Allegations of Abuse in Institutions


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St Josephs Orphanage, Upper Hutt

 




Otago Daily Times
August 4 2005

‘Deprived’ woman a deb who stole
NZPA

Wellington: A woman suing Catholic authorities for $550,000, alleging a deprived and abusive upbringing, was also a debutante who wore stolen knickers, a court has been told.

“Fancy being presented as a debutante when no-one wants you,” she laughed in the High Court at Wellington yesterday.

And then she began crying.

"And I am doing it so my brothers and sisters could be together, " she said.

Catholic Social Services (CSS) paid for the dress and ticket, and she and her foster family shared the cost of a pre-ball party. She and her six siblings were reunited for the occasion, she said.

Four Catholic organisations are denying her claims of physical, emotional, verbal and sexual abuse in the late 1960s and 1970s.

The children were placed in care after their parents separated. Nuns mistreated and assaulted her, and several men, including a priest, sexually abused her, she said.

The third day of the hearing yesterday was stopped frequently when the woman began screaming or crying.

At one point she said she wanted to talk to "her little girl", an apparent reference to herself.

“I have got to tell my little girl that she was not an experiment, because she wants to scream and she has got to shut up.”

The 45-year-old, whose name is suppressed, clutched a small soft toy as she was cross-examined.

Lawyer Greg Thomas, acting for the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Wellington and Catholic Social Services, questioned whether all her requests to CSS had been refused as she claimed. She replied that she was denied everything but the bare basics.

"That was why I went and nicked stuff . . . I never got caught you know."

Later, she said she got knickers, bras and make-up. "I got the lot - no-one knew.”

She agreed CSS had paid for driving lessons, more than the usual number. She said she was a bit slow and needed extra lessons.

Other girls had clothes and make-up. “I wanted the things they had,” she tearfully told Justice Marion Frater.

One foster family had instilled in her a love of classical music.

“I dance around and do my dance of the big fat elephant and I do my ballet . . . Have you heard The Waltz of the Flowers?” she asked Justice Frater. “It’s fantastic; it is just unreal."

She denied asking those foster parents to say she had been disturbed when she went to live with them. She said documents from the time had said she was disturbed, and she may have talked to them about it when she visited from Australia in 2000.

She will continue giving evidence today.