the same surname “Marshall”.
He has always denied their relationship, saying they are just old friends.
Ghislane Maxwell’s lawyers are now believed to be ready to propose a £22.5 million bail package, six months after she was detained as a potential flight risk ahead of her trial.
As much as £19 million of the bail will come from Scott Borgerson – which the couple would forfeit should Maxwell go on the run.
Ghislaine Maxwell has denied involvement with Jeffrey Epstein’s crimesCredit: Getty – Contributor
MailOnline reported back in August that Borgerson was the “boyfriend” of Ghislaine Maxwell – 14 years her junior.
It was alleged that Epstein’s ex had “stolen” the CEO from his ex-wife five years ago, in 2013.
The Mail claims that the pair met at an ocean preservation conference, with Borgerson’s devastated wife only uncovering the affair when she viewed a video of Borgerson and Maxwell “kissing and cuddling”.
They say that Maxwell had been living at Borgerson’s ocean-front pad, hiding out in the build-up to Epstein’s arrest.
Borgerson again denies this and says he doesn’t know where she lives.
Just days later she was pictured at a burger joint in the area.
An unnamed source said: “Scott left his wife for Ghislaine around five years ago. It’s just egregious what’s happened to Rebecca.
“Rebecca and Scott seemed like a really nice couple. But as time went on, he was very preoccupied and would be on his cell phone a lot, presumably on business calls. He was away a lot for work.”
Epstein and Maxwell in New York City in 2005Credit: Getty – Contributor
LATEST ON GHISLAINE
EXCLUSIVE
PREZ & PERVERT
Maxwell, Epstein & Clinton smile together in never-before-seen images
‘VICTIM’ APPEARS
Shock as NEW Epstein accuser, 34, emerges at Ghislaine court hearing
‘SHE’LL FIGHT’
Maxwell is victim of ‘Epstein effect’ but is NOT suicidal, lawyer says
PICTURED
PERV PALACE
Epstein’s Florida mansion DEMOLISHED after buyer spends $18m to knock it down
NO RESPONSE
New documents show why Feds didn’t charge Jeffrey Epstein in 2016
‘NO MONSTER’
Ghislaine’s family launches WEBSITE to protest her innocence ahead of trial1 / 3
Who is Ghislaine Maxwell?
Ghislaine Maxwell was born in 1961, in Maisons Laffitte, France.
She is the youngest child of disgraced media tycoon and British publisher Robert Maxwell.
She moved to New York in 1991 after her father’s death and reportedly socialised with Ivana Trump.
In 1992 she had a romantic relationship with American financier Jeffrey Epstein and remained closely associated with him for decades afterwards.
On July 2, Maxwell was arrested by the FBI in Bedford, New Hampshire, on charges she conspired with Epstein to sexually abuse minors.
In December 2020, Ghislane Maxwell’s legal team sourced a New York house for her to live in if granted £22.5 million bail.
She will be with guards 24/7 to stop the risk of suicide.
Gaslighting is an insidious erosion of your sense of reality; it creates a mental fog of epic proportions in the twisted “funhouse” of smoke, mirrors, and distortions that is an abusive relationship. When a malignant narcissist gaslights you, they engage in crazymaking discussions and character assassinations where they challenge and invalidate your thoughts, emotions, perceptions, and sanity. Gaslighting enables narcissists, sociopaths, and psychopaths to exhaust you to the point where you are unable to fight back. Rather than finding ways to healthily detach from this toxic person, you are sabotaged in your efforts to find a sense of certainty and validation in what youve experienced.
The term “gaslighting” originated in Patrick Hamiltons 1938 play, Gas Light, where a manipulative husband drove his wife to insanity by causing her to question what she experienced. It was further popularized in the 1944 film adaptation, Gaslight, a psychological thriller about a man named Gregory Anton who murders a famous opera singer. He later marries her niece, Paula to convince her she is going crazy to the point of being institutionalized, with the agenda of stealing the rest of her family jewels. According to Dr. George Simon, victims of chronic gaslighting can suffer from a wide array of side effects, including flashbacks, heightened anxiety, intrusive thoughts, a low sense of self-worth, and mental confusion. In cases of severe manipulation and abuse, gaslighting can even lead to suicidal ideation, self-harm, and self-sabotage.
