Sarah Dingle: They're one of the biggest charities in the country, worth hundreds of millions of dollars. For more than a century, Australians have trusted the Salvation Army to take care of the homeless and the poor, the veterans and the addicts. But the organisation tasked with helping society's most vulnerable has also betrayed them.

JH: He said, 'Now, we're all Christians here, aren't we.' Yeah, of course we are. Then he said, 'I have something to tell you. I have abused your daughter.'

Sarah Dingle: The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sex Abuse hearings revealed that the Salvation Army has kept a known child sex offender, Major Colin Haggar, within its ranks to this day.

In today's program we'll hear how the Army has sheltered him, promoted him, and continued to allow him access to children until eight months ago.

A woman sexually abused as a child by Major Colin Haggar wasn't prepared to appear at the public Commission hearings. But she tells her story publicly for the first time to Background Briefing.

JI: So I was sexually abused when I was eight. I remember freezing, I remember just…they say it's just shock, you just go into shock and just kind of melt down.

Sarah Dingle: Background Briefing can also reveal there's another Salvation Army Major, accused in the '80s and '90s of sex offences, who has continued as an officer. His case didn't come up at the Royal Commission hearings, but there are allegations he has sexually abused three people, including one who was a child. That victim is now a woman we'll call Bronte, who spoke for the first time to this program.

Bronte: For people to disclose that they have abused children and for the Salvation Army to feel that their forgiveness is absolute and there's no requirement for that person to have that information disclosed to the police, that's not transparency. That's the thing I'd like to see stop.

Sarah Dingle: But stopping it will be hard. Background Briefing understands just days ago the Salvation Army lost both its trained internal investigators, tasked with uncovering serious misconduct; one to stress leave and one permanently.

This weekend is the Salvation Army's Red Shield Appeal, but the revelations of child sexual abuse have proven too much for one Salvation Army chaplain, Cliff Randall.

Cliff Randall: As far as the Red Shield is concerned I'm taking a backwards step this year. I just don't feel that I can face up to going doorknocking. Unfortunately I have lost a lot of faith in the leadership.

Sarah Dingle: Charities depend on faith, the faith of their workers and the public that they are doing the right thing.

I'm Sarah Dingle, and this week on Background Briefing, a crisis of faith in one of Australia's oldest charities.

In the grand ballroom of the five-star Westin Hotel, 700 of Sydney's well-to-do enjoy a three-course lunch. Captains of industry, like the multi-millionaire Roger Massy-Greene, are here to launch the Salvation Army's 2014 Red Shield Appeal.

What is the target for the Red Shield Appeal this year?

Roger Massy-Greene: Nationally the target is just about $80 million, about the same as last year.

Sarah Dingle: The shadow of the Royal Commission hovers over this launch.

This year, the Royal Commission has heard terrible accounts of sexual, physical and emotional abuse at Salvation Army-run children's homes in the '60s and '70s.

Donors like Roger Massy-Greene are quick to make a distinction between the present and the past.

Roger Massy-Greene: There are some people who are unhappy about what has happened, as we are deeply unhappy and we are ashamed and embarrassed. But people understand that the work of the Salvation Army goes on and they're supporting us more than ever before.

Sarah Dingle: It's a sentiment echoed by Commissioner James Condon, head of the organisation in New South Wales, Queensland and the ACT.

James Condon: As I sat through the first hearing I felt shocked, ashamed and aggrieved at the abuse that happened in our children's homes at the hands of some officers of the Salvation Army and some employees. I want to assure you today that as the commissioner of the Salvation Army I have zero tolerance for child sexual abuse within the Salvation Army. I want to assure you that we have strong policies in place to protect children and all vulnerable people that come into our care.

Sarah Dingle: But those policies are weak, and appear to have been ignored by the organisation, including the Commissioner.

The sun's dipping below the horizon in central western New South Wales, and kangaroos are gathering at the edge of the bush for a piece of bread.

I'm at the rural property of a woman known to the Royal Commission as JH. She's now a grandmother, but in 1979 she and her husband were new arrivals in town. Eventually, JH had a much desired baby girl, to the delight of her husband Bill.

JH: He was absolutely over the moon, and I would have had 50,000 kids just to have that one girl.

Sarah Dingle: JH and her husband were active members of the Salvation Army. The Army ran a wide range of community services in town; a church, a women's group and children's activities. When JH heard the Salvation Army needed a volunteer to run their op shop, she put up her hand.

How many days a week did you work at the op shop?

