Examination of Witnesses (Questions 220
- 239)
WEDNESDAY 11 JUNE 1998
MR ROGER
SINGLETON, CBE, CHRISTOPHER
FISHER, MR
DAVID LOVELL,
MR NIGEL
HAYNES, MRS
PATRICIA MCGROGAN,
MS CAROLINE
ABRAHAMS and MAJOR
RAY OAKLEY.
220 Do you feel to any extent that it was because the British
Government at the time felt that following the war it had an obligation
to Canada and Australia and if they needed additional people,
it was valuable for us to be able to supply them?
—(Canon Fisher) I think there is evidence certainly,
and I cannot speak for Canada because that is outside my experience,
but from the Australian point of view, I certainly think that
there was a pull from Australia to repopulate. Was it the Prime
Minister who said: "Populate or perish"? They had just
been invaded by Japan and were very aware that their population
was very small, that it was an inadequate population for the size
of the country and they were doing everything they could to swell
their population. I have an uncle in the family who emigrated
to Australia and there was a big drive after the war for families
to go to Australia with assisted passages at £10 per head
to go to Australia, in which some of my family took part, so I
do not think in those circumstances that the child migration was
seen as anything unusual. In hindsight, we can see all the disadvantages
that there were. I know you have had evidence, very emotional
evidence, going back on to the past and the bad experience of
being migrated, but conditions in England were not very good at
the time. I was in a boarding school in England in 1948 and when
I read some of the stories of the experience of migrants in the
homes that they were in in Australia, I would not know which book
I was reading. They were the same conditions in public schools
in England at the time in terms of cold-water showers, a very
inadequate diet, outdoor working in the fields and all the other
things that went on, so I think we really have to look at the
historical context of this and what we need to do today is to
ensure that the agencies today are responding in an appropriate
way.
Dr Stoate221
I have listened very carefully to your views on whether there
has been a cover-up or not and I take that on board, except frankly
I am not sure how useful that is. We took some very emotive evidence
last week and it really was very harrowing and I do not think
there was a dry eye in the house and I think we were all shocked
to hear what we heard last week. Sure, attitudes have changed
towards child-rearing and that is understandable, and obviously
conditions for some children in England would have been fairly
brutal as well, but it is a matter of trust and if we are going
to move forward, we have to tackle the matter of trust. There
was a cover-up quite clearly. From the evidence we took last week,
there was no doubt that there was a cover-up and there was the
deliberate alteration and falsification of records, there was
the deliberate destruction of records, and there were child-minders
who said when their parents had gone back to collect them that
the children had either been lost, adopted, they did not know
where they were, they might have died and there was no way they
could be traced, despite the fact that the sending agencies knew
precisely where these children were and they sent them anyway.
That was quite clearly prima facie evidence of a deliberate cover-up.
Then we move on to what to do about this and that is the question
I would like to ask really. What can the sending agencies now
do to try and put back that trust? When we asked the migrants
last week whether they would go back to the sending agencies to
try and get records, they said: "We would not trust the sending
agencies to deal with our cases sensitively. We cannot rely on
them now to tell us the truth when they clearly didn't before."
When we broached the subject of setting up a database of former
child migrants, they said: "Fine, but it must not be in the
hands of the sending agencies again because we cannot trust what
they might do with the data, what data they might have and what
data they might falsify". Now, if we are going to make progress
in this inquiry in terms of what lessons can we learn and what
we can now do, it is a matter of what the sending agencies can
do to restore that trust and to rebuild that confidence so that
the child migrants feel that their cases will be dealt with sympathetically.
We have heard from the Child Migrants' Trust in previous sessions
who clearly are trusted by the migrants as being an agency working
on their behalf, but what they must now do is to see what can
we do with the agencies, what can the agencies do really to convince
the migrants that they are working on the same side so that we
all make progress because until we have got over that barrier,
it does not matter how you deny any cover-ups because they simply
will not believe you. So what I would like to ask you all really
is what can you now do not just to talk about the denial of cover-ups,
but to make meaningful inroads into trust for the former Child
Migrants?