Gaslighting can take many forms from questioning the status of your mental health to outright challenging your lived experiences. The most dangerous culprits of gaslighting? Malignant narcissists, who, by default, use gaslighting as a strategy to undermine the perception of their victims in order to evade accountability for their abuse. These perpetrators can use gaslighting callously and sadistically because they lack the remorse, empathy, or conscience to have any limits when they terrorize you or covertly provoke you. Gaslighting by a malignant narcissist is covert murder with clean hands, allowing the perpetrator to get away with their mistreatment while depicting the victims as the abusers.
I’ve spoken to thousands of survivors of malignant narcissists who have shared their stories of gaslighting, and below I include the most commonly used phrases malignant narcissists, sociopaths,and psychopaths employ to terrorize and deplete you, translated into what they really mean.
These phrases, when chronically used in the context of an abusive relationship, serve to demean, belittle and distort the reality of abuse victims.
Translation:You’re not the pathological one here. You’rejust catching onto who I really am behind the mask and attempting to hold me accountable for my questionable behavior. I’d rather you question your own sanity so you believe that the problem is really you, rather than my own deceptiveness and manipulation. So long as you believe you’re the one who needs help, I’ll never have to take responsibility for changing my own disordered ways of thinking and behaving.
Malignant narcissists play the smirking doctors to their victims, treating them like unruly patients. Diagnosing their victims with mental health issues for having emotions is a way to pathologize their victims and undermine their credibility; this is even more effective when abusers are able to provoke reactions in their victims to convince society that they are the ones with mental health problems. According to the National Domestic Violence Hotline, some abusers will even actively drive their victims to the edge to concoct proof of their instability. The Hotline estimates that around 89% of their callers have experienced some form of mental health coercion and that 43% had experienced a substance abuse coercion from an abuser.
Most survivors who reported their abusive partners had actively contributed to mental health difficulties or their use of substances also said their partners threatened to use the difficulties or substance use against them with important authorities, such as legal or child custody professionals, to prevent them from obtaining custody or other things that they wanted or needed.The National Center on Domestic Violence and the Domestic Violence Hotline
Translation:I enjoy planting seeds of insecurity and doubt in your mind about your attractiveness, competence, and personality. If you dare to question my numerous flirtations, affairs, and inappropriate interactions, I’ll be sure to put you back in your place in fear of losing me. The problem, as I’ll convince you, isn’t my deceptive behavior. It’syour inability to remain confident while I perpetually put you down, compare you in demeaning ways to others, and eventually cast you aside for the next best thing.
Manufacturing love triangles and harems are a narcissist’s forte. Robert Greene, author of The Art of Seduction, speaks about creating ”an aura of desirability” which stirs a frenzied sense of competition among potential suitors. In abuse survivor communities, this tactic is also known as triangulation. It grants malignant narcissists a depraved sense of power over their victims. They actively provoke jealousy in their intimate partners in order to control them and paint them as unhinged when they finally react. When a victim calls out a narcissist’s infidelity in any way, it is common for them to label the victims insecure, controlling, and jealous to avoid suspicion and to continue to reap the benefits of multiple sources of attention, praise, and ego strokes.
Translation:It’s not that you’re too sensitive, but rather that I am insensitive, callous, and unempathic. I do not care about your emotions unless they serve me in some way. Your negative reactions provide me stimulation and pleasure, so please, do keep going. I enjoy putting you down for having legitimate reactions to my abuse.
According to Dr. Robin Stern, one of the effects of gaslighting include asking yourself Am I too sensitive? a dozen times a day. Claiming that victims are overreacting or oversensitive to emotional abuse is a popular way for malignant narcissists to override your certainty about the severity of the abuse you experienced.
Whether or not someone is a sensitive person is irrelevant when it comes to cases of psychological or physical violence. Abuse affects anyone and everyone of varying sensitivity levels, and its impact should not be taken lightly. A mark of a healthy partner is that they give you the space to feel your emotions and provide emotional validation, even if they do not agree with you. A malignant narcissist will excessively focus on your so-called sensitivity and consistently claim that you are overreacting rather than own their horrific actions when called out, regardless of how “sensitive” you may be.
Translation: I love disguising my abusive behavior as just jokes. I like calling you names, putting you down, and then claiming you’re the one who lacks the sense of humor to appreciate my depraved “wit.” Making you feel defective allows me to say and do whatever I wish, all with a smile and a derisive laugh.
Disguising cruel remarks, off-color comments, and put-downs as “just jokes” is a popular verbal abuse tactic, according to Patricia Evans, author of The Verbally Abusive Relationship. This malicious tactic is very different from playful teasing which takes a certain amount of rapport, trust, and mutual enjoyment. When malignant narcissists dole out these unsettling “jokes,” they can engage in acts of name-calling, taunting, belittling and contempt while evading the responsibility of issuing an apology or owning their vicious verbal assaults. You are then gaslighted into believing that it is your inability to appreciate the “humor” behind their cruelty, rather than the reality of its abusive intentions.
