Royal Commission probe: Officers warn junior ADF recruits not to report sexual abuse

Details of sodomy and male rape among junior recruits of the Australian Defence Force (ADF) are being exposed because of the ongoing hearing of the Royal Commission into Child Sex Abuse. The sexual abuses were kept secret for decades because officers warned victims not to report the abuse.

The witness, CJA, told the commission on Monday that it was the navy chaplain who told him not to “rat” on the perpetrators of the abuse, ranging from forced fellatio to masturbation and buggery. Because of the constant physical and sexual abuse nightly by the navy police, the cadet escaped from the based but was punished when he came back, reports ABC.

He was threatened n 1971 during a Sydney investigation. CJA recalls the shore patrolmen telling him, “If you say anything about what happened at Leeuwin, other than it being just boys being boys, you’re going to pay a very dear price.” The patrolmen boasted the ADF has people in good positions in all services who would make life hard for cadets who reveal the abuses.

Another recruit, Glen Greaves, shares that when he attempted to complain about the abuses, a senior officer dragged him to the urinal, removed toilet paper from his mouth and ordered him to lick the urinal or threatened to smash his head into the urinal. Greaves followed the command and was still thrown into the bathroom floor.

On another occasion, when Greaves – who was 17 when he was deployed to Vietnam – was raped with a broom handle when he refused to have oral sex. He sought compensation for the sexual abuses, but Greaves was ordered to repay the disability pension he got after serving in Vietnam, reports Herald Sun.

The commission has received complaints from 111 people, of whom 50 were child abuse cases at the HMAS Leeuwin or the Balcombe Army Apprentice School in Victoria.

VIDEO: Royal commission: Defence force recruits forced to rape each other