I found this story when doing some background research for my post about Australian sexual abuse survivors, and the 'National Apology' to survivors the Australian PM is going to give tomorrow (Monday, 10/22/2018).

You might want to use it to redpill friends and family about the impact rape has on the lives of children and their further development. The victim was a gifted young violinist, who later had to give up her plans of becoming a professional musician due to the violence she suffered.

TRIGGER WARNING

Please see original article linked below for photographs.

'Georgie Burg was just 13 years old and a concert violinist prodigy when (...) John Philip Aitchison first raped her in the church after playing the cruellest of tricks on her.

Aitchison had sexually assaulted other children before he deliberately targeted Georgie, and his abuse would later make her abandon an international soloist career [as a violinist].

Aitchison told Georgie that he could make God materialise her beloved pet dog, which had been killed in an accident for which Georgie blamed herself.

It was just one of many betrayals.

Georgie would be abandoned by everyone including her own mother and Aitchison would get away with molesting children until she found the strength to put him in jail.

Even then until the last minute, church officials were promoting John Philip Aitchison as a trusted man of God and encouraging him to be with children.

The story of this despicable paedophile priest (...) is also one of three different churches protecting him.

Right up until his imprisonment, as recently as 11 days after he was found guilty of repeatedly raping Georgie — he featured at a major Sydney church event promoted as “child friendly”.

In truIh, former Anglican Deacon Aitchison, now aged 67, has been sexually and indecently assaulting little girls and boys since about 1969.

But assisted by the church and the justice system, Aitchison has managed to fly under the radar as he destroyed children’s lives.

In a string of court trials, judges have let him off gently dealt with probation or bonds.

One judge sympathetically described his “psychological imbalance”, denied he was a paedophile and doubted the evidence of his child victims.

It was only in August, that Justice Michael Elkaim of the ACT Supreme Court declared Aitchison “unquestionably a paedophile”.

In an almost unprecedented judgment, Elkaim cited Georgie’s description of Aitchison as a “casual, commanding, authoritarian, and coolly arrogant” sexual abuser of children.

GEORGIE’S STORY

Born in 1973 in Canberra, Georgie’s parents separated when she was five years old.

For four years, from about the age of six, she was sexually abused by a male relative.

By the age of 13, Georgie’s serious talent for playing violin had been recognised, but she was a “very serious, withdrawn and very quiet young girl”.

She had never had a boyfriend, few friends and submerged herself in playing violin and with her beloved dog Lilly, a treasured 10th birthday gift.

“I had my animals and my music, that was it.” she told news.com.au.

When Lilly was about two years old, she was run over on the road in front of Georgie, who blamed herself for calling the dog back and into the path of a car.

“She was an obedience dog and I called her,” Georgie recalled, “I caused her death. Still today I believe it was my fault.”

It was this sensitive young abuse victim, a year later still consumed with grief and guilt for the death of her dog, that Aitchison spotted in All Saints Anglican Church, at Ainslie in North Canberra.

He was a 35-year-old Oxford-educated rising young star in the Anglican Church; charismatic and well schooled in recognising susceptible children for him to abuse.

Aitchison began showing the young violinist attention, discussing her music then saying she must come to the church and play him her competition pieces.

When Georgie obliged and played him a Mozart concerto she was practising for the Sydney Eisteddfod, he sat alone in the church, legs open with “a creepy look” on his face.

The traumatised young girl had stopped speaking following the death of her dog, and her mother had entreated Aitchison to help.

Georgie’s sole means of outward communication was through her violin.

A meeting was set up with Aitchison in an office to discuss Georgie’s distress over the death of her dog, and her subsequent emotional withdrawal which had worried her mother.

Alone in the office with Georgie, Aitchison started asking personal questions, such as about her parents’ divorce, and then said “has [male relative] you. Has he raped you?”

When Georgie wept, having never revealed that abuse. Aitchison told her, “You know God talks through me and you can trust me.”

Then Aitchison asked, “How did it feel?” and kissed her on the cheek.