“Just jokes” are also used to test boundaries early on in an abusive relationship; what you may have rationalized as a tone-deaf or off-color comment in the beginning can escalate into psychological violence quite quickly in the hands of a narcissist. If you find that you have a partner who laughs at you more than they laugh with you, run. It will not get better.
Translation: I haven’t given you enough time to even process the last heinous incident of abuse, but you need to let it go already so I can move forward with exploiting you without facing any consequences for my behavior. Let me love-bomb you into thinking that things will be different this time around. Don’t bring up my past patterns of abusive behavior, because you’ll then recognize that this is a cycle that will just continue.
In any abuse cycle, it’s common for an abuser to engage in a hot-and-cold cycle where they periodically throw in crumbs of affection to keep you hooked and to renew hope for a return to the honeymoon phase. This is a manipulation tactic known as intermittent reinforcement, and it’s common for an abuser to terrorize you, only to return the next day and act like nothing has happened. When you do recall any abusive incidents, an abuser will tell you to “let it go” so they can sustain the cycle.
This form of abuse amnesia adds onto your addictive bond to the abuser, also known as “trauma bonding.” According to Dr. Logan (2018), Trauma bonding is evidenced in any relationship which the connection defies logic and is very hard to break. The components necessary for a trauma bond to form are a power differential, intermittent good/bad treatment, and high arousal and bonding periods.https://74478144733d8f22c65a31173c8b0af0.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-38/html/container.html
Translation: I am the problem here, but I’ll be damned if I let you know it! I’d rather subject you to personal attacks as you bend over backwards trying to hit constantly moving goalposts and arbitrary expectations of the way I think you should feel and behave. As you spend most of your time trying to fix your fabricated flaws while always coming up short of what I deem “worthy,” I can just sit back, relax, and continue to mistreat you the way I feel entitled to. You won’t have any energy left to call me out.
It’s common for abusive partners to engage in malignant projection – to even go as far as to call their victims the narcissists and abusers, and to dump their own malignant qualities and behaviors onto their victims. This is a way for them to gaslight their victims into believing that they are the ones at fault and that their reactions to the abuse, rather than the abuse itself, is the problem. According to Narcissistic Personality clinical expert Dr. Martinez-Lewi, these projections tend to be psychologically abusive. As she writes, “The narcissist is never wrong. He {or she} automatically blames others when anything goes awry. It is very stressful to be the recipient of narcissistic projections. The sheer force of the narcissists accusations and recriminations is stunning and disorienting.”
Translation:Making you question what I did or said allows me to cast doubt on your perceptions and memories of the abuse you’ve experienced. If I make you think that you’re imagining things, you’ll start to wonder if you’re going crazy, rather than pinpointing the evidence which proves I am an abuser.
In the movie Gaslight, Gregory causes his new wife to believe that her aunts house is haunted so she can be institutionalized. He does everything from rearranging items in the house, flickering gas lights on to making noises in the attic so she is no longer able to discern whether or not what she’s seeing is real. He isolates her so that she is unable to gain validation. After manufacturing these crazymaking scenarios, he then convinces her that these events are all a figment of her imagination.
Many victims of chronic gaslighting struggle with the cognitive dissonance which occurs when their abuser tells them that they never did or said something. Much like reasonable doubt can sway a jury, even the hint that something may not have happened after all can be powerful enough to override someone’s perceptions. Researchers Hasher, Goldstein and Toppino (1997) call this the “illusory truth effect” – they discovered that when falsehoods are repeated, they are more likely to be internalized as true simply due to the effects of repetition. That is why continual denial and minimization can be so effective in convincing victims of gaslighting that they are indeed imagining things or suffering from memory loss, rather than standing firm in their beliefs and experiences.
The Big Picture
In order to resist the effects of gaslighting, you must get in touch with your own reality and prevent yourself from getting entrapped into an endless loop of self-doubt. Learn to identify the red flags of malignant narcissists and their manipulation tactics so you can get out of disorienting, crazymaking conversations with malignant narcissists before they escalate into wild accusations, projections, blameshifting and put-downs which will only exacerbate your sense of confusion. Develop a sense of self-validation and self-trust so you can get in touch with how you really feel about the way someone is treating you, rather than getting stuck attempting to explain yourself to a manipulator with an agenda.
