Shortcut: The House of Horrors in Katanning

Meshel Laurie (0:00)

The following podcast contains accounts of child sexual assault. Listener discretion is advised.

This is Australian True Crime with Meshel Laurie. In 1985, after a messy relationship breakup, Maggie Dawkins took a short-term job in the small Western Australian town of Katanning. 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 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 Woi Wurrung people of the Kulin Nation.

Maggie Dawkins (1:18)

My participants told me of these, especially two boys. Now, they had been expelled or they had left the hostel, right? The louder one had a quieter friend, and he was very gentle and sweet. There was just one day where they decided they wanted to come to my office.

I'm quite embarrassed to say I had no training in dealing with what they told me.

Meshel Laurie (1:54)

Well, you said somewhere along the line that you didn't know what rape was.

Maggie Dawkins (1:58)

Well-

Meshel Laurie (1:59)

Is that true?

Maggie Dawkins (2:00)

I knew that, you know, women got raped. I mean, as a young woman, I understood that.

But I am embarrassed. I had no idea that men could rape men. I didn't-

Meshel Laurie (2:13)

Oh, you weren't the only one. I hear that a lot. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, really.

Maggie Dawkins (2:17)

I'm glad there's others, because I still feel a bit ashamed at having such a gap in my knowledge.

Meshel Laurie (2:26)

Well, this is the problem for the victims, isn't it? Because- and we've met many, many of them and many the world over have disclosed in the last two decades or so, because culturally, a lot of people never thought that could happen.

Maggie Dawkins (2:41)

The louder of the two used to talk about how Dennis was a kitty fiddler in the pub. And so it wasn't called sexual offences or sexual abuse, it was called Dennis McKenna is a kitty fiddler. He interferes with boys.

Meshel Laurie (2:58)

Dennis McKenna was the man who ran the St Andrews Hostel at Kittanning.

Maggie Dawkins (3:04)

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. That was the message that I recall 40 years later. The first thing I did was I tried to process it as best I could, which was pretty poor. I'd had a good relationship with the local policeman, the local copper. I went and saw him informally and I just said, this is what I've been told. How should I handle it? What do I do?

He said, look, Maggie, you need names, dates, situations.

You need a statement. Then he said, I have to live in this town. Just make sure that what you're doing, you know the consequences. That was sort of that sort of conversation. He didn't say, he didn't warn me or anything.

Meshel Laurie (4:13)

Because I bet being a small town and I'll bet a lot of people talked or joked or whatever about the boys' home and there being kitty fiddlers up there.

Maggie Dawkins (4:24)

Well, precisely. What happened was in 2012, there had been the Blacksall Inquiry into St Andrews Hostel.

The judge, Peter Blacksall, he discovered that over 50 people had been on the St Andrews Hostel Management Committee. So, they were from, you know, local Katanning people. And there were 20 credible allegations people had brought to various people in the town. And mine was only one of them. So, I'm one of 20 I went back to the boys and I said, I could help you go to the police and I could sit with you and we could do this together.

And they said, no fucking way. We're not doing that.

Meshel Laurie (5:23)

Because again, they have to live in that town.

Maggie Dawkins (5:26)

Yeah. So, I rang my line manager and I spoke to her. She said to me, go to your local management committee chair. It was a woman by the name of Ainsley Evans.