Mick’s story

The state-sponsored child institutionalisation process that created emotional wastelands where abused and psychologically crippled children matured into adolescence continued to create men like who wreaked a terrible vengeance on society. Those creations were the unintended consequences of state-sponsored child caring.

Mick Kennedy and his sisters; Rita, Ruth and Roberta, grew up in the state-sponsored child nurturing process when they were assigned to the care of the Barnardo's homes after their parent’s marriage broke down in 1963. The family had been in Australia less than 12 months after emigrating from England.

“We were put in a place called Hartwell House in Farmer Street, Kiama,” Mick Kennedy recalled. “The best way to describe the routine at Hartwell House is that it was an extremely institutionalised environment that existed within a culture of absolute fear.”

“The house parents were Vic and Yvonne Holyoak. Both had been house parents at the state-run Mittagong Boy’s Home before taking over Hartwell House.

“Vic Holyoak’s brutality knew no boundaries. It could be severe beatings. Punching in the stomach. Pulling hair. Lifting off the ground by hair or ears. Caning. The strap. A constant stream of verbal abuse always accompanied these punishments from both Vic and Von Holyoak.

“Occasionally we would be summonsed into Holyoak’s office and sexually abused or beaten just for the sake of it. He was selective which boys he sexually abused but Holyoak sexually abused all of the girls.”

Mick Kennedy recalled one of many traumatic incidents when he was raped by Holyoak.

“I was about 14 and I was cleaning the outside toilet as part of my morning job. It required me to mop the floor with hot water and disinfectant. While I was working Holyoak’s son, Garry, entered the toilet and deliberately messed up the floor with his dirty feet. I complained and he punched me in the face and stomach.

“His mother Von heard the noise and came to the toilet and saw him punch me. When she asked what was going on he accused me of being a ‘whingeing coot’. Von picked up the bucket of hot water and threw it over the toilet floor and myself. I cleaned up the mess and went inside to get changed.

“Vic Holyoak saw my wet clothes and directed me into his office. I was forced to strip my clothes and he caned me on the hands and bare buttocks for being a sissy and a dobber. He then raped me for good measure and after he finished I was directed to get ready for school.”

When Mick Kennedy left Hartwell House in the mid 1970s he discovered he was not the only child physically and sexually abused by Holyoak: he had abused everyone in his care including Kennedy’s own sisters.

“You have to understand that because of the fear that was instilled into us as children we did not discuss what was happening on a day-to-day basis with any other kids. Generally we were forbidden to talk to each other and even on the way to school we would be very careful what we discussed.

“It was not unusual to get home in the afternoon and be directed into Vic Holyoak’s office where I would be physically beaten and emotionally tortured. The whole process revolved around what I had talked about with the others on the way to school and on the way home. At times he even wanted to know what I had discussed with my school friends. Over a period of time I lost all of my school friends because I was so introverted and non communicative. I did this in an effort to minimise the level of punishment which towards the end of my stay in Barnardo’s was almost a daily occurrence.”

Despite the childhood trauma experienced at Hartwell House Mick Kennedy did not follow the path to violent criminality.

In 1978 Mick Kennedy joined the New South Wales Police Force and worked at Bankstown, Revesby and Bass Hill before he became a detective.

“I wanted some job security and also wanted a worthwhile job,” he explained. “I wanted to be a social worker but this required a university degree. I had left school in year 10 and did not have the required qualifications and at that time there was little chance that I would ever acquire them”.

In 1984 Kennedy was a member of the Viking Hotel Task Force that investigated the Father’s Day massacre resulting with seven deaths after a shootout between the Comanchero and Banditos outlaw biker gangs in the car-park of the Viking Hotel at Milperra. He also served as a detective in the Bureau of Crime Intelligence and the Organised Crime Squad.

“I served for a few years in the NSW Crime Commission and then moved into the Major Crime Squad South-West I then shifted away from organised crime work and specialised in Child Protection Work. I found this work to be very rewarding and not as stressful as organised crime work. My own past was in fact an asset and had no negative impact on my ability to do my work.”

The asset Mick Kennedy successfully used as a detective in the NSW Child Protection unit was his own childhood experiences of brutality and sexual exploitation at the hands of those employed to protect and nurture him as a child.

During the 1980s the Channel Ten program Page One, hosted by Katrina Lee, began investigating Hartwell House and produced a story called “The Class of 1966”. As a result of the story, Detective Belinda Mole from the NSW Police Force began a criminal investigation into Holyoak and his running of Hartwell House.

Detective Mole interviewed Ruth Kennedy and other former residents and the full extent of the sickening horror that had shattered their childhood was finally revealed. As a consequence of Mole’s criminal investigation Holyoak was prosecuted as a child sex offender and was found guilty at trial. NSW District Court Judge Kirkham sentenced him to 10 years imprisonment in 1994.

“After Holyoak was jailed my sisters were approached by a firm of lawyers who offered their services so we could take civil action against Barnardo’s. We accepted the offer and became part of a class action against Barnardo’s.

“The Barnardo’s organisation stretched everything out as long as they could. In the process a number of people withdrew from the civil action because of the strain and stress upon their lives and their relationships. There was a special hearing before Judge Graham to determine whether or not we had initiated our civil action in the time frame or whether we could get an extension. It was a very traumatic process for most of those giving evidence because some were illiterate and had no family support whatsoever.

“After 20 years of having to give evidence in criminal proceedings I was insulated against the fear of being in court. I was the last person to give evidence and an old barrister friend, Joan Locke, came along to support me. She advised me to get everything off my chest as it would probably be the last opportunity that I would be able to publicly give my version of events that had haunted me since childhood. It was good advice and I did as she suggested.

“The judgment came out in our favour and Barnardo’s were directed to attempt conciliating the matter. Of course what this meant was private negotiations and settlement offers. More importantly it meant there would be no public acknowledgement on their part and any financial settlement would remain confidential. In essence we had allowed Barnardo’s to purchase our silence.

“I resigned from the NSW Police Force shortly after being promoted to Detective Sergeant in 1996. I had served almost 20 years but I was tired and emotionally drained after Holyoak was convicted. I enrolled at university and supplemented my income by being a consultant to television drama productions about cops like Wildside, White Collar Blue, Young Lions, Blackjack and Small Claims.”

The August 2004 SCARC report; Forgotten Australians, revealed that as many as 500,000 Australians experienced institutional or out-of-home care as children. The SARC Inquiry, Committee Hansard 4 February 2004 (p.30) summed up the inevitable results of that state-sponsored childhood nurturing:

… institutional abuse does not stop when we age out of the system. Once in contact with the juvenile justice system we have a 90 per cent chance of becoming adult criminals. We have a one in three chance of leaving care at 16 as girls pregnant or already with child. We have a one in two chance of being homeless within that first year. Only one in 100 of us will get to university, but one in three of us will have attempted suicide. We are also highly likely to wind up addicted to drugs, engaged in prostitution, unemployed, mentally ill or incapable of sustaining loving relationships.