Getting space from your abuser is essential. Be sure to document events as they happened, rather than how your abuser tells you they happened. Save text messages, voicemails, e-mails, audio or video recordings (if permitted in your state laws) which can help you to remember the facts in times of mental fog, rather than subscribing to the distortions and delusions of the abuser.
Engage in extreme self-care by participating in mind-body healing modalities which target the physical as well as psychological symptoms of the abuse. Recovery is important to achieve mental clarity. Enlist the help of a third party, such as a trauma-informed therapist, and go through the incidents of abuse together to anchor yourself back to what you’ve experienced. Malignant narcissists might attempt to rewrite your reality, but you don’t have to accept their twisted narratives as truth.
References
Evans, P. (2010). The verbally abusive relationship: How to recognize it and how to respond. Avon, MA: Adams Media.
Greene, R. (2004).The art of seduction. Gardners Books.
Hasher, L., Goldstein, D., & Toppino, T. (1977). Frequency and the conference of referential validity.Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior,16(1), 107-112. doi:10.1016/s0022-5371(77)80012-1
Stern, R., & Wolf, N. (2018). The gaslight effect: How to spot and survive the hidden manipulation others use to control your life. New York: Harmony Books.
Warshaw, C., Lyon, E., Bland, P. J., Phillips, H., & Hooper, M. (2014). Mental Health and Substance Use Coercion Surveys. Report from the National Center on Domestic Violence, Trauma & Mental Health and the National Domestic Violence Hotline.National Center on Domestic Violence, Trauma and Mental Health. Retrieved here. November 5, 2017.Psych Central does not review the content that appears in our blog network (blogs.psychcentral.com) prior to publication. All opinions expressed herein are exclusively those of the author alone, and do not reflect the views of the editorial staff or management of Psych Central. Published on PsychCentral.com. All rights reserved.
Jehovah’s Witnesses say they will join the National Redress Scheme due to the new “rules”
It was the threat of financial penalties that triggered the Jehovah’s Witnesses to join the National Redress Scheme – a sour taste for survivors of sexual abuse and lawyers alike.
Senator Anne Ruston set a new deadline of December 31st 2020. If they missed the deadline this time, the institutions would not be eligible for future Commonwealth grants, their charitable status would be revoked and they would be stripped of their tax exemptions.
“Now that the law requires charities to join the scheme, Jehovah’s Witnesses will comply. Jehovah’s Witnesses believe that it is their responsibility before God to respect and co-operate with the authorities.”
“We encourage them to make urgent contact with the Department of Social Services so they can make good on this commitment,” she said.
“It can take up to six months for institutions to complete the process of joining and the department would hope to work cooperatively and with haste to facilitate the Jehovah’s Witnesses joining as quickly as possible.
“It is disappointing survivors who have named the Jehovah’s Witnesses have been forced to have their application for redress on hold this long while the organisation has been unwilling to join.”
Paralympics Australia has also joined the National Redress Scheme
Paralympics Australia has decided to join the National Redress Scheme and support survivors of institutional abuse.
This comes as more and more sporting institutions join the scheme including Basketball Australia and Gymnastics Australia.
“We support the National Redress Scheme and are strongly committed to providing environments that are safe, supportive and fun for children and young people,” Paralympics Australia President Jock O’Callaghan said.
“We have zero tolerance for any form of behaviour that puts the well-being of children and young people at risk.”
The wheels were already in motion for positive change within Paralympics Australia.
In September 2020, Paralympics Australia, the Commonwealth Games and the Australian Olympic Committee – representing 53 sports combined – rolled out a new process so athletes have access to an independent assessment of complaints and allegations.
All Government funded sports are also required to have a Member Protection Policy (MPP) and Child Safeguarding Policy outlining the standard of behaviour required of athletes, coaches, officials and other support personnel.
Australian Olympic Committee Chief Executive Officer, Matt Carroll, says it is in the best interests of all sports to have an independent avenue for complaints about abuse, intimidation and other safeguarding issues.
“There’s no place for abuse in our sports, but the missing link has been the lack of access to an independent framework. We have started a process to develop a model that will remedy that. There’s a lot of detail to discuss,” Matt said.
“Any form of abuse is abhorrent – we acknowledge the catastrophic impact abuse has on the lives of those abused, and their families and friends.”
“Our organisation is strongly aligned to the values and expectations of the National Redress Scheme and we remain ready to work closely with the scheme to support any survivors that may come forward.”
