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Five New Salvation Army Sexual Abuse Cases Filed

   We recently filed five new child sexual abuse cases against the Salvation Army.       The plaintiffs are former members of the Salvation Army Red Shield swim team run out of the Salvation Army’s White Center complex in Seattle.  Last fall in related cases the Salvation Army paid $500,000.00 to a client from Port Orchard and an undisclosed amount to a fifth man. Both had been members of the Red Shield Marlins swim team under Aquatics Director Robert DeHaan.      Other abuse survivors from the Red Shield Marlins swim team, members of the Chief  Sealth High School swim team, where DeHaan also served as swim coach, and some of DeHaan’s victims from Oregon in the mid-1980’s came forward after reading similar stories about the Salvation Army. The men expressed concern that because the Salvation Army shielded DeHaan that he has been able to continue to live in the West Seattle community and continues to have contact with kids.      On that note, last week I was contacted by a reporter from a newspaper in Australia that is covering a criminal trial there regarding a pedophile ring that operated out of a group of Salvation Army run orphanages. Here are links to the stories:Queensland The brutal treatment meted out in Salvation Army homes was highlighted in an August 2003 Four Corners exposé, http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/content/2203/transcripts/s926706.htm, which included stories about the Army's Alkira home at Indooroopilly and its Kalimna home at Toowong and the difficulties adult survivors of that abuse had in receiving acknowledgment and compensation from the Salvation Army.  New South Wales At least 13 victims of physical, mental and sexual abuse gave evidence against Salvation Army’s Gill Memorial Boy’s Home in Goulburn to the www.aph.gov.au/Senate/committee/clac_ctte/inst_care/report/e06app.htm federal Inquiry into Children in Institutional Care. Victoria      Reports in The Herald Sun (July 28, 2006, pp3-4) noted the Salvation Army's Bayswater Boys' Home, its Box Hill Boys' Home and its East Kew Girls' Home had all been the subject of abuse allegations: "Many claim they were beaten, sexually abused and tortured in the homes, which are now closed," it reported, along with news that the Bracks Government had had paid $3million to victims of abuse under state care over the previous five years. It noted the Salvation Army itself had secretly paid $1.5million to about 50 claimants with another 50 yet to be settled and the fact that, after this was revealed, a compensation lawyer claimed that the Salvation Army could be bankrupted by a potential $25million abuse scandal that was unfolding. The Herald Sun reported that lawyers believe up to 500 victims could eventually seek compensation of up to $50,000 each. The Salvation Army was reported to have said it would be reasonable to assume the Government would pitch in.      In an earlier submission to federal Inquiry into Children in Institutional Care, aVictorian man Terry Dean outlined the horrors he experienced at the Salvation Army's Box Hill Boys Home: "I believed that this place was there for the care and well being of abused and disadvantaged boys, how wrong was I, only to find that the basic ingredients on a menu of pain and suffering were one of brutality, debauchery and insensitivity … these brutal and perverted people whilst masquerading as servants of God, would hide behind their red shields of care, were nothing more than outrageous mongrels, their behaviour was absolutely abhorrent and with no sense of contrition, history will now show that the Box Hill Boy’s Home was a centre of denigration for the Salvation Army." Terry Dean, in August 2003 correspondence with
Salvation Army's John Dalziel,

cited in a submission to Senate Commission of Inquiry www.aph.gov.au/senate/committee/clac_ctte/inst_care/submissions/sub467.pdf        In the Sunday Herald Sun (July 30, 2006), Seven News politician reporter Brendan Donohue wrote in his column: "Some boys … recall regular sexual abuse and beltings with the cane, garden stakes, cricket bats and steel rulers. The boys went without shoes, except for church on Sunday, and even played football in bare feet." Tasmania       In mid-2006, the Tasmanian Ombudsman's final report on the "Review of Claims of Abuse from Adults in State Care as Children" notes that three Salvation Army homes were implicated by 52 claimants out of a total of 670 claimants over the review's two phases.     Details of claims by former residents of the three Salvation Army-run facilities over the review's two phases – Barrington Boys' Home (50 claimants), Maylands Girls' Home (23 claimants) and Elim (2 claimants) – were not specifically identified, but the Barrington Boy's Home group was the fourth-largest cohort of victims listed in the review's Phase 2 report. New Zealand      Between 6000 and 8000 children lived at Salvation Army homes in New Zealand between 1903 and 1993, according to an August 2003 news report in the New Zealand Herald. Over the past decade, dozens of claims of physical and sexual abuse of children in care at Salvation Army homes from the 1920s to the mid-1970s have been probed by NZ authorities, according to media reports carried, among others, by The Dominion Press, The New Zealand Herald and TVNZ's online news service One News.        As http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/3906240a12955.html reported on December 20, 2006, that a former Salvation Army captain, John Francis Gainsford, had been sentenced to jail for 10 years "after he raped and indecently assaulted young girls in his care 30 years ago". Gainsford was incarcerated by the High Court in Timaru for three rape charges and one indecent assault which took place at the Bramwell Booth Children's Home in Temuka, South Canterbury, where he was the manager. The home was run by the Salvation Army. Elsewhere, http://www.sadlynormal.wordpress.com/2006/12/27/nz-sexual-abuse-victims-to-take-further-action-against-salvation-army an international online blog site set up for adult survivors of child abuse  notes that a group of people abused by Gainsford have said they will take further action against the Salvation Army.        Other Salvation Army run homes in New Zealand have been facing claims relating to abuse of children in their care. These homes include the Hodderville Boys Home in Putaruru, the Celia Whatman Home at Masterton, Florence Booth Girls Home at Newtown and The Grange at Remuera.        The Salvation Army appointed an independent investigator, former Children's Commissioner Roger McClay, to look into allegations of abuse in its centres. However, as The Dominion Post reported in October 14, 2003, the Salvation Army Abuse Survivors group claimed Mr McClay faced a conflict of interest because "he was working for the Salvation Army yet expected to make impartial and independent judgments". Last November, The Dominion Press reported that the group called for an independent inquiry into the way children were treated in Salvation Army homes.  

Copies of lawsuit available upon request.



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