Giving evidence during the fifth day of the commission, psychiatrist Carolyn Quadrio said celibacy had played little role in past offending, with many paedophiles positioning themselves in the Catholic Church and other institutions because of the access they were granted to young children.

“I think it’s about the degree of control. It’s a highly controlling organisation with a strict hierarchy, and so then you have a lot of control over people,” Professor Quadrio said. 

“I don’t think the celibacy drives child abuse, but I think that people who — they have men who, for example, have already got an orientation to be attracted exclusively to children as sex objects. 

“They will feel more comfortable in the priesthood because it doesn’t bore them.

“The celibacy vow is not going to bother you if you’re not interested in having sex with other adults, so obviously that will be a more comfortable environment.”

The psychiatrist said about 30 per cent of girls and 20 per cent of boys were sexually abused while in institutional care in Australia, with that number higher in the Catholic Church.

An expert in the field, having studied more than 30 victims of abuse at the hands of Christian Brothers in Western Australia in the 1980s, Professor Quadrio said victims rarely disclosed the abuse, resulting in an array of mental issues down the track. 

“There’s no medicine that will cure trauma,” she said. 

“If a person is abused in childhood it affects every aspect of their development.”

The University of New South Wales professor said it wasn’t just the physical abuse, including sexual penetration, which affected the child’s mental state in the future. 

“What’s most damaging is for the child to feel worthless, to feel betrayed, to feel they have no value, to feel that they’re just there to be used or abused, and that’s extensively damaging to a child’s psychological development,” she said. 

Professor Quadrio said it was common for abused children to become abusers themselves, often showing signs of a sexually predatory nature. 

“A child whose behaviour becomes highly sexualised, that’s a very high proportion of those children are being sexually abused,” she said.

“And if a child shows predatory sexual behaviour, that’s almost always a sign of sexual abuse.

“There are a proportion of abused children who will go on to become offenders themselves.”

She said many victims went on to suffer severe mental health issues including depression, anxiety and post traumatic stress disorders. 

Professor Quadrio said victims spent their lives avoiding triggers, for example many would never drive past an institution where they had been abused. 

“Hyperarousal usually results in an inability to sleep, there’s often traumatic dreams, there’s flashbacks, people have a lot of visual imagery of what happened.”

?— THE COURIER, BALLARAT