Priest lured children to his web, says victim Royal Commission into child sex abuse response begins The court empties as the barrister for the Catholic church begins his opening address with the gospel. PT2M41S http://www.smh.com.au/action/externalEmbeddedPlayer?id=d-2z1p1 620 349 December 9, 2013 - 6:55PM Joan Isaacs was 14 years old and near the top of her class at the Sacred Heart Convent Sandgate in Brisbane when Father Francis Derriman got her to join his "cult-like" group of four children. On a day when victims left the royal commission into child sex abuse hearing in tears, Mrs Isaacs described how Derriman had used the Peanuts comic as a way to bond the group. He called himself and the rest of them Brown after the comic's main character Charlie Brown. To her knowledge three girls in their "Brown" group were sexually abused, including her, aged 14 and 15 in 1967 and 1968. One of the girls fathered a child to Derriman at the age of 17. Her voice sometimes breaking, Mrs Isaacs detailed how the priest told her he was dying of a lung disease. He told her "If you don't have sex with me I will kill myself and you will always know that it was your fault." He said they would have sex when she turned 16. "So I was terrified of being 16, to the point of suicidal," the retired school teacher, now 60, said. Joan Isaacs in Sydney following her evidence against The Catholic Church in the ongoing Royal Commission- (Public Enquiry into the Catholic Church's Towards Healing Process) in which she revealed the details and brevity of the abuse she suffered. Derriman was convicted of two counts of indecent assault of Mrs Isaacs in 1998 and served eight months of a one-year sentence. After the conviction she wanted an apology, counselling and compensation through the Towards Healing program. She said the apology was not just for her abuse but for the church's failure to act against the priest even though she and others had reported him while they were still at school and subsequently. Mrs Isaacs was told by a church representative to bring a lawyer to her Towards Healing meeting, though she had not planned to. But because she was only allowed to have one person there with her, her husband could not attend. After two years of negotiations, she eventually got $30,000. She bought a sewing machine and $5000 worth of Coles-Myer shares - what was left after her legal and health expenses. Just last week Mrs Isaacs got a letter from the Archbishop of Brisbane, Mark Coleridge, releasing her from a deed of release she had been required to sign, which forbade her making "disparaging" remarks about Towards Healing. The letter was "too little, too late," she said. Mrs Isaacs told the commission she had needed to stand up before the commission "because I needed to be free of these chains before I die." She said she had struggled with depression and suicidal thoughts throughout her life. From being a top student her results deteriorated so much she struggled to get employment qualifications. When her Towards Healing ordeal was over, she and her husband told their parish priest they could no longer continue their many years of donations to its programs because of the way they had been treated. The priest told them "The bishop said that you shouldn't have brought a lawyer to the meeting, because it changed everything." "I understand that Frank Derriman is still alive," Mrs Isaacs said. She and her husband have stopped going to church.