A Presbyterian supervisor at a Victorian farm school was known as "Creeping Jesus" because of the way he crept up on boys at night to sexually abuse them in the 1950s, a British inquiry has heard.
A former child migrant gave evidence to the child sex abuse inquiry sitting in London on Thursday, detailing the abuse he suffered after being shipped from the UK where he had been in foster care.
Michael Hawes, now aged 70 and living in Queensland, arrived in Australia in 1954 at the age of seven and was sent to the Presbyterian church's farm school at Dhurringile in Victoria.
He said he was constantly bullied by the older boys, was once tied up in barbed wire and pelted with rocks and one boy nearly succeeded in cutting off his finger with a pocket knife.
Holding back tears, Mr Hawes said he was abused by two staff members at the school including one the boys dubbed "Creeping Jesus".
"You wouldn't hear him come, he'd go up the stairs and he'd pick a boy up and take him downstairs to a locked room," he said.
Mr Hawes said he was forced to masturbate him but he refused to perform oral sex, telling the man he would bite.
He said such abuse went on at least once a week for up to four years, with boys thrashed if they didn't cooperate.
Mr Hawes said another man at the school would grope him down his shorts and strip off in front of boys to show his erection.
At age 12 he was reunited with his parents when they moved to Australia but he said they were like strangers to him by then and he later left home to drift from job to job.
He said the abuse had left him lacking self esteem and he still found it hard to trust people.
The Australian government issued an apology in 2009 for the cruelty shown to child migrants and the UK government apologised in 2010 for its part in the child migration program.
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