Brother McGrath ruined my life. I’m really angry about the abuse. I have sometimes taken that anger out on other people, which has made me end up in prison.

I have got tattoos all over my body, to try to kill the pain.

Child Welfare was involved with my family before I was born, because of domestic violence within the home. Despite Child Welfare being involved, nothing changed.

I suffered significant abuse growing up in Social Welfare care, including repeated rapes at Campbell Park School. I disclosed this abuse and a number of other victims came forward. When I was 15, in 1988, I was a witness in a trial about what happended to me at Campbell Park School. He was found not guilty, although I understand that he has more recently been found guilty of similar offending.

I was around 15 years old, basically living on the streets and hanging out with other street kids. I was abusing alcohol, drugs and solvents. It was during this time I first met Brother Bernard McGrath, who groomed and later abused me for several years.

He would come around and invite the street kids to his house owned by the St John of God Brothers, for food or a bed. He started getting really close to me, like a friend. After a while, he would also invite me to have community meals with the other brothers or staff.

I ended up living at Hebron Trust on and off from age 15 through to age 19. Social Welfare was involved in placing me at Hebron Trust and supervising me while I was there.

Over the next three or four years, Brother McGrath sexually assaulted me hundreds of times – mostly in the monastery sleeping quarters, but also in other places. He would do it whenever he could, at least every fortnight. He was totally opportunistic.

During these sexual assaults, Brother McGrath was demanding. He made me perform oral sex on him, and sometimes ordered me to have penetrative sex with him. He nearly always anally raped me during these assaults, standing on the bed behind me.

Most of the time, Brother McGrath put a scarf in my mouth and taped my mouth shut with duct tape before raping me, so I wouldn’t make any noise. He also handcuffed me to the bed and blindfolded me. After I was bound, gagged and trussed up, he became violent, sometimes choking me. I often thought I was going to die.

Before the first rape, and before many of the other ones, Brother McGrath put some sort of drug in my drink, which made me dizzy. He also gave me a lot of alcohol (beer, Jack Daniels and Coke) and pills, like Rivotril, as a bribe to get me to do what he wanted and to lower my inhibitions, or as a reward afterwards.

Brother McGrath told me not to tell anybody about the abuse. I was too scared of him to tell anyone, I thought he might kill me if I tried. Even if I told, who would believe a street kid? We were considered scum by the police. I don’t think the other street kids would have believed me either.

I was supposedly receiving drug and alcohol counselling from Brother McGrath, but he was actually giving me drugs and alcohol on a regular basis, in order to abuse me.

Brother McGrath presented himself as my advocate, mentor, counsellor and support person. He was my ‘responsible adult’ that handled communications and clothing grants from DSW social workers and communications from my appointed lawyer. He attended Family Group Conferences with me and encouraged the court to remand me in his custody to carry out community work. He was widely respected in the community, and this made me feel more alone because nobody would believe me if I tried to report the abuse to anyone.

I was trapped, totally dependent on Brother McGrath for accommodation, food and support. I had nowhere else to go and no one to turn to.

The abuse from Brother McGrath only stopped when I built up the courage to stand up to him by throwing a glass at his head in front of the other street kids, telling him to leave me alone and never touch me again.

In late 1992 or early 1993, when I was about 19 or 20, I reported the abuse. Because I spoke up, an investigation was carried out, and other Hebron residents came forward and went to the police about him abusing them.

Brother McGrath was eventually arrested and in December 1993, he pleaded guilty to abusing Hebron residents in 1991, as well as two former Marylands School students that had come forward as part of the investigation.

I have really vivid, horrible flashbacks to the abuse most days. Even though I try not to, I have to think about it. It’s like I am reliving the rapes all over again, every day. I hear voices sometimes too, which is really upsetting. My sleep used to be terrible too, because I always had nightmares about all the abuse. It has destroyed me and scarred me for life. It makes me sick. I use sleeping pills now.

I’m always anxious, on edge, paranoid and jumpy and have PTSD. I can’t handle being touched, which makes me have problems socialising and impacts how I have intimate relationships with women.

I joined Black Power while I was in prison and became a patched member, for about 15 years. I’ve been in and out of prison since 1992, mostly for short periods due to violent offending. When I am not in prison, I mostly live on the streets or with the gang. I don’t really have anyone in the community to support me. Both my parents are deceased, and I don’t have anything to do with my siblings. The abuse made me constantly angry, so I pushed people away.

I avoid all the food that I was groomed with too – things like KFC, fish & chips, chippies and chocolate.

I suffer from low self-esteem and depression. I have self-harmed and I have attempted suicide a number of times, mostly by overdosing.

I have difficulty with reading and writing. I never received a good education and I find it hard to hold down a job. I have qualifications in painting and decorating, and I’ve had some work as a musician in some pub bands. I’m not good with money and I find it hard to cope in the community.

I have been trying to give up alcohol and cannabis. When I drink, I get mean and wild, because I think about the abuse I suffered. I have had times where I have also abused harder drugs, like heroin, just because I am around people who do it.

I want to make this statement so that I can get it all out in the open. I hope that telling my story will help someone, and that it will set me free as it is still affecting me to this day.

I had some settlement money and a face-to-face apology from the Order. But nothing can replace what happened to me. It should’ve been Brother McGrath apologising to me – the damage was already done.

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^[248] Witness statement of Justin Taia, WIT0759001 (Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care, 8 November 2022)