Conger

A report detailing the sexual abuse of children in state care over the past forty years has been tabled before the South Australia state parliament.

The 600-page report prepared by retired Supreme Court Justice Ted Mullighan on April 1 warned that children in state care remained at risk of sexual abuse unless reforms were instituted to fix a system “in crisis.”

“Nothing prepared me for the foul undercurrent of society revealed,” Justice Mullighan wrote in his final report. “I was not prepared for the horror of the sexual cruelty and exploitation of little children and vulnerable young people in state care by people in positions of trust.”

Chartered by the state government to 2004 in investigate abuse in Anglican institutions, the mandate of the Children in State Care Commission of Inquiry was broadened to look at allegations of abuse within government and non-government institutions. The report documented hundreds of cases of abuse over the past forty years and offered 54 recommendations to fix the system.

The abuse of children in state care took place in orphanages, youth shelters and foster homes run by churches and the government and was perpetrated by foster parents, their sons, teachers, priests, social workers and strangers. Organised groups of pedophiles also preyed on and abused children in state care, he said.

South Australia premier Mike Rann said the stories found in the report had “sickened him.”

“Decade after decade, the perpetrators of this abuse not only robbed children of their innocence but also stole both their past and their future,” Mr Rann said.

The commission determined that 242 alleged victims were wards of the state when they were sexually abused. It referred 170 witnesses with information about 434 alleged pedophiles to police, who have arrested two suspects.

The Archbishop of Adelaide, Dr. Jeffrey Driver, said he was “deeply saddened by the extent of abuse” revealed by the Mullighan report.

“I acknowledge, with deep regret, that some of that abuse occurred in institutions run by the Anglican Church in South Australia,” he said in a statement.

“Without reservation, I repeat our apology to victims of sexual abuse. Sexual abuse is always intolerable. When it is perpetrated by a person holding a sacred trust it is particularly repugnant,” Dr. Driver said.

In 2006 the diocese settled the claims of 36 men, who as boys were allegedly molested by Church of England Boys Society youth worker Robert Brandenburg. Former Adelaide Archbishop Ian George was forced into early retirement in June 2004 following an independent review that sharply criticized his handling of the abuse controversies.