JH: Five days a week. On a Saturday I would go in and I'd clean up, and then again of course on Sunday it was church. So Salvation Army seven days a week really.

Sarah Dingle: And you taught Sunday School after?

JH: Yes, I did.

Sarah Dingle: In January 1989, Captain Colin Haggar and his wife Kerry arrived in town as the church's new Salvation Army officers.

JH and her family, including her young daughter, met the Haggars straight away. JH's daughter has never told her story publicly before, but she's agreed to speak to Background Briefing. We'll call her JI. Now in her 30s, JI says she remembers Colin and Kerry Haggar dropping by their house.

JI: He was the one that sort of got in and had games with the kids and bonded with us, I would say. It's, as they say, the grooming. Yes, he made me feel like I wanted to go back near him, yeah, like he was giving me the attention that I needed.

Sarah Dingle: That year, something was going very wrong. JI was sexually assaulted by Captain Colin Haggar. She was eight.

JI: The occasions were kind of like climbing stairs. The first one was minor, the second was even a little bit more severe, and then the third one was the worst. That's why I remember the three different occasions, because once they'd happened I left the room straight away.

Sarah Dingle: That room was Colin Haggar's office in the town's Salvation Army building known as 'the Citadel'.

JI didn't tell her parents, but they found out that same year.

JH: I'll always remember that day. He was wearing short shorts, his top he always wore, and a hat. Then he said, 'Before we start I'd like to start in a prayer.' And he prayed about forgiveness. Not for forgiveness, he prayed about forgiveness. And then after that he said, 'Now, we're all Christians here, aren't we.' Yeah, of course we are. Then he said, 'I have something to tell you. I have abused your daughter.' And at that stage I froze, I went cold all over. And he said, 'But don't worry about it, it wasn't serious, I just fingered her.' Then he said, 'I'm glad that's all over now.' And he got up and he said, 'Now I can go and save more souls.' And he was gone.

Sarah Dingle: Colin Haggar left behind him a devastated household. Their work and personal lives were heavily bound up in the Salvation Army. Now JH and Bill had to extricate their family, care for their child, and hold Colin Haggar to account. Bill rang the Army, and JH says a couple of days later there was a meeting in the Citadel with two Army officers.

JH: One of them said, 'Righto, do you mind if we tape this?' It must have been Bill that said, 'No, that's fine.' Okay. They put their hats down, they put their bibles there. Then they started to interview us. I can't remember what the interview said at all except for the end of that interview. One of them said, 'Well, let's put it this way, who do we believe, a man in uniform, a Salvation Army man of God? Or else do we believe adherents of the church? You're just workers.' That was when we both realised we'd lost.

Sarah Dingle: At the end of the meeting, the whole party went downstairs to the room where Sunday School was held. And then a Mrs Milton entered, who had an intellectual disability.

JH told Background Briefing what she told the Royal Commission:

JH: And then all of a sudden, bless her soul, this lady came in, she was not quite with it. She came running in and she said in front of everyone, 'I'm a good girl, I'm a good girl, the Captain was just trying to show me how to pray with our hands up my leg and him holding my breasts, but I'm a good girl.' And that is why Colin Haggar admitted the abuse. If that woman hadn't run in and said anything to us then it would have been our word against a God fearing man. But because this woman came running in yelling that, it blew his cover.

Sarah Dingle: Mrs Milton is now deceased.

No tape of an interview with JH and Bill has been found.

JH says she and her husband were told by the Salvation Army officers that they could go to the police, but if they didn't, the Salvation Army would 'fix it'. JH took this to mean they would report it to police, and there would be disciplinary action within the Salvation Army.

JH: Well of course, what do you think? This is a wonderful organisation, they're going to take this man to the police, they're going to have him stripped of his rank, they're going to throw him out of uniform, he's going to go to jail, all these things. Nothing.

Sarah Dingle: Captain Colin Haggar admitted to the Salvation Army that he had sexually abused JI once, not three times. The Army didn't go to police, but took discreet internal action. The Army dismissed both Colin and Kerry Haggar and told them to keep the child sexual abuse a secret. A February 1990 letter to the Haggars from the organisation's Chief Secretary expressed sincere regret, but it indicated he had no choice:

Reading: The Field Secretary has conveyed the seriousness of your situation which cannot be allowed within the ranks of Officership, much less by the laws of the land.

Sarah Dingle: Despite this feared breach of the law, the organisation did not report Colin Haggar to police. In late February 1990 the Haggars sent a farewell letter to the community in which they said:

Reading: We are taking a break from the duties of Officership so that we can spend more time on our own spiritual growth and thus hopefully be of more use to Him when we resume our active service.

