Collapse halts sex-abuse case

A woman suing the Catholic church over alleged physical and sexual abuse collapsed in the witness box at the High Court in Wellington yesterday halting the hearing.

Earlier the woman hurled a folder of documents toward a lawyer and screamed, swore and cried under questioning.

The respondents' lawyer had been questioning her about her alleged rape by a male member of a foster family approved by the church, she had stayed with in the mid-1970s.

The woman began screaming when asked when and where she stayed with the family,

She yelled: "Jesus ... I'm not an animal".

Justice Marion Frater adjourned the court for a few minutes after the woman jumped off her seat and threw a folder.

When court resumed, the woman said: "I am sorry for being a naughty girl ... I'm trying to be a good girl."

She went on to describe how she was allegedly raped by the male after a Sunday group meeting at a church.

A short time later the woman collapsed in the witness box prompting the judge to again adjourn the hearing.

On Monday, the woman broke down in court when asked to describe how she was allegedly made to perform oral sex on a priest.

She said she was about eight years old when it happened at St Joseph's Orphanage in Upper Hutt, where she lived between 1968 and 1973.

The woman, whose name is suppressed, claims she was beaten unconscious by nuns, verbally and mentally abused, told she would go straight to hell, and made to feel worthless at the orphanage.

One nun hit her head, causing an ear injury that was not corrected surgically until she left school, and more sexual abuse took place at private homes she was sent to for holidays, she alleges.

A psychiatrist had diagnosed the woman as having a cluster of syndromes and disorders, the woman's counsel Helen Cull told the court.

Few such cases against religious groups reached the court; most had been settled out of court, Ms Cull said.

The respondents have denied the woman's claims in papers filed in court.

- NZPA