A former child migrant, who suffered physical and mental abuse after being shipped out to Australia, may receive compensation.

A 10-month inquiry is to examine whether the Australian government should apologise or pay cash to child migrants who arrived after the Second World War.

It will examine whether government and private institutions, responsible for the children, were unsafe, improper or acting unlawfully.

It will also determine what efforts were made to inform the young, mostly British, migrants about their parents.

Michael Snell, now aged 62, and living in Sawtell, New South Wales, has revealed a harrowing tale of abuse after being, what he describes as, deported from a Gloucestershire orphanage to Australia in 1949.

He has told his story in a series of letters to another former resident of the Gyde orphanage in Painswick, George Lansbury, of Hucclecote, Gloucester. The boys were friends at the orphanage from 1941 to 1949 and have kept in touch ever since.

Mr Snell says he was incorrectly told that he was an orphan and was shipped out to Australia at the age of 14, along with 8,000 other English children, arriving at Sydney on March 8, 1950.

He was sent to Dalmar House where, he claims, he was tormented, bullied and abused and set to work seven days a week for no pay.

"I have been to hell and back," he said. "Some places us kids landed up in were nothing but cesspits of paedophiles.

"Dalmar House was overrun by rats, cockroaches and mosquitoes. If the principal wanted anything, he got it by shouting and using his fists."

If the Australian government inquiry proves fruitless, Mr Snell is prepared to take his case to European Court of Human Rights.

In his latest letter, with news of the inquiry, he said: "It is a positive step, but, as with most governments, it will probably be just another exercise in hot air and cover ups."

Mr Lansbury said: "It is now 50 years since these children were illegally transported to Australia as child labourers. They knew little or nothing about their next of kin and suffered many indignities."

Last year the British Government announced it would fund trips back to Britain for former "orphans" who could show they had traced a close relative.

Mr Lansbury said: "Without coming back it would be difficult for Michael to discover if he had any relatives. There is a strong possibility he may have half-brothers or sisters and cousins.

For our Government to create this hurdle is outrageous, taking into account the hard times these children were subjected to."

Michael's story will be the centrepiece of a grand reunion of former Gyde children at Painswick Town Hall on Sunday September 24.

This story was first published by Gloucestershire Newspapers

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