Pieter says one of the worst things about the abuse he suffered was how unpredictable it was
All names and identifying details have been changed.
Participants have given us permission to share their experiences.
Pieter was taken into care as a toddler in the 1960s.
He was subjected to extreme sadistic cruelty and abuse by the Catholic nuns who ran the children’s home.
Pieter’s earliest memories are of the nuns making a fuss of him.
He thinks he was about four years old when this changed. He remembers walking down the stairs when one of the nuns knocked him down and shouted at him, with words to the effect that he thought he was the nicest child in the home, but she would see to it that he was not.
Pieter remembers ‘I didn’t cry … I think I was in shock’ and he adds ‘From then on I was never picked up … the nun seemed to have it in for me … she started saying I was the “Devil’s child”’.
He describes how the other nuns began to join in with the abuse, and how frightening, cold and unpredictable his world became.
As Pieter got a little older, the nuns would sometimes come for him at night. He describes the anxiety this caused him. ‘Sometimes it was every night … sometimes I’d sit up waiting for them and they didn't come.’
The nuns would take Pieter to the church and make him kneel and say the Lord’s Prayer. As he did this they would hit him and verbally abuse him. On one occasion, he remembers ‘I must have wet myself, then they went mad, beating me with things … they left me with disinfectant and a small scrubbing brush to clean the floor … said I hadn't done it properly so made me do it again’.
Pieter attended school outside the home. He found it hard to concentrate and his work deteriorated. This was reported back to the nuns who used it as a reason to punish him even more. ‘They ruled supreme’ Pieter says.
The physical and emotional abuse escalated and Pieter started trying to hide as much as he could. He remembers stealing some of the sacramental wine and drinking it, and being caught and severely punished.
At some point, the nuns began sexually abusing him. They would make him strip naked and laugh as they squeezed his ‘private parts’. He remembers feeling sick with the pain.
He was forced into cold baths and the nuns would hold his head under the water. He says ‘The laughing was the worst thing, they would take turns holding me under and laugh like it was a big joke’.
Pieter describes one occasion when he and another boy ran away, but they were found by the police and taken back to the home. At first they were bewildered not to be punished but during the night the nuns dragged Pieter out of bed and brutally physically abused him.
From that day, Pieter says he began to rebel and would hit back at the nuns. He gradually became too big for them to handle, and around this time the home began taking on male staff.
One of these men was kind to Pieter at first, but he started coming into his room at night and touching him sexually. The abuse escalated; Pieter says ‘he did everything’. But he did not say anything because ‘I felt he really cared for me and showed me love’.
When Pieter was about 13, he was moved to another home where he was sexually abused by another man. He chose not to share details of this, but says that he was involved in a court case against the perpetrator.
Pieter is still deeply affected by the abuse he suffered as a child. The impacts include flashbacks and a speech impediment which becomes more pronounced when he is anxious. He is convinced this was caused by the terror he so often felt as a child.
He feels strongly that children’s homes should be smaller, with an increased focus on scrutiny of the staff. He believes that people who have experienced abuse themselves would be well-placed to support inspections into children’s homes.
Peter adds that he has sympathy for the difficulties faced by social workers. He says ‘It’s easy to point the finger at them when things go wrong’ and that he would like to see their caseloads reduced.