Arthur Gorrie
“It’s good he’s dead. He can’t hurt anyone anymore.”
Gympie victim of extreme institutional child abuse, Joe Kiernan, was talking about the once revered entertainer Rolf Harris, who died in disgrace recently.
Mr Kiernan suffered extreme physical and psychological abuse as an inmate of the Neerkol orphanage near Rockhampton, an instituion so evil its grounds included a cemetery for the children who died there.
Now a grazing property, most signs of the horror of its past are now no longer visible.
But Mr Kiernan remembers and his evidence is now on record after the Royal Commission into Institutional responses to Child Sexual Abuse.
Now the death of Rolf Harris has brought back the horror – and the anger.
His evidence at the royal commission riveted those who heard it from the public gallery of the Rockhampton courthouse.
The memories are still vivid and horrific for Mr Kiernan, who was placed in the Neerkol orphanage at the age of seven.
The Children’s Services Department put him there after telling his mother he would not live long “and she should just forget about me.”
The Sisters of Mercy nuns and former orphanage employee Kevin Baker allegedly punished Joseph for simple things.
Joseph told the Royal Commission that former groundsman Kevin Baker allegedly pushed him down a flight of stairs. Mr Baker has denied these allegations of abuse.
The inquiry heard that one Friday, Joe had returned to the orphanage after school felling unwell.
The following day he vomited over the floor.
One of the sisters allegedly forced him onto his hands and knees and made him lick it up, before hitting him across the back of his head.
Years of sexual abuse by men and women associated with the orphanage left him so damaged he said he often needed medication to sleep.
After years of searching, he found his mother at Hervey Bay and also met other family members for the first time.
“I’m pleased he’s dead,” he told Gympie Today on Tuesday this week.
“They can run and hide but eventually it catches up with them. That’s what my doctor said to me.”
“I used to like him. I had a record of his, but I threw it away.
“Some say he went to the UK because he hoped he wouldn’t be caught out if he went overseas.”
Harris died at 93 after a long battle with cancer.
Around the world, out of legions of former fans, few people cried at the news.
“He’s a disgrace,” said Mr Kiernan.
“These people damage our lives, and for all the rest of our lives.
“But the law seems more concerned about them than their victims. And the perpetrators don’t care either.
“They don’t care about the victims.
“So these people don’t care. They know they’re doing wrong, but they do it anyway,” he said.
Joe now had serious doubts about the faith in which he was raised, but still believes we all get what we deserve.
“Now he’ll be getting his just desserts,” Mr Kiernan said.