Orphanage a place of horror, says claimant

A woman suing the Catholic Church for alleged sexual, physical and emotional abuse sobbed loudly and became too distressed to speak as she gave evidence in the High Court at Wellington yesterday.

The woman, who has name suppression, appeared distraught when she was called on to read evidence detailing her years at St Joseph's Orphanage in Upper Hutt, and when asked to name a man she alleges sexually abused her.

She is claiming $550,000 in damages, plus interest and costs, from the church and other Catholic agencies.

Justice Marion Frater called several adjournments during the first day of the case, expected to take three weeks, so the 45-year-old woman could compose herself.

Suppression orders also prohibit publication of the names of nuns and men accused of abusing her.

Named as defendants are the Catholic Archdiocese of Wellington, Catholic Social Services (CSS), the Sisters of Mercy (Wellington) Trust Board and St Joseph's Orphanage Trust Board. All deny the allegations.

The woman claims that as a child she was often beaten at the orphanage, and was verbally and emotionally abused almost daily by some nuns.

She said she had been sexually abused at the orphanage, and again at foster homes arranged by CSS. "She was literally at the mercy of the nuns," said the woman's lawyer, Helen Cull, QC.

Ms Cull said the church and Catholic Social Services held themselves to be caring, Christian organisations, but they had been negligent in not providing that care.

The woman said she was one of seven children and remembered a happy home, but her father drank and hit her mother.

After being taken to a Salvation Army home when the marriage ended, she and a sister were taken to St Joseph's in 1968. She remained there until 1973.

She said she remembered the fear and horror of her time there, and the nuns' religious focus. "I remember hating God."

She had recently remembered a man at the orphanage making her perform oral sex on him. Afterwards she had vomited, and been very upset.

The woman gave evidence about Catholic foster care, saying one man had asked her to swim nude and asked her to put her hands down the front of his trousers, and she had been raped - including, when she was a teenager, by her drunken grandfather.

She said she did not tell anyone because "there was no one to tell. I felt at the time the nuns hated me."

She said the emotional abuse continued at St Mary's College and she began abusing alcohol and, to a lesser degree, drugs.

The mother of two sons, who now lives overseas, filed her lawsuit in 2001, after being given her file from the orphanage in 1999. She said it triggered many devastating memories.