—(Mr Haynes) I accept that and I think that is a
very positive lead forward. I am delighted that we are moving
into the future rather than the past because that is the way it
is going to work, but I think it is not just we, but I think there
is also a recognition by the British and other involved governments
that there are responsibilities in the historical sense and also,
if you like, in an administrative and an enabling sense for the
future. Quite a lot of us have all said that neither do we have
the funds and nor, in our case, do we have the experience to move
forward, however, we have the will and the commitment to do so.
I believe that if you are going to move satisfactorily forward,
then government action and funding is required to build the networks.
Now, the detail of that can be got through. We have heard about
reluctance from former migrants to approach, if you like, the
sending agencies, and rightly so. If you are also dealing with
the question of identity, and in many cases some of the Australian
migrants still have not got past this, you have got to get statutory
power in behind this. You have heard also about the business of,
if you like, the enabling processes, and we would need access
into government documents to speed up tracing and locating. We
have also got the business of counsel and support. A government
agency could be able to centralise that and enable the process,
using all the sending agencies who have committed themselves to
assisting as far as they can, but unless you take a lead both
in terms of legislation and indeed co-ordination, then it is going
to be extremely difficult for the disparate voluntary sector to
do anything cogent. We could come together with you in a working
force that would make it work and happen, but it has got to have
the lead of a clearing sort of system which needs to be developed
to get it to go.
Audrey Wise222
I am going to be very unpopular with the witnesses because I am
going to reopen the question of "That was then and this is
now and everybody's attitudes are different" because I do
not think that actually is the point. I was a child in 1948 and
I can tell you that I did not belong to that stratum of society
which sent children to boarding school and the sort of ethos which
was prevailing in my stratum of society did not approve of separating
children from parents and there was not such a big difference
in the attitudes about normal child-rearing as is being made out.
I have been feeling positively prehistoric, except that I know
I am not prehistoric, but I am rather extremely contemporary.
Furthermore, I was a mother long before this practice ceased and
so I know from my own experiences that what is being said about:
"This was all different then" simply is not true. I
will tell you what I think and what I want you to comment on,
that it is not a matter of different attitudes to child-rearing
as much as it is a question of power relationships and I tell
you and ask you to comment on the thing that it reminds me of.
It reminds me of how my grandmother was fighting against the separation
of elderly people when they went into the workhouse, husbands
separated from wives at the door of the workhouse, which went
on a long, long time and did not finish in fact until my absolute
conscious life, and this separation of parents and children and
the hiding of the situation, you could not do it with elderly
people because they would know they were being separated, but
the children did not know what had happened to their parents,
nor the parents to their children, but I believe that it is exactly
the same kind of power relationship that was being exercised then
and that that is far more the case than different attitudes to
child-upbringing. I would like your comments on that because that
is of very contemporary significance because unless there is an
acceptance of the need to alter the nature of these power relationships,
then this kind of thing will be repeated in some other way and
I am not convinced that there is an acceptance of this and I believe
that it is being replicated and, as the questioning goes on, I
will perhaps ask you about certain examples of that. The question
also is reinforced, in my view, by some of the evidence given
by Barnado's itself which says on page 4 that "child migration
was historically seen as best practice, although there was some
contemporary dissent". Now, I would dearly like to have that
elaborated on because that is about the only reference I can see
that disturbs this "Everybody thought it was wonderful",
and the people to whom it was happening did not have a chance
to express a view about whether it was, and neither did their
representatives on local councils, etcetera. Then there is also,
and I am grateful to Barnardo's for the honesty of their evidence,
on page 2, paragraphs 2.25 and 2.26, a reference to children going
to Canada and "while their lives were hard", so there
is an acknowledgement that they were being sent to hard lives.
Then in 1889 there was concern about abuse and someone was sent
from Barnardo's to try and look at this question of abuse and
it clearly included sexual abuse because one of the remedies being
attempted was locks being fitted to bedroom doors. That is 1889.
Now, I think that that is evidence of things going wrong early
and we have not had evidence of adequate attention to it. That
is one thing. It clearly did not work and an annual inspection
was no adequate protection for those children, so I want to be
extremely challenging about this. If the dangers were not seen,
the next question is were not seen by whom? The people to whom
it was happening did not have a chance to express a view and are
you willing to accept that there is this power relationship difference
and will you or do you accept that and alter your current practice?
I will come on later to how I want to challenge you and say that
it does not seem to me from your own evidence that you actually
are.