Shocked and confused, Georgie left but she was in turmoil because both her mother and Georgie had begun to trust John Aitchison.

Some time after that, again in the empty church, Georgie was playing Bach’s partita (a plaintive piece in a minor key).

Aitchison was sitting in his favourite pew (...), and beckoned her over and they sat in silence until he asked about her dead dog Lilly.

“Would you like to see her again,” Aitchison asked, “I know a way you can see Lilly again.

“If you look there and pray to God you will be able to see Lilly again.”

Aitchison pointed to a shadowy point above the altar and pulled Georgie on to his lap and pulled down her underpants.

“He made me lean forward right over the pew in front and put my hands together to pray,” she said.

Aitchison began raping Georgie, who told him that seeing her dog wasn’t working.

Aitchison got angry and mentioned her male relative and said words to the effect of “it’s not like you have not done this before”.

As her raped her, Aitchison muttered something like, “Please God forgive me”.

It was now dark outside and Georgie’s mother was waiting outside in the car.

Aitchison was right behind Georgie and told her mother that the girl had not played very well and needed to try a bit harder.

“Mum looked back at me and said, ‘Oh Georgie’ … it was so unfair.”

Afterwards, there was blood and pain and Georgie redoubled her efforts to practise violin.

The second rape occurred several weeks later, before Christmas 1987.

Again, Georgie was practising her violin at All Saints.

Aitchison came into the church and took her across to the church hall. Inside the hall, Aitchison raped Georgie behind the curtains as she tried “to be as limp as I could".

Aitchison [visited Georgie and her mother at home frequently], and had forged a closer bond with Georgie's mother.

Aitchison talked about “bonds of trust” and repeated his cynical line, “God talks through me”.

His first assault of Georgie at the house occurred when he hurried Georgie’s mother and brother out on an excursion.

Rape ensued soon after on a sofa in the TV room while Georgie was watching a TV show about animals.

“I remember counting up to a really high number. Some really bad things happened … because it took so long.

“I think he made me do things to him. I now remember it in dreams and I wake up screaming.

“I always feel like throwing up, like there is something in my mouth and I am choking on it.”

But the next rape Georgie remembers as “the most unpleasant of them all”

During the assault, Georgie remembers Aitchison “shook me as if he was furious with me … we both knew this was rape”.

“I fought him hard and had bruising on my arms afterwards,” Georgie said. “I think it was the only time I fought back and I am proud that I fought back.

“I remember fighting him off … saying that I was going to tell Mum … that I was not going to do this anymore.

“He started telling me how disrespectful I was being and that there was no way God could forgive me for everything I had done.

“He said, ‘You’ve had carnal relations with your (male relative) Georgie, do you realise what that means in the eyes of God?’

“He said words to the effect of, ‘Don’t try and tell me that you didn’t enjoy that’.

“He finally threatened to go to the police about myself and my (male relative). I knew my mother was terrified of (that).”

The final rape took place in Georgie’s bedroom, when he came in seeking sympathy for “having a hard time” and having to say goodbye.

This was before Aitchison’s promotion to his own parish at Bombala, NSW, which happened in 1989 after his bishop had been informed of the sexual assaults of Georgie.

“While he was raping me … I pretended I was dead,” Georgie said.

“I really wanted to be dead and I thought if I held my breath maybe it would come true and then I could be with Lilly again.”

Georgie had no idea that her mother had written to the Bishop Dowling of Goulburn and Canberra or that the church knew of the rapes and did nothing.

(Victoria Police would charge the late Bishop Owen Dowling with soliciting a male off-duty cop for prostitution in Bendigo, but the charges were later dropped.)

Nor did she know she was suffering post traumatic stress disorder.

“Violin was a smokescreen. I began to fail at everything. I dropped out of school"

When Aitchison disappeared off to Bombala, Georgie’s mother never spoke of him again.

Continue reading here.

(Edited by OP.)

— Know anything about John Philip Aitchison or other abusers? Contact [email protected]