A woman who was raped, bashed and had to endure frequent unnecessary internal examinations when she was just 13 has spent her life trying to recover from a year of horror at a NSW home for girls.
Evidence from Coral Campbell, a 65-year-old Aboriginal woman, on Friday brought tears to the eyes of those attending the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse in Sydney.
She was giving evidence of the time she spent at the Parramatta Girls Home near Sydney in 1962.
The then 13-year-old had been hit by a car, and was taken from hospital to a court where it was decided she was in grave moral danger. She was placed in the home that was notorious for its brutality.
Her parents were there and not allowed to speak.
At Parramatta, she was repeatedly abused by two officers, William Gordon and Ronald Ward, she told the inquiry.
It is the first time Mr Ward has been named at the commission, which has identified nine officers who were alleged abusers.
Noel Greenway, Mr Ward and John Valentine are the only ones alive. Mr Ward and Mr Valentine have denied the allegations and have legal representation at the commission.
Ms Campbell said she remembered pleading with Mr Ward to stop. "He put me on the concrete floor and did something to me that really hurt," she said. "I was bleeding, bleeding."
He took her to the isolation cell, where girls were usually placed as a punishment, and she was given bread and water, "which was nice - something to eat".
She said although she was there for only a year, she was examined internally four or five time by "Mr Fingers". She never knew why.
Other witnesses have spoken of a "Dr Fingers", who frequently subjected them to examinations to see if they were pregnant or had venereal disease.
Ms Campbell told how some girls would put needles in their veins or breasts, hoping to die. "I never tried it."
"Mr Ward was a tall skinny man. I can still see his long white fingers", she said.
He would tell her she was a "good little girls, you are a good girls" until he was finished and then he would say, " `No one will believe you because you are the bad girl here', and that confused me. It really did."
Those phrases and her number at the home - 11 - still haunt her.
Ms Campbell married and lived in Spain for many years, and returned to Australia to be involved with Forgotten Australians and to reconnect with Koori and white sisters she had met at the home.
She told the commission she was not interested in compensation.