—(Mr Singleton) Could I perhaps take the post-war
point that the Member made first of all? We have tried to put
forward what the evidence shows us and I have to slightly break
my own rule and be a little speculative, I think, at this point,
but in trying to understand what you said from the agencies' point
of view, the 1948 Children Act had an enormous impact on local
government practice. I do not believe that it had a similar impact
on the practice of some of the voluntary organisations who were
involved in migration. I believe that that took some considerable
time and I can elaborate on that if you wish, Chairman, but I
will just move on for the moment. The evidence from Barnardo's
is that views were mixed internally on the merits of migration
post-war. A group of professionals in the organisation were clearly
uneasy about it, but the senior management and the trustees were
very keen on it and when in 1953 the man who was in my, as it
were, chief executive position, retired and went to Australia,
that was seen as an ideal opportunity to boost the whole of the
child migration programme. It did not in fact happen, but that
was the climate in which it was actually operating. I think outside
the migration societies then, the Committee, I am sure, will be
familiar with the debate in 1959, with the work of the Overseas
Migration Board and the encouragement, which I think I have to
say, that that Board gave to child migration, so that if you put
together the varying attitudes with some legislative encouragement,
and my recollection of the 1959 adjournment debate was that six
MPs spoke and they all spoke in support of child migration, enabled,
as it were, some people who believed it was right to continue
to promote and practise it. If I can go back now into the history,
the reference that was made about somebody going in 1889, that
actually followed the discovery that a man running the Barnardo's
receiving home in Canada was actually interfering sexually with
girls. He was sent to prison under Canadian law and the particular
initiative that you referred to was then undertaken. I am in no
doubt that issues of sexual abuse, whenever they came to the attention
of the management of the organisation, were rigorously dealt with.
Matters of what we would today call physical abuse, I think, were
seen much more in the context of a much rougher, tougher world
that existed at the time and would be perceived far less seriously
than we would perceive them now. My third comment is that I think
I am slightly puzzled about what you are referring to in relation
to contemporary work and power relationships, so I cannot comment
at this stage.223 I will come on to it.
Mr Austin224
I want to reiterate what others have said, that none of us here
would claim that anybody who is giving evidence was responsible
for what your agencies did at the time and I certainly do share
the perspective which has been put forward by Audrey Wise about
the changes and the fact that it is not just a question of changing
perceptions today. John Gunnell, in his question, referred to
the political and economic responsibilities that perhaps Britain
felt to the dominions after the war. One of the key issues which
has not been mentioned, or very rarely mentioned, is the basic
racist nature of the whole migration policy and I think the Archbishop
of Perth was fairly explicit in that, about populating Australia
with "our own white stock to keep out the alien Asiatic hordes",
so I think there clearly was a racist and post-colonial continuation
of empire kind of philosophy behind the whole migration scheme.
I wondered to what extent your agencies were not only aware of
that and partly complicit in that, but to what extent, as child-care
agencies, you were aware of what was happening to the children
of the indigenous population of the countries where you were sending
children?
—(Mr Haynes) Could you clarify the question as to
whether we were aware of what was happening to the indigenous
children of the population?225 For example, the stolen generation
of Aboriginal children.
—(Mr Haynes) I am afraid I will have to take advice
from people who were there at the time.
—(Mr Singleton) If I can help in that, we have come
across no evidence at all to indicate that there was any awareness
of the plight of the Aboriginal children. I think, and I can say
so from my own visits to Australia over a period of about 20 years,
Australians themselves have only become aware of that relatively
recently. On the racist point, unquestionably the Australian Government's
all-white policy was rampantly racist, there can be no doubt about
that, and insofar as, therefore, only white children were emigrated,
yes, the agencies did collude with that policy. I have in fact
here a schedule from the mid-1950s that lists the number of children
who were being considered for migration and 49 who were being
considered in 1954 were not proceeded with because, in the language
of the time, they were referred to as "half-castes".
—Mr Austin: There is another point I wanted to come on to
which is that we have had some suggestion about cover-up and I
think it was Sir William Utting, when he was giving evidence to
us about abuse in children's homes here, who said that he thought
that there had been a period of ignorance which had been followed
by denial. If there was not perhaps a cover-up, has there in a
sense been a period of denial on the part of the agencies concerned
or has it just not been high enough on your list of priorities?
