![]() For me, aged eight, this was absolutely incomprehensible. I remember him asking what colour the fluid was that came out of my penis when I played with myself. He seemed to have a fixation on this heinous sin but I didn’t even know what he was talking about. But his favourite subject was masturbation. Once there, he would accuse me of some sort of misdemeanour, all bullshit of course: theft, damage to the school or church or graveyard. After just about sweating blood over this all day, sick and frightened about what may occur, I knew I could not ignore the instruction to go. Green very quickly followed up the abuse with orders to the nuns for me to report to him at the presbytery after school for unspecified reasons. My attention at school was sadly lacking and the nuns were quick to dish out the strap or other punishments for this. (And as soon as I left home the asthma disappeared and I’ve never had it since.) The doctor told Mum that there didn’t seem to be a clinical reason for the asthma so it must be a nervous thing. I was so traumatised that I never once managed to tell a soul what had happened till years later. A priest was the next thing to God in our family. I now understand that for eight-year-old me, this was a catastrophic event. More especially after all the teaching about piety and purity and burning in hell-fire forever if you sinned being hammered into us from an early age. ![]() My life had inexplicably turned into a total nightmare. When he was finished, I went to the toilet and locked myself in and just sat there in abject misery until he ordered me out, dropped me home, then left with not a word spoken. I understand now he was masturbating himself.Īt the time I was totally uncomprehending of what had happened, shocked, frightened and sickened. He then started massaging and stroking my whole genital area, while he went quiet and strange, breathing heavily, with some sort of movement of his body going on. I was unsure and unwilling about this, but he ordered me to do it. After a while, he said it would be a lot easier if I took my strides off. Green said he could help me and got me to do it while he got down behind me and then he began rubbing the area of my crack and my balls, which surprised and unsettled me. I said OK except for the splits exercise which I found hard. He asked me about my training, for the silver badge in gymnastics I think it was. We worked for a while and then stopped for a break. We’d gone up there, to Green’s aunty’s place, ostensibly, as I remember it, to redecorate the place while she was away. Previously when doing gymnastics or especially when riding in the front seat of his car, he would rub up and down your legs and body quite inappropriately, although we certainly didn’t understand this at the time. But we didn’t know about each other’s abuse at the time.įor me, the actual physical abuse proper began in 1958 at Father Green’s aunty’s place. What was not apparent to outsiders was that, one by one, two of my brothers and I were picked off and abused by a sexual predator, the parish priest, Father Francis “Frank” Green, during his time at St Joseph’s Catholic School, circa 1957 to 1969. ![]() In our small wee eyes, the Catholic church was all powerful, always correct in fact infallible. We became accustomed to seeing them, liked most of them and unfortunately, as it turned out, trusted them implicitly. There were many religious visitors to our house. We attended the local parish convent school, St Joseph’s, in the Auckland suburb of Onehunga. My brothers and I served as altar boys at the local church. We were typical of many of those who lived in the area: my father worked, my mother stayed at home, and us eight kids were raised to respect adults and those in authority, especially priests of the Catholic church. On the face of it I grew up in a great example of a Catholic family, with strong Irish roots, in New Zealand. If this is difficult for you and you would like some help, these services offer support and information: Auckland specialist service Help, 08 specialist men’s service Male Survivors Aotearoa, 0800 044 334 and Snap (Survivors network of those abused by priests). Read part one here.Ĭontent warning: This feature describes physical, sexual and emotional violence, child abuse and neglect. This article is part of The Quarter Million, exploring the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in State Care. Each was affected for life, although it would be decades before the brothers revealed their childhood trauma to each other. Growing up in 1950s and 60s Auckland, Mike Ledingham and his two brothers Gerard and Chris were all victims of parish priest and sexual predator Father Francis Green.
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