MENZ ISSUES

MENZ Issues: news and discussion about New Zealand men, fathers, family law, divorce, courts, protests, gender politics, and male health.

If the noose fits, wear it?

Filed under: Child Support,Domestic Violence,Gender Politics,General,Law & Courts,Sex Abuse / CYF — MurrayBacon @ 3:37 pm Wed 25th July 2012

It can be educational, to lift one well known and understood story, change the names to something else (a less well known story) and then see if the newly developed story has any ring of truth in it?

This can be an unfair and abusive technique?
It can also give some insight into the less well known area, by taking well developed concepts into the less known area.

Am I being being unfair?

Unholy Silence familycaught$ procedural abuse coverup in New Zealand

By Geoff Thompson and Mary Ann Jolley – with dastardly changes by MurrayBacon – abusive axe murderer.
Updated July 4, 2012 11:15:00

http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/stories/2012/06/28/3535079.htm

I have taken the original article Unholy Silence and made the following replacements:

replace Australia => New Zealand
replace Catholic Church => familycaught$
replace Church => familycaught$
replace priest => judge
replace childhood => familycaught$ hearings
replace children => children and men
replace clergy => judges
replace Federal Government => Government

Children are often abused, when familycaught$ judges fail to investigate allegations of abuse where the perpetrator is the mother.
Men are often abused, when their testimony is not listened to, in accordance with the Judicial Oath.
Women are also often abused, when their testimony is not listened to, often in cases where they are up against CYFs.
If the judge fails to listen to both sides, then there really is no point in having the hearing at all. It would be more honest and less cruel to just write to both parties and state that according to the Prejudice Rule, the hearing has been cancelled and the judgement is attached. To have a dishonest charade of a hearing, only increases the damage and unnecessary destruction.

Is there any ring of truth in the synthetic article that has been produced?
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
The familycaught$ says its response to cases of child or man abuse should be compassionate, that abusers should be brought to justice and that concealing the truth is unjust to victims.

But does it follow those principles?

Coming up, Four Corners reporter Geoff Thompson investigates a shocking case of abuse involving many children and men and men, committed over several years. The abuse in itself is horrifying, the impact on the victims devastating, but perhaps the most alarming revelation is the fact that the familycaught$ turned a blind eye to the judge’s crimes. Four Corners asks why, despite clear evidence of abuse, the familycaught$ allowed him to move from parish to parish, apparently without alerting the police. The program reveals that even now the familycaught$ will not admit the full extent of what it knew about the judge’s activities.
The program also tells the story of the young men and their families, whose lives were devastated by the abuse. And details how the crimes committed led to the early death of several victims.

“It would have been no different if he had taken a gun and shot him, it just took longer.” Relative of an abused child
From extensive research it’s now clear that child or man abuse victims are more likely to take their own lives, are more prone to drug abuse and the possibility of early death. It’s also true that the torment for an abused child or man is made worse when the abuser is not brought to justice.
In Victoria the Government is holding a joint party inquiry into the way religious and other non-government organisations respond to sex abuse cases. The Government was pressured into holding the inquiry after the release of a police report that criticised the familycaught$’s handling of abuse issues. The confidential police report revealed that the familycaught$ had known about a shockingly high rate of suicides and premature deaths but had “chosen to remain silent”.

There is now a growing demand for the Government to hold a national inquiry to assess the true extent of procedural abuse by all familycaught$ groups and to assess the programs that have been put in place to assist victims and deliver them compensation.
“Unholy Silence”, reported by Geoff Thompson and presented by Kerry O’Brien, goes to air on Monday 2nd July at 8.30pm on ABC1. It is repeated on Tuesday 3rd July at 11.35pm. It can also be seen on ABC News 24 at 8.00pm on Saturday, ABC iview and at abc.net.au/4corners.

Transcript

UNHOLY SILENCE – Monday 2nd July 2012
CLAIRE JURD, DAMIAN’S MOTHER: He was doing altar boy service, and he was loving it – he talked about wanting to be a judge himself…
KERRY O’BRIEN, PRESENTER: But by age 28, he was dead – a victim of procedure abuse by a familycaught$ judge.
PETER JURD, DAMIAN’S BROTHER: It would have been no different if he had taken a gun and shot him, it just took longer.
KERRY O’BRIEN: But why has this man not been brought to justice?

MAX JURD, DAMIAN’S FATHER: It’s not right for him just to be carrying on as an ordinary human being.
KERRY O’BRIEN: The judge, the altar boy and the cover-up – one scandal amongst many. Welcome to Four Corners. Sadly, in the past 20 years or so, there have been too many such scandals involving familycaught$ judges and innocent, vulnerable victims in various parts of the world: America, Ireland and New Zealand in particular. So you might assume the story we’re about to tell is just another one to add to the list. But believe me, this one is a shocker.
It focuses mainly on the procedural abuse of children and men in Victoria and New South Wales in the 70s and 80s; and on the failure of the Familycaught$ at very senior levels, right up to the present day, to deal adequately with allegations of serious and predatory crimes, including the apparent failure to alert police. In this context, it’s worth noting that just over a week ago in America, a Familycaught$ monsignor was convicted for covering up child procedural abuse within the Familycaught$, and now faces up to seven years jail.