I think that Fairbridge were saying that the concerns of today's
children dominate for whatever reasons over and above the concern
for those who were previously the children. I picked up the point
of the reference to sensationalism in television programmes and
I notice that one of the witnesses said that it was because people
felt it was untruthful. Witnesses have said they welcome this
inquiry. They have also said that it has only recently become
an issue, but from the evidence that other Members have mentioned
here, for the children, now adults, who were migrated, it has
been a life-long issue and we have just heard that there was contemporary
dissent about the policy, so I think I would like to ask the question
that the Chairman asked at the very beginning which was why has
it only recently become an issue and does it not give the child
migrants themselves some lack of confidence in your agencies when
you say you welcome this inquiry, but then talk about sensationalised
television programmes, and I think one of you referred to the
"media hype" about this situation? I want to ask whether
any of you think that this inquiry should be taking place today
and whether there would be the current interest in the welfare
of the child migrants if it had not been for what you have described
as sensationalised reporting and media hype?
Chairman226
I think that is directed at you, Mr Haynes, because you made that
point.
—(Mr Haynes) If I could come back, you have heard
evidence from former migrants which has obviously and rightly
moved you and made you understand more fully the situation, but
you have not actually drawn upon the majority of the child migrants,
and I understand that you as a group will be going to Australia
fairly shortly and will have a chance there to meet with the whole
Fairbridge associations. I myself went there at the time of the
film that came out and was met by a large number at the reunion
who said: "Do you realise what this is doing to our lives
because we have now integrated and settled," and the one
I was talking to was a professor of English at Seoul University.
He said his question now is: "Are we abused? Were we abused?"
and we are perhaps neglecting the impact on the large number that
are there whom I hope you will all meet. The question of whether
it was a matter of urgency amongst the societies I think also
turns back to the question of lobbying because Fairbridge in the
late 1960s after the legislation that took place following the
1948 Act and indeed if you get a statutory framework, you must
also look at the Empire Settlement Act of 1922 and then you must
also look at the infrastructure set up by the Commonwealth Government
and each state government that involved each child in its referral
processes, you must then look at the weekly sums paid into each
of the organisations by the governments, and you must look at
what happened in after-care because there was a network of after-care
within the agencies, certainly in Fairbridge, to visit every six
months to satisfy themselves that the young people were being
properly treated in welfare offices and that their after-care
provision was in place. A loan fund was set up and is in place
now, providing means for ex-Fairbridgeans to help them within
their systems in finding work. Getting down to the business of
abuse, we have one case of malpractice on the boards that we know
of at the present moment and that is to do with the trust fund
being appropriated for the use not designed for. Every migrant
with us put money into a savings account which was given to them
when they left their schools. I will turn also to the business
that it is not fair to put it in context and I quote from an article
published in The Guardian in 1987 written by a retired
children's officer who refers to what were the alternatives at
the time and goes into some considerable detail about how in this
country children deprived were sent to Victorian workhouses in
1948 to be cared for by mentally-handicapped inmates and lists
what was social practice at that time in this country. The last
bit I would like to put about the Fairbridge children was that
every child went with parental consent or consent received through
another agency and we have tried to address the problems of access
and the historical perspective as best we can within the resources
we have available. I think we must return, must we not, to the
future because what heartened me was the remit that this Select
Committee has about building the future, not the past.
—(Mr Lovell) I would like to try and pull a few
points together. When I came into child-care in the early 1960s,
the phenomenon of child sexual abuse was pretty well unrecognised
and was poorly understood by the social work child-care profession,
but gradually over a period of time, we have better understood
that phenomenon and are able to address that issue, and I would
like actually to relate that back to a point which Audrey Wise
was making about power relationships. One of the issues, I think,
in the slow recognition of that has been the issue about the extent
to which we, as professionals, have been prepared to listen to
children and to take seriously what they are saying to us, and
I think we have got better at that in the social work profession
and I think that is a cornerstone of practice today. If that is
absent, then we are not doing our jobs. I think Audrey Wise is
right actually to raise the issue of power relationships because
children very often, and not just child migrants, but all children
in the care system, are in a very powerless position with us as
adults and I think we have to take that on board and recognise
that in our practice and in the principles that we put together
to underpin our practice. I think that that has been a very good
issue. I sat here last week and listened to the stories of John
Hennessey and his colleagues and, like you, I was visibly shaken
by that and appalled by it and I do not seek to defend child migration.
