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Allegations of Abuse in
Institutions |
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In the 1970s several little girls
told Christina Cullen they were being sexually abused at Temuka's Bramwell
Booth Home. The teenager reported the abuse -- and 30 years later gave evidence
in a High Court trial dealing with the same incident. She spoke to Herald
reporter Rhonda Markby. Christina Cullen has a very clear
opinion of those who suspect sexual abuse but fail to do anything about it. "If they don't they are
basically condoning the actions and protecting the perpetrator," she
said from her Hawera home yesterday. Mrs Cullen was the unexpected
witness in the trial of former Salvation Army captain John Gainsford on
sexual abuse charges involving children who lived at the Bramwell Booth
Children's Home while he was the manager in the early 1970s. "Most of us have got
children, grandchildren, sisters or nieces, and how would they like something
to happen to them and no one to speak up for them? "Go to the police and give a
statement, then the onus will be on the police to follow up. If something
like that is opened up it is probably surprising how many other people may
have seen or experienced what was going on as well. "You can't walk away. If you
don't speak up you are almost as bad as the perpetrator." Mrs Cullen found herself involved
in the court case purely by chance. She was reading the Herald's website and
saw the story of the first day of Gainsford's trial. The abuse described was
identical to what she had witnessed 30 years earlier. "I was in absolute shock when
I read it on-line. It blew me away." She made a statement to police
that day, and was in court 48 hours later. In 1974 the then 19-year-old was a
St John cadet leader. One day several of the girls told her Gainsford was
abusing them. She never doubted them, especially
when she drove into the home and saw him indecently touching a young girl he
was piggybacking -- just as the girls had described him doing. "I couldn't believe he
continued doing that when I drove past -- and for him to be talking to
someone at the same time. "The man was so blatant. He
must have got away with a lot of stuff, or no one was doing anything about
it. "I was just sick to my
stomach. My heart was racing. I wanted to keep driving, I didn't want to
leave the girls there." She asked the girls if they could
tell someone at the home. They said they had, but no one believed them. "I just thought you poor wee
buggers. "When I left I was just
shaking and thinking what was I going to do." She immediately rang her St John
superior, who in turn informed a local doctor involved with both St John and
the children's home. It seems likely it was the
doctor's intervention which saw the church confront and move Gainsford. Mrs Cullen never doubted what the
girls told her. "They had that young innocence -- that it was a secret
and you couldn't tell anyone." At the time, Mrs Cullen was told
Gainsford had admitted what he had done, and incorrectly assumed there must
have been a court case. Over the intervening three decades
she wondered what had happened to the little girls. News reports about Marist brothers
being found guilty of historical sexual abuse of children brought back
memories of the Gainsford incident for Mrs Cullen. "It has often been in the
back of my mind, what really happened to him, was he convicted?" The last couple of weeks haven't
been easy for her. "It's been an emotional
rollercoaster and I'm only on the periphery -- and if I feel like that how
must those girls have felt?" And her view of the guilty
verdicts? "I was so pleased for the
girls. They had been believed. What they went through all those years ago
really did happen and somebody has now believed them." --------------- CAPTION: HOME OF FEAR: The Bramwell Booth
Home at Temuka where children were sexually abused. |