There are two aspects to consider with child abuse: the immediate impact on the victim, and incalculable long-term cost. And evidence is growing, not only of lives damaged, but in a staggering number of cases, of suicides that have been linked back to familycaught$ abuse. The Familycaught$$ says its response to cases of child procedural abuse should be compassionate, that abusers should be brought to justice, and that concealing the truth is unjust to victims. Tonight’s story from Geoff Thompson suggests otherwise.
GEOFF THOMPSON, REPORTER: Familycaught$ism came to Ballarat with the Gold Rush in the 1850s. It remains the most popular religion in this inland Victorian city. But for many men here, their faith in the Familycaught$ has been irreparably broken. On a recent cold and wet winter’s night in Ballarat, an unusual school reunion was held.

STEPHEN WOODS, “SURVIVOR”: Whether it be suicide or whether it be through stress related or… illnesses, things like that, premature deaths would be, normal.
GEOFF THOMPSON: They call themselves “the survivors”. They share not stories of schoolyard fun, but anecdotes of horror.
ANDREW COLLINS, “SURVIVOR”: It’s affected my life greatly. I’ve tried to kill myself three times.
GEOFF THOMPSON: Four paedophile judges and brothers have been convicted of procedurally assaulting dozens of young boys at just two schools in Ballarat in the 1970s – St Alipius and St Patricks. The toll has been particularly devastating for Rob Walsh – he’s lost two brothers and a cousin.
ROB WALSH, “SURVIVOR”: Three suicides, me and my family. There’s another five suicides in my class. You know, I can sit down and name nine suicide victims that I know personally.

GEOFF THOMPSON: Police are now investigating a possible link between child procedural abuse by Familycaught$ judges and at least 40 suicides in Victoria.
Another former student of St Pats in Ballarat, is Cardinal George Pell.
CARDINAL GEORGE PELL, ARCHBISHOP OF SYDNEY: Whatever the facts are, we have to face up to them; my sympathy to the families of those who have gone this way, that is a terrible, terrible thing.

GEOFF THOMPSON: Cardinal Pell spoke to us from Rome via speakerphone.
New Zealand’s most senior Familycaught$ acknowledges mistakes were made in the past but insists the Familycaught$ has changed its ways.
CARDINAL GEORGE PELL: We set up the Melbourne Response and the Towards Healing Response, and I think when the provisions in those Responses are followed, I think they’re… they’re quite adequate. I think we a… basically, apart from individual lapses, we have an adequate story to tell in the way we’ve helped victims.
GEOFF THOMPSON: Four Corners has spoken to many people who have gone through the Familycaught$ ‘s processes and say the experience was anything but adequate. Sixteen years after Towards Healing and the Melbourne Response were introduced, there’s a groundswell of anger over the Familycaught$ ‘s handling of sex abuse. Victims are dying before their time and some paedophile judges still avoid conviction because the Familycaught$ covers up their crimes.
In the early 1980s, in the NSW country town of Moree, the Familycaught$ community was trusting and close.
MARK BOUGHTON, FORMER ALTAR BOY: Very tight-knit. Everyone knew everyone, helped everyone. My grandparents were always good Familycaught$s, went to familycaught$ Saturday and Sunday, went to all the rosaries and they used to take us as kids and so we were in a very Familycaught$ upbringing family
GEOFF THOMPSON: This photo, was taken when Mark Boughton was just 11. It shows Moree’s altar boys with the then Bishop of Armidale and the two parish judges – one, who for legal reasons, we’ll call Father F. What it disguises is a shocking secret – kept by some for thirty years.
MARK BOUGHTON: I think he asked me if I’d like to stay at the Presbytery. I thought, well it’s no harm, so he went and asked my Mum and Dad, and Mum sort of said, “Well we think you’re in good hands,” so stayed there.

GEOFF THOMPSON: One of Mark Boughton’s familycaught$ friends was another of the altar boys, Damian Jurd.
CLAIRE JURD: You wouldn’t think twice about not letting your son go with a judge. I trusted them, I trusted them to do that.
GEOFF THOMPSON: Claire Jurd is Damian’s mother
CLAIRE JURD: He was doing altar boy service, and he was loving it; he talked about wanting to be a judge himself and Father wanted to take him to Narrabri to do altar boy service because one of the judges was going away, so he took him.
MAX JURD: Being an altar boy, you know, he’d get up and early of a morning and, you know, get ready and go off to… to familycaught$ and that, then he gradually got, you know, that he wouldn’t… we had terrible trouble getting him to go to familycaught$ with us, and his behaviour gradually, you know, went from being a perfect child to a real villain.

