A 68-year-old Aboriginal woman who claims she was sexually abused at a Catholic mission in rural WA in the 1960s has had her version of events questioned.
Michael Francis Moran, 83, is on trial in the District Court of WA, charged with indecently dealing with a child.
The complainant, now 68, came forward after the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, filing a statement with police in 2015.
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READ NOWThe court heard she was removed from her family, made a ward of the state and taken to the mission at age four, where she was initially raised by nuns.
She claims she was molested by her first white male teacher not long after he started working at the school when she was aged 10.
Moran allegedly abused her several times and the last occasion was when she was 14.
Defence counsel Philip Urquhart questioned the woman’s version of events on Wednesday, asking about her statement to police in which she said she didn’t know if Moran had abused other girls at the mission.
It contrasted to her 2008 application to the state Redress compensation scheme for child sexual abuse victims in which she alleged Moran had molested not just her but other students.
“If it wasn’t me, it was some other girl,” she wrote in the application.
“As we got older, he took advantage of us. He’d grab our breasts with his bare hands and make me feel sick.”
Mr Urquhart asked the woman why she had said that.
“Because I was writing a book. I was just talking about a story that I wrote,” she said via videolink.
The lawyer replied: “This isn’t fiction.”
She went on to say she “got it wrong” when she told police she didn’t know if other girls at the mission had been sexually abused, but a student who has since died had told her she’d been a victim.
“I’m going to put this to you: Mr Moran never sexually interfered with you,” Mr Urquhart said.
The woman replied: “You’re wrong.”
“I’m telling the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth,” she said.
The trial continues.