text: The World Today - Royal Commission: Salvation Army concedes official documents may have contributed to child abuse 12/10/2015
  Natalie Whiting reported this story on Monday, October 12, 2015 12:33:00
  ELEANOR HALL: To the Royal Commission into child sexual abuse now, and today the Salvation Army has admitted that the language it used in official documents may have contributed to the abuse of children in its homes.
  Several documents refer to the homes being designed for children with vicious or criminal tendencies.
  Others refer to Salvation Army Officers having to fight off evil.
  A senior member of the Salvation Army today conceded that may have influenced the way officers treated the children.
  Reporter Natalie Whiting has been following the hearing and joins us now.
  Natalie, what documents has the commission been examining this morning?
  NATALIE WHITING: Well Eleanor, they've been going through a range of orders and regulations from throughout the times these homes were operating and looking at what the purpose and the objects of the home were. So we've seen territorial commander of the Australian Southern Territory for the Salvation Army, commissioner Floyd Tidd giving his second day of evidence and he's been quizzed about a lot of these documents.
  On Friday, he began evidence by apologising to some of the former victims, so attention has really turned to what was happening and why.
  These documents, all of the regulations had quite a strong focus on the need to reform and save these children. In the case of the homes that focus here, and especially in Victoria and South Australia, they were boys homes, and there were a lot of reference to boys being vicious or criminal, really needing to be saved from themselves.
  One of the commissioners actually also questioned about some of the early documents about the Salvation Army in general, which really had a lot of references to evil and the need to fight against evil. Commissioner Tidd conceded that some of the officers may have perceived these boys as being evil or the progeny of evil.
  Commissioner Tidd agreed the orders and regulations did have a focus on boys being troubled or evil or criminal and the need to save them from their own tendencies. He agreed with that when questioned by Counsel Assisting Sophie David.
  SOPHIE DAVID: Do you think that, to some extent, the way in which the orders and regulations were written in some way influenced the attitude of Salvation Army officers and their employees to their treatment of the boys?
  FLOYD TIDD: They very well may have.
  SOPHIE DAVID: And this in term manifested itself in harsh physical punishment and harsh conditions to which were endured by the boys?
  FLOYD TIDD: Regrettably so.
  SOPHIE DAVID: And from that flowed a control and power over boys, and it's in that context within which child sexual abuse occurred, do you agree with that as a general proposition?
  FLOYD TIDD: Yes.
  ELEANOR HALL: That's the Salvation Army territorial commander of the Southern Territory, commissioner Floyd Tidd, being questioned by Counsel Assisting Sophie David.
  So Natalie, commissioner Tidd was also asked about an investigation into the Eden Park Boys Home in 1970. What was that investigation about?
  NATALIE WHITING: Yes the commission had documents from 1970; Eden Park is a boys home here in South Australia; we've already heard from several former residents give some really harrowing accounts of physical, sexual and emotional abuse, which seemed very prevalent at that home.
  This investigation started with a letter from a staff member, who in 1970 went to lawyers, who wrote this letter to the minister for social welfare at that time. The employee said he was gravely concerned about things at the home, especially the use of some punishments. There was a lock up room, which was a small storage closet that had no windows, just a concrete floor; there was no light and the only air coming in was from under the door, which was locked from the outside, that this person said was regularly used a form of punishment for boys.
  He also complained about sergeant William Ellis, who he said regularly carried a strap which he used against the boys.
  Now Ellis was later convicted of paedophilia and for sexual abuse committed at this home. And we've heard from several victims who said, who detailed the horrendous physical and sexual abuse this man put against them.
  In today's hearing, it came that this investigation in 1970 found that these abuses were happening, the punishments were happening and, even by the standards of the day and regulations of the day, he should have been punished and commissioner Tidd said today that he likely should have been fired from that position.
  So even by the standards of 1970, he should have been fired and he obviously wasn't and went on to abuse more boys at that home.
  ELEANOR HALL: Natalie, has the commission indicated whether it will be looking into other Salvation Army homes
  NATALIE WHITING: Yes it's at the moment looking into a number of homes in Victoria, South Australian and into Western Australia. It's going to be turning its attention later today and later in this hearing to compensation. We've had a number of victims come forward saying that, when they did go through the compensation process, it was incredibly taxing on them and they felt that the Salvation Army didn't handle it well.
  We're going to be hearing from Graham Sapwell who was in charge of the handling of compensation claims relating to sexual abuse; so he's next in line to give evidence after commissioner Floyd Tidd.
  ELEANOR HALL: Natalie thank you. That's our reporter Natalie Whiting following those hearings by the royal commission into child sexual abus