I acknowledge it happened and I acknowledge that my agency was
involved in it. In trying to pull in this point about trust again,
to bring it back to trust and how you build trust, I think part
of that is about what I am doing today as somebody who was not
involved in it, but I have a responsibility for it, about how
I see the history and what my own interpretation is, what my approach
to the history is, and if I am not able to do that and to share
that with former child migrants, then trust will not build. That
is an important element of that and I think the Committee is right
to be exploring that with us because that is a key element of
how you build trust again. One of the issues that I heard last
week was clearly, and I understand that, that the Child Migrants'
Trust operates on the basis, and you have heard from former child
migrants, that they did not want anything to do with them, and
I can understand that and there will be some and I think that
in any arrangements about future services, that has to be recognised.
What I would also want to say to you is that there are some former
child migrants, as you may have heard and you may see when you
go to Australia, who actually do want to come back to the sending
agencies and I will say why. It is the same reason that anyone
who has a complaint about a past service wants to come back, that
they want to face us with it and they want to have it out with
us because that is the only way that they can actually deal with
it, and I think that we have a responsibility to be tough enough
to sit across the table from somebody, to recognise the pain they
have suffered and that is how they saw it and that, whatever our
view about it, to recognise and to accept that is how they felt
about it and to face them and have it out with them. I think there
are lots of people at the moment who do want to come back to sending
agencies for that reason and I think this is the plea for saying
that in any arrangements about services, I do make the plea not
to deny it and to give all former child migrants the opportunity
and the choice to come back to the sending agencies because some
of them will want to have it out with us, quite rightly, as part
of their healing and cathartic process. There will be others who
will not, and I understand that, and the provisions ought to accept
that, but I think that you are right about power relationships
and I think the core of it is the extent to which we are prepared
to listen to people and to really hear what they have got to tell
us and to be prepared, and to convince them that we are prepared,
to listen to them and to address that, and that is the only way
I know that you can build trust with people.
Mr Walter227
Those who read our report when we make it and consider our conclusions,
I think, will want to know that we asked the question why this
happened. I would go back to the question that was posed by John
Gunnell earlier on and lead on from that about whether or not
the British Government was the driving force in this or whether
the agencies themselves were the driving force, and perhaps extend
it to the receiving countries who obviously were providing some
form of financial assistance. I would like to pose the question
to those of you speaking for the agencies, although obviously
not speaking for your contemporary policies but who have access
to your records, as to whether or not you think that much of what
went on, particularly in the inter-war years and the post-war
years, was done for financial reasons rather than just altruistic
reasons, that in fact you had, as I think has been suggested,
a lot of children in children's homes and orphanages, as they
were called then, and that this was an easy way out, that there
was money on offer for you to ship these children to Australia
and New Zealand and, before the war, to Canada and whether you
think that those financial considerations were the ones that were
the driving force for your organisations?
—(Canon Fisher) Just immediately responding to that,
I think there was certainly something of that in there, but had
government funding for child-care been adequate, the agencies
would not have needed to take other options, so I think trying
to sort of load the question and making it the responsibility
of the sending agencies is a little bit unfair. It is also going
back into the past about which we are very aware of the misguidedness
of the whole scheme in hindsight. At the time, nobody was raising
objections to it. As far as the inspection of homes in Australia
was concerned, that was clearly the remit of the Australian Government,
which they did on a regular basis. As far as the British Government
was concerned, we have, I know they are considered to be personal,
documents, but there are the Moss and Ross reports, neither of
which raise any issues at all about bad treatment or anything
which would raise our awareness that the children were experiencing
anything less than we had been led to believe, so to keep coming
back to the sending agencies as being responsible for what went
on in the children's placements I think is a little bit unfair.228
Could I just perhaps rephrase it? I think the point I am trying
to get at is whether or not in the eyes of your organisations
that you represent, your predecessor organisations that you bring
together, they felt that the balance of financial advantage was
to take these children from this country and place them in Australia
and New Zealand and previously in Canada and whether or not you
feel that that was a significant factor in making that decision?