Kenja Communications raises the Porter Defense to avoid joining the Scheme
Now that the Jehovah’s Witnesses will join the National Redress Scheme, there is only one institution left that is refusing to join: Kenja Communications.
The spiritual self-help group has invoked Attorney-General Christian Porter’s position on the historical rape allegation against him (which he denies) to support its position.
The group’s late founder, Ken Dyer, faced multiple sexual assault allegations. He was found guilty of one of the alleged assaults, but the conviction was overturned in the High Court.
When Dyer was accused of raping a woman 33 years ago, he claimed:
“There are circumstances where someone might absolutely believe something, but it might not be a reliable account. That is actually why we have a justice system. It is why we have courts and the presumption of innocence and burdens of proof.”
Now, Dyer’s widow Jan Hamilton runs the group. On their website, the group said that the same principles cited by the Attorney-General apply to the group’s decision not to join the National Redress Scheme.
“Anyone can contact the scheme and say they were abused as a child and without due process, in fact it appears without any real process, can receive up to $150,000 in compensation.”
“We are of the view that recent events including the Christian Porter case confirm the legitimacy and appropriateness of the position we have taken regarding not joining the National Redress Scheme.”
“In our respectful opinion, if it is proper for the Attorney-General to invoke the rule of law, it is also proper for us.”
Hamilton has also said in the past she believes the abuse did not take place – meaning survivors will be locked out of compensation through the National Redress Scheme.
“Whilst we agree with the objectives of compensating child sex abuse victims, it is not appropriate in our view where genuine claims do not exist.”
A former member named Annette Stevens wrote about her experience in a 2012 article published via news.com.au.
“Sometimes we’d be processed naked in one-on-one sessions – Ken said it helped energy flow freely through the body. Once, when I woke from the fog of a naked processing session, Ken was lying on top of me with his trousers and underpants around his ankles.”
“But my Kenjan mind-training kicked in and I immediately dismissed the idea he’d acted inappropriately, reasoning I could trust Ken and, if he’d touched me, I’d remember it.”
The Catholic Church paid $276 million to victims of alleged sex abuse committed by priests in Australia over decades, an investigation says.
Critics say the system of payments is unfair and not all victims receive the same opportunities or compensation.
Since 2013, the Australian Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse has been holding hearings on alleged Catholic Church sex abuse of children – mostly boys.
“Catholic Church authorities made total payments of [AU]$276.1 million [US$213million] in response to claims of child sexual abuse received between 1 January 1980 and 28 February 2015, including monetary compensation, treatment, legal and other costs,” the statement from the commission said on Thursday.
On average, sex abuse victims received AU$91,000 in compensation, it stated.
The Christian Brothers religious community “reported both the highest total payment and the largest number of total payments $48.5 million paid in relation to 763 payments at an average of approximately $64,000 per payment,” the document said.null
The report added that the Jesuits “had the highest average total payment at an average of approximately $257,000 per payment (of those Catholic Church authorities who made at least 10 payments).”
Read analysis of Catholic Church Authorities’ data on claims of child abuse https://t.co/4AYWsYEytb
“Even though the church has paid $270 million and it took a long time to get its act together to do that, there’s no doubt the system of paying people and compensating them is best done independently of the church through a national redress scheme,”the Church’s Truth Justice and Healing Council chief executive, Francis Sullivan, told AAP.
Sullivan said that not all victims have equal opportunities or compensation.
“Some congregations pay far more than others. Some dioceses pay far more than others. It’s still not a fair system,” he added.
It’s a picture of great unfairness and inequity between survivors across Australia depending on where they placed their claim,” Helen Last, CEO of In Good Faith Foundation, which represents 460 abuse victims, told Reuters.
The commission was established in 2013 to investigate instances and allegations of child sexual abuse in Australia. This month’s report says that between January 1980 and February 2015, 93 Catholic Church authorities received claims of child sexual abuse from 4,445 people.
It managed to identify 1,880 alleged perpetrators, who included 597 (32 percent) ‘religious brothers,’572 (30 percent) priests, 543 (29 percent) lay people, and 96 (5 percent) ‘religious sisters.’ At least 90 percent of the alleged perpetrators were male, according to the report.
Sexual abuse scandals have long dogged the Catholic Church. In 2014, the Vatican said 3,420 credible accusations of sexual abuse committed by priests had been referred to it over the past 10 years, and that 824 clerics were defrocked as a result.
In January, Pope Francis called for “zero tolerance”towards sex crimes against children, and condemned it as “a sin that shames” both the perpetrators and those who cover up for their crimes.