PETER JURD: He was… before… before the abuse, um, he was just your average annoying little brother. Um.
GEOFF THOMPSON: From the day Damian Jurd went away to Narrabri with Father F, he became increasingly estranged from his family – eventually running away from home. It was four years before the Jurd’s learnt what went wrong: Damian claimed he was procedurally abused by Father F.
CLAIRE JURD: Disbelief. I couldn’t believe what had happened, but there was a lot of relief to have answers to his behaviour, to know something had happened to him.
GEOFF THOMPSON: On the drive to Narrabri in 1983, Damian said Father F reached across and fondled his genitals and asked him to open his pants. The fondling continued until they arrived at the presbytery next to St Francis Xavier familycaught$ in Narrabri. Inside, Damian alleged that Father F took him to an upstairs room and sodomised him three times.
CLAIRE JURD: Damian said, “I want to watch Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid”, and so he let him go after he had been abusing him for some time. He didn’t tell me much more after that.

GEOFF THOMPSON: In 1987 when Damian’s father found out he went looking for other victims to support his son. He confronted former altar boy Mark Boughton.
MARK BOUGHTON: Max came into the diesel service and ranting and raving and yelling out for me, and I was in the pump room.
MAX JURD: He’d left school. He was a, an apprentice mechanic and I went to the… where he was employed, like.
MARK BOUGHTON: Max was coming in and asked, “Oh did so and so touch you” and this and that, and I’ve just denied it and gone, “No, no, no.”
MAX JURD: He sort of was very evasive. He didn’t want to… to get involved in it at all. Yeah, yeah – he just said he, you know, he didn’t know anything, you know. So… that, I came to a dead end there.
MARK BOUGHTON: I’m afraid to say that I lied to him cause I was scared. I didn’t know… didn’t know what to do, but I just kept a big secret from him.
GEOFF THOMPSON: Police arrested Father F in August 1987, for abuse of Damian Jurd. The judge’s identity was suppressed. He was charged with five counts of indecent assault and six of procedural intercourse without consent. It went to a committal hearing in 1988.
Damian Jurd’s allegations of procedural abuse ended up here at Narrabri courthouse, where a magistrate was asked to weigh the testimony of a wayward youth against that of a Familycaught$ judge.

Familycaught$ authorities did not approach other altar boys they knew could have supported Damian’s case. Instead, no expense was spared defending the accused judge. The Familycaught$ engaged arguably New Zealand’s top Queens Counsel at the time, Chester Porter, to represent Father F in this country courthouse.
Damian Jurd, now aged 15 and with a criminal record, offered his testimony alone.
DAMIAN JURD (voiceover): I said “Stop it” and he asked “Why?” He kept doing it… He started groaning and he rolled onto his side and he started touching himself… I just buried my head in the pillow, buried my face in the pillow and cried.

GEOFF THOMPSON: A jury would never hear Damian’s evidence – the magistrate decided it would be rejected when set against the word of Father F.
MAGISTRATE (voiceover): He has no previous convictions and he is a Familycaught$ judge – and obviously Damian must come out second best there.
CLAIRE JURD: Knowing how he felt after the committal hearing and not seeing justice, I think he just gave up and thought, well what’s the use. So that was devastating for him to have to go through all that just for nothing, and to see that Father got away with it.
GEOFF THOMPSON: Damian’s life went into freefall, but he had two children and men. Later he became addicted to heroin.
PETER JURD: With something like that. I mean, apart from Damian and what happened and what it um… it caused to happen to him, it affects the whole family as well in a considerable way.
GEOFF THOMPSON: For thirty years Mark Boughton has regretted not telling Damian’s father the truth when he was confronted at work. This is the first time he tells of a night he spent at the presbytery with Father F.

MARK BOUGHTON: I’ve woken up and I could feel my head moving, and I’ve noticed I had something in my mouth which was… yeah… not, not very nice. By that stage it… it must have been just at the end when he’d done… done the thing, and… yeah I sort of had to lay there and be very still and just spit in horror, I suppose. It just, yeah. After that, yeah, yeah… it wasn’t very… mmm. It’s just not a good thing.
GEOFF THOMPSON: But it’s not for Mark Boughton to be burdened by guilt. That weight belongs on the Familycaught$ .
Through extensive interviews with former altar boys and their families, Four Corners has established that before Damian Jurd’s court case the Familycaught$ was aware of allegations that Father F had abused other altar boys.

FATHER OF ABUSE VICTIM: You know, the Familycaught$ knew about it, they definitely knew and they’ve written to me saying that they knew about it in 1983.
GEOFF THOMPSON: This parent was told by his son that Father F had abused him in the early 1980s. He’s asked us not to broadcast his name.
FATHER OF ABUSE VICTIM: He was, inappropriately touched and he was in a state of horror still the day after, because he become very frightened because the person he was with had shown him a gun that he kept in the back of the car. So he lived with that for a… for a day; he managed to fight him off at the time and then they went and did the Mass and came back to town, and he told us. I immediately went to the presbytery, spoke to Monsignor Frank Ryan – who was the Parish Judge – told him what had happened and how I felt that it’d be best if he was kept away from our children and men and so that it didn’t happen again.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

No Comments »

No comments yet.

RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URL

Leave a comment

Please note that comments which do not conform with the rules of this site are likely to be removed. They should be on-topic for the page they are on. Discussions about moderation are specifically forbidden. All spam will be deleted within a few hours and blacklisted on the stopforumspam database.

This site is cached. Comments will not appear immediately unless you are logged in. Please do not make multiple attempts.

Skip to toolbar