Children were victims of ‘unacceptable depravity’

Vulnerable British children shipped overseas in a controversial migration programme were victims of “unacceptable depravity” including torture, sexual abuse and slavery, an inquiry has heard.

Thousands of children were relocated to distant corners of the British empire, often against their will, over hundreds of years, it was claimed.

The long-awaited Independent Inquiry into Child Sex Abuse heard on its first public session of evidence that many of the institutions which housed them were plagued by “widespread and systematic sexual abuse”.

One former child migrant broke down as he recalled the “endemic” problem of sexual abuse at Fairbridge Farm School in Molong, Australia.

David Hill, his voice often breaking, said: “Many never recover and are permanently afflicted with guilt, shame, 0 Thousands of children were relocated across the Empire diminished self-confidence, low self-esteem and trauma.

“We will never be able to undo the great wrong done to these children but what is important to survivors of sexual abuse is, where this inquiry is satisfied with the evidence, to name the villains.

“Many of them are beyond the grave and are therefore beyond the law but it would bring a great deal of comfort to the people who as children were victims of these people if they were named and shamed.”