After nearly half a century of trying to escape her past, Gina Swannell revealed her “toxic, filthy secret” at the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse in 2013.

She has since launched a legal action against the church for damages over alleged abuse she suffered as a six-year-old at the hands of priest Father Charles Holdsworth at Urana’s St Francis Xavier boarding school.

She claims Father Holdsworth, who was killed in a car accident 46 years ago, digitally penetrated her and forced her to watch him masturbate on multiple occasions in the church confessional box.

When she attempted to report the abuse to the head nun, she said she was told: “That man was hand-picked by God … any more of this nonsense and there will be no Communion for you”.

The order of nuns which ran the school, the Presentation Sisters, has since offered to mediate the case but the church has blocked the mediation, she said.

The matter will instead go to the Supreme Court on October 16.

Ms Swannell’s lawyer Peter Karp said Wagga diocese leader Bishop Gerard Hanna had sent a letter to him saying the church was not interested in mediation.

But Bishop Hanna strongly denied the claim, saying the issue had become “tangled” in legal argument.

“These allegations are 46 years old and the statement of claim in the Supreme Court names 21 people from the church at the time (as defendants),” Bishop Hanna said.

“We have to work through the legal questions. We are definitely open to mediation, we just need some time.”

Ms Swannell said her adult life had been punctuated by anger issues, drug addiction and broken relationships, all stemming from the abuse.

“It’s destroyed my trust in everyone, including my own family,” she said. 

“I want justice, I want an apology, I want compensation. The church says one thing to the public and then does another thing behind closed doors.”