The House of Horrors in Katanning
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How did Maggie Dawkins first become involved with the St Andrew’s 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 Katanning's St Andrew's 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 Woi Wurrung people of the Kulin
Nation.
My kids came from Perth, okay. I had a 14-seater bus, and I drove the 12 kids, my participants, I drove them to Katanning. I was allocated Katanning. I drove them into a foreign community, a rural community. Most of my participants were urban. They'd never lived in the country. They didn't have much money. They had to do so many hours of community work, and that was... doing work for the council. So it was actually slave labour. They were working for about a dollar an hour. If you look at it rationally, it was pretty grim. But they were there and they were doing council work like tree planting, putting up pine log fencing, doing gardening for the council. They were restoring an old flour mill. So
tell us how, from this delightful project, you ended up meeting these waifs from St Andrew's Hostel.
So Katanning, it's a three and a half to four hour drive from Perth and it's 40 kilometres from the Albany Highway. So it's 40 kilometres east of the Albany Highway. So it's sort of tucked away a bit. The Katanning regional town... It's probably got, back in those days, I don't know how many people, but now about 3,700. So we're not talking about a large town, but it was central and it had a high school and a hospital and it had services, right? So we know that schooling has always been compulsory. So how do we get kids who live, say, 75 kilometres out from Katanning to school every day? So you either have parents who can do the commute or you have a government bus that does bus trips. And if you think about it, in those days, especially in the 80s,
There weren't sealed roads. I was just thinking a bus would take hours. Well, some of the kids were on buses for an hour and a half, two hours, two and four. So what would be better was if you had a government hostel next to the high school where the kids could board and the parents could then go and pick up the kids on on a Friday and drop them back on a Monday. My 12 were given an allowance and on Friday or Saturday night they had enough money to pull to buy a jug of beer at the pub. So because there were a number that were underage, I used to go to the pub with them so I could stop the underage ones from drinking and be the sort of supervisor. And we had these wonderful evenings at the Federal Hotel where we'd play the jukebox and dance and be stupid and have fun.
And doing that, my participants got to know some of the local lads. And I had a mixed group of males and females. And so some of my male participants challenged the local boys with pool. And so we used to have a country versus city pool matches at the pub. And it was, you know, just... great fun. So
was it, you knew these kids socially then? Because
I know
that some young people disclosed unimaginable abuse to you that was happening in their lives. Now, I assumed you had been hired to go into the hostel in some capacity.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
How did Maggie Dawkins first become involved with the St Andrew’s Hostel in Katanning?
0:00–7:42
2
What early signs of abuse did Maggie notice among the hostel boys and how did she respond?
7:42–13:07
3
Why did Maggie decide to confront Dennis McKenna directly and what was his reaction?
13:07–19:16
4
How did the 2012 Blacksall Inquiry change the legal landscape for the Katanning abuse survivors?
19:16–25:20
5
What impact did the demolition of the ‘House of Horrors’ have on the victims and the community?
25:20–31:22
6
Why is the proposed memorial for the victims still being blocked by the Katanning Shire?
31:22–38:21
7
What are the current efforts to keep Dennis McKenna under strict restrictions after his release?
38:21–44:18
8
What lessons does Maggie’s book *To Be Believed* offer for future advocacy against institutional abuse?
44:18–49:04
Speakers
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