This Minute provides detail about the Inquiry’s first public hearing into redress, which will focus on the Crown’s response to civil claims of abuse in State care.

Under section 17 of the Inquiries Act 2013, the Inquiry can designate a person or group as a core participant in the Inquiry.

This practice note explains how participants can apply for legal assistance to engage with the Royal Commission.

The Abuse in Care Inquiry had issued an interim order restricting public access to all documents and material supplied by Crown agencies.

The Abuse in Care Inquiry has and will continue to receive information from victims and survivors participating in private sessions with Commissioners.

Survivors, advocates and experts speak at first public hearingThe scene has been set for the next three years of the Abuse in Care Royal Commission of Inquiry with the completion of our first public hearing this month.

Dr Charlene Rapsey is a clinical psychologist and lecturer in the Department of Psychological Medicine, University of Otago.

Professor Cahill and Dr Wilkinson will address the following issues in their presentation: A summary of the various international Government-sponsored and Church-sponsored inquiries into child sexual abuse by Catholic priests and other religious groups since 1985 when the first such inquiry was held in the US, and the care and safeguarding initiatives that resulted, as well as their findings and recommendations; A summary of Volume 16, Books 1 – 3 of the Report of the Australian Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse which dealt with religious institutions, especially the Catholic Church, the Anglican Church, the Orthodox Jewish community, and the Jehovah’s Witnesses.

Mr Ledingham will give evidence about the abuse he and his two brothers experienced at the hands of a priest while students at St Joseph’s Catholic School in Onehunga (as detailed more fully in the published book “The Catholic Boys”).