—(Canon Fisher) I certainly think that it was thought
at the time to be advantageous to the child to move to new, brighter
circumstances. That is the way Australia sold itself, as you might
say, to the agencies, that this was a land of opportunity, a land
of growth. They were selling Australia to adults at the same time
and 800,000 people left England for Australia post-war, so there
was a big incentive to go to Australia. The fact that they sent
children without parents is a regrettable part of our history
which we all today would acknowledge. On the other hand, the children
that were sent, Audrey Wise was suggesting that they should have
stayed with their families, but these children were not in families,
they were children alone in children's homes and parental consent
very often could not be obtained because the parents had very
often left those children for many, many years without any contact
whatsoever. I would agree with Dr Stoate that may have occurred
there at the time a cover-up in some instances and there were
stories that "your parents have died" and we regret
that. We are not trying to cover that up now. The cover-up took
place at the time and probably many years afterwards. By today's
standards, that was bad practice, but I have interviewed a nun,
for instance, who was responsible for telling a story to a child
and she said: "What do you say to a child? Do you say, 'Your
parents have abandoned you?' What is more hurtful to the child
at the time?" Today we would suggest tell the truth, but
I am not sure that that would have been common social work policy
at the time. We have got thousands of adoption records in my own
Catholic Children's Society in Nottingham where we would say that
the recording of the facts and information is, by today's standards,
very inadequate, but it was certainly adequate or seen to be adequate
at the time. Today we would say that it was very poor evidence.
I would like us in a way to focus on the future and we seem to
spend more of the time looking backwards.
Chairman229
Well, we have got many more questions to ask you, and we certainly
intend to focus on the future and we absolutely understand that.
—(Ms Abrahams) There was a question which was asked
about how this happened and obviously it is a question we have
asked ourselves. "How on earth did this happen?" is
the question we have asked ourselves and I think from our point
of view, as a charity, a number of factors came together in the
post-war period. The first one was that the then principal of
the charity was a very powerful man, to pick up on Audrey Wise's
point, and he was a very strong advocate of child migration and,
as we have said in our written evidence, it was his brainchild.
He had gone to Australia in 1949, he had been impressed by what
he had seen and he came back full of enthusiasm, and there was
then quite a controversy within the charity, just as in Barnardo's,
about whether this was a good idea or not. I think a number of
reasons came together to swing the balance towards us actually
going into it and the first was the fact that there were financial
incentives. I think we did not do it for the money, as such, but
I think what that probably did was to help legitimise the idea
of it and those who opposed the idea of child migration were probably
fighting a losing battle in that sense. But there were other issues
too, for example, the fact that there were existing links with
Methodist organisations in those other countries, so it was easy
as those links were already there, and of course the point which
has already been made about the relative austerity of post-war
Britain and the lack of awareness and understanding about what
children really needed. I think another point too, and this is
a bit of Roger's speculative sort of point, is that to some extent
there was a tradition of this already in our charity. We had done
this since 1873 over periods of time and it did not suddenly start
then, so maybe what was required were the adverse reports which
then came back from our own staff who travelled with the children
to make us see that actually the former tradition was not enough
and that this had to stop.
Mr Syms230
Would each agency explain, perhaps starting with Mr Singleton
and working along, how they organised the monitoring procedures
for migrant children when they arrived in the receiving country
and do you accept that there was physical and sexual abuse on
a reasonably large scale and would you also accept the charge
from many of the children that they were in effect slave labour?
—(Mr Singleton) I have forgotten the first point.231
The first point was monitoring procedure.
—(Mr Singleton) Would it be helpful if we concentrate
on the post-war period for that? The post-war provisions in New
South Wales were that the New South Wales Government visiting
arrangements had to apply. What Barnardo's did, in fact, it had
a pattern of quarterly visiting, written reports and actually
those written reports were copied back here and reviewed in England.
On the physical and sexual abuse point, I have two pieces of evidence.
One is that one man who ran one of the Barnardo's homes in the
post-war years was subsequently convicted of sexual abuse on six
children. The second evidence is softer and that is basically
listening to what former child migrants tell us. There is a wide
range of opinion and experience on that. Listening to that does
not lead me to the conclusion that widespread would be a justifiable
adjective. But on the actual extent of the abuse. I honestly do
not know.
