Shortcut: The House of Horrors in Katanning
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How did Maggie Dawkins first become involved with St Andrews Hostel in Katanning?
The following podcast contains accounts of child sexual assault. Listener discretion is advised. This is Australian True Crime with Michelle Laurie. In 1985, after a messy relationship breakup, Maggie Dawkins took a short-term job in the small Western Australian town of Catanning. Maggie's job was to shepherd and mentor a small group of bright young people from Perth through projects in rural communities in Western Australia. The hope was that at least some of them might enjoy it so much that they stayed, bringing their expertise and youthful energy to those communities. Maggie's group of young people quickly struck up friendships with local young people, and that was the point at which heartbroken young Maggie became the only champion of the kids from Catanning's St Andrews Hostel, who were desperately in need of one.
As a result of this turn of events, Maggie has been part of the fight against institutional child abuse for the last 40 years. She's written a book called To Be Believed, a West Australian Scandal, and she joins us to talk about it. This is Australian True Crime. We acknowledge the traditional owners of the land on which this podcast is created, the Wurundjeri Waiwarung people of the Kulin Nation.
My participants told me of these especially two boys. Now they had been expelled or they'd left the hostel, right? The louder one had a quieter friend, and he was very gentle and sweet, and there was just one day where they decided they wanted to come to my office. And um I'm quite embarrassed to say I had no training in dealing with um what they told me.
Well you said um somewhere along the line that you didn't know what rape was. Well
Is that true? I knew that, you know, women got raped. I mean you know, as a woman as a young woman. I y I understood that. But um I am embarrassed. I had no idea that men could rape men. I I didn't Oh, you weren't the only one. I I
hear that a lot. Yeah, absolutely. Well
I'm not I'm glad there's others because I f still feel a bit ashamed at at having such a s a gap in my knowledge that
well this is the problem for the victims, isn't it? Because and and we've met many, many of them and many the world over have disclosed in the last two decades or so because culturally
What early signs revealed Dennis McKenna’s abuse of boys at the hostel?
A lot of people never thought that could happen.
The louder of the two used to talk about how Dennis was a kiddie fiddler. in the pub and um so it wasn't called sexual offences or sexual abuse, it was called Dennis McKenna is a kiddie fiddler. He interferes with
boys. Dennis McKenna was the man who ran the St Andrews Hostel at Kitanning.
He never asked me to believe the allegations. He didn't call them allegations. He said, just take what I'm telling you out of the town and get him investigated. They would they were that was the message that I recall forty years later. The first thing I did was I tried to process it as best I could, which was pretty poor. And I decided I'd had a good relationship with the local policeman, the local copper. And I went and saw him informally and I just said, This is what I've been um told. How should I handle it? What do I do? And he said, Look, Maggie, um you need names, dates, situations, you need You know, you need a statement. And then he said, I have to live in this town.
Mm.
So just make sure that what you're doing, um, you know the consequences, you know. That was sort of that sort of conversation. He didn't say he didn't warn me or anything. 'Cause
I bet being a small town and I I'll bet a lot of people talked or joked or or whatever about um the boys home and there being kitty fiddles up there.
Well, precisely. Um what happened was in twenty twelve there'd been the Blaxall inquiry into Saint Andrews Hostel and the judge Peter Blaxall, he discovered that over fifty people had been on the St Andrews Hostel Management Committee. So they They were from l you know local katanning people, and there were twenty credible allegations people had brought to various people in the town, and mine was only one of them. So I'm one of twenty. I I went back to the boys and I said I could help you go to the police and I could sit with
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Chapters
6 chapters
1
How did Maggie Dawkins first become involved with St Andrews Hostel in Katanning?
0:00–2:38
2
What early signs revealed Dennis McKenna’s abuse of boys at the hostel?
2:38–5:17
3
How did Maggie react when the victims first told her about the abuse?
5:17–7:43
4
What steps did Maggie take to report the allegations to local authorities?
7:43–10:02
5
How did the confrontation with the town’s council and Dennis McKenna unfold?
10:02–12:41
6
Why was Maggie transferred off the Katanning project after confronting the abuser?
12:41–14:54
Speakers
1 identifiedMore from Australian True Crime
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