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Allegations of Abuse
in Institutions |
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When staff at the Salvation Army's
Bramwell Booth Children's Home wouldn't believe that children were being
sexually abused by the manager, one girl opted to tell a visiting church
leader. Then other church officers asked
her about the allegations and shortly after the manager left the Temuka home,
the High Court in Timaru heard yesterday. She was one of three complainants
to give evidence yesterday in the trial of former Salvation Army captain John
Francis Gainsford, 69. He is on trial for 23 charges
including rape and indecent assault, relating to his alleged treatment of
children at the Bramwell Booth Children's Home at Temuka in the 1970s. After other girls told her
Gainsford was abusing them, one witness said she told a staff member, but
nothing changed. Sometime later senior church officers
visited the home. The children were lined up to meet him, and as the officer
came to her she told him Gainsford had been touching the girls. A week or so later other church
officers asked her about the allegations. She demonstrated to them things she
had seen him doing. Not long after that Gainsford left the home. The treatment she received from
staff changed after she spoke out. She spoke of getting dirty looks. She told the court how Gainsford
had indecently touched her while he was lying on her bed reading stories.
When he slid his hand under the covers she tried to move away from him, but
he simply moved his hand further down. Defence counsel Paul Dacre told
the woman that Gainsford would deny the allegations she had made. "Wouldn't you deny it if you
were a paedophile?" the woman responded. Another woman told of waking up to
find her nightdress up to her chest and her underpants pulled down. Gainsford
was standing by the bed breathing heavily. The girl was so frightened she ran
and locked herself in a bathroom for the night. She recalled other indecencies in
which Gainsford would rub her genitals during story time, and the indecencies
during bath time. After the bedroom incident she
could recall him wanting to strap her. She struggled because she did not
want to go into the office with him. She was still in her nightclothes. As she would not go with him, he
took her into the dining room and humiliated her by strapping her in front of
all the other children. Others told the court of Gainsford
lying on their beds and indecently assaulting them. Another woman told of Gainsford
initially indecently touching her, and of him getting her to stimulate him.
The touching progressed until he raped her on two occasions. The more serious abuse took place
in his office, the library, the bus shed and on the bus – places where they
were less likely to be disturbed. He first raped her in his own bed
in the manager's house. On the second occasion he took her down a track not
far from the home and raped her on a pile of leaves. The trial before Justice Fogarty
and a jury of three men and nine women continues this morning. |