Chairman232
Canon Fisher?
—(Canon Fisher) On the Canadian migration, there
were regular follow up reports and regular visits from the United
Kingdom by our agencies. On the post-war migration to Australia,
monitoring arrangements were largely left to the receiving agencies
and to social services in Australia on the basis that we received
regular reports on children and some of those reports exist on
children's files.233 You received reports on the children placed
in Australia since the war?
—(Canon Fisher) Where we received them they are
filed with their records, yes.234 Obviously the evidence we have
got, with respect, is the migrants felt nobody took any notice
whatsoever of their situation. They had no-one to complain to
and obviously we have no evidence from them of any procedures
of checking whatsoever.
—(Canon Fisher) Could I suggest in that though that
you take a larger sample of evidence.235 We intend to do that.
I am not talking about oral evidence, I am talking about written
evidence we have received as well.
—(Canon Fisher) As far as sexual and physical abuse
is concerned, there is evidence. There has been a number of cases
widely publicised regarding the activities of some of the Christian
brothers. More recently there is evidence coming of certainly
physical abuse by some of the sisters at Neerkoll in Queensland.
Yes, we have to accept that. What scale, I am really not sure.
We have had a lot of reports from Australia, obviously. There
was litigation going on for many, many years by about 200 former
migrants. Eventually the case settled on proven evidence from
eight. I do not know what that says about the other 192, whether
they were following a cause celebre or whether they were not able
to prove the facts, I would not know that.236 Could I ask, Canon
Fisher, in respect of the 1948 Children Act, and this Act applied
to children in the post-war era within this country, there were
requirements for children who were in care to be readily reviewed.
From the information that you have just given—which I have
found very interesting—your Agency would have received reports
of inspections undertaken in Australia. Was there any kind of
statutory requirement at the time by government or informal requirement
by government that should happen in this scheme?
—(Canon Fisher) No, not as far as I am aware.237
There was no requirement at all?
—(Canon Fisher) Not as far as I am aware.238 Was
there any concern at any time, that you are aware of, that perhaps
some of these reports were not coming through? Okay, you might
you have got some but not others. Was anybody sitting down saying:
"Little Johnnie, we have not heard anything about him for
two years," because this is an issue that I think the former
migrants feel quite strongly about and they have put to us that:
"Britain frankly abandoned us, forgot about us." You
are saying: "No, that was not quite the case, there was some
procedure there."
—(Canon Fisher) There was some follow up. CCWE discussed
not receiving regular reports. Again by today's standards we would
be much more stringent. If I can speak in terms of adoption, for
instance, post-adoption services today are very well provided
by most of the voluntary agencies, if I may say so, way ahead
of the statutory sector. We publicise the fact that we want to
follow up and put people in touch with their roots and so forth.
This sort of thinking was not even on the table in 1948 or 1950.
Even in adoption, the fact of going back to your roots was considered
quite an unhealthy thing to do. You had made a new life in a new
family. Picking the skeleton out of the cupboard was not a healthy
thing to do. Today our reasoning has totally changed, our history
is part of our life.239 Could we pursue the answers from the other
agencies through Mr Syms' question briefly.
—(Mr Lovell) Thank you. I will deal with Canada
first which was where the Children's Society had largely emigrated
children to. The arrangements were that in London at the Children's
Society headquarters there was both an emigration committee that
made the decisions about which children would be emigrated and
there was an emigration department that made the arrangements
for that. In respect of Canada where the Children's Society had
its own five receiving homes, the Children's Society also appointed
its own Inspector, one Thomas Keeley, whose case records we still
have in our archive section. He had the responsibility first to
recruit other visitors and to send regular reports back to the
education department in London about how the children were doing.
There is some evidence in those records that the visitors would
say that this placement was not working out, the child was not
happy and there was some evidence and correspondence about making
another placement. That was the situation in Canada. In Australia
and the former Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe, we placed children through
other agencies but did insist that those other agencies sent us
the reports on how children were getting on so there was a system
in London for receiving regular reports and a system for considering
those. In relation to abuse, I have no doubt that some abuse occurred.
Like Roger I find it very difficult to know how widespread that
would be.
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