Sarah Dingle: Meanwhile, Colin Haggar's victims had begun to break down. After that interview at the Citadel, no one from the Salvation Army contacted JH or her husband.

JH: They didn't send us a letter, they didn't even ring us and say how are you going, how is your daughter going, this is what's happening with the officers, and that. It truly was, it was like…nothing. Then I started to slowly lose it. That was when I went into this…it was a zombie state. You see, Colin Haggar took everything that I held dear to me.

Sarah Dingle: Incredibly, JH kept working at the Salvation Army op shop, purely to maintain a routine.

JH: Bill used to actually force me out of bed, get me in the car, take me to the Salvation Army. Now I hated the place but that was my salvation because I could get behind the counter, go into the little tea room and pop Valium, and just wish the day away. I went on like a normal shell I'd have to call it, I couldn't do anything, I was not there, I was someplace inside. And I couldn't get out. I knew I was there but I couldn't get out because I knew what he had done to my daughter.

Sarah Dingle: Sexually abused and now effectively without her mother, eight-year-old JI was also falling apart.

JI: Mum was very distant. I remember her sleeping a lot and I remember her not being very well and Dad just, he just picked up the pieces. You know, he'd get us all up for school, he'd make our lunches. And then we'd get home and Dad would be there, and he'd make dinner, and he'd wash the dishes. There were some days I don't even remember Mum being there.

Sarah Dingle: Background Briefing has seen photos of JI before and after the sexual abuse. In one school photo there are a number of unusually large scabs on her face.

JI: I did a lot of self-harm, a lot of scratching of my skin. Which was sort of…that happened when I was stressed and things like that.

JH: And I didn't know about her legs until she told me. But she picked holes in her leg that you could see, her face, absolutely, not just 'pick, pick', she dug. And that was her way of stressing.

Sarah Dingle: At school, JI started to withdraw. A primary school report from 1991 shows her unwilling to speak in class and finding it hard to remember words.

What was school like for you?

JI: I don't really remember. I don't remember struggling, I don't remember fighting anything, I just…I think to me it was just…it's just a blur. I know high school I sort of…it was a lot of acting out, trying to get into trouble, yeah. But primary school I don't really remember.

Sarah Dingle: JI didn't finish high school.

The Salvation Army didn't offer JH, JI or anyone else in the family support or counselling. But the Army continued to look after the Haggars after their dismissal in 1990, finding them jobs and accommodation in Sydney. Just months after abusing a little girl, Colin Haggar as a civilian was made assistant manager of John Irwin Lodge, a Salvation Army hostel for homeless youth.

Cliff Randall: It was for young boys off the street, and the manager that was there at the time also had young children, him and his wife.

Sarah Dingle: That's Major Cliff Randall, a chaplain of the Salvation Army. And you can read more about his story on our website. Cliff Randall says by giving Colin Haggar a job at John Irwin Lodge, the Salvation Army continued to provide Colin Haggar access to children.

Cliff Randall: The managers were not told anything about his background, so they were not aware of any possibilities that could have happened to their own children.

Sarah Dingle: They weren't aware of risk?

Cliff Randall: No. I believe they should have been made aware straight away. They had two boys and a girl. The girl was I think 11 at the time.

Sarah Dingle: Background Briefing has contacted that former manager, who is still with the Salvation Army. He was not allowed to make any comment.

Despite the Salvation Army's attempts to conceal Colin Haggar's sexual abuse of JI, Cliff Randall says a few officers began to talk.

Cliff Randall: Somebody said, oh yeah, he'd abused a young girl in the corps and that's why he was stood down. So it was in about '92 that I really found out about it.

Sarah Dingle: After dismissal, Colin Haggar was given counselling for 18 months. His counsellor was another Salvation Army officer called Peter Farthing. Just two months after dismissal, Colin Haggar told a Salvation Army interviewer that Peter Farthing's counselling had left him '100% improved' and he was expecting to re-join the Army.

At the same time, Colin Haggar was also maintaining contact with his victims. He rang JH:

JH: I was coping with the Valium and all that and then all of a sudden the phone calls started. He rang and he said, 'We're coming through the town and can we pop in and see how your daughter's going?'

Sarah Dingle: That's an extraordinary thing to say. What did you say?

JH: I can't remember, I think I hung up. I can't honestly remember because I didn't want to hear his voice, I didn't want him near my daughter, that was all there was to it.

Sarah Dingle: After one call in about 1991, Colin Haggar also sent a letter. In it he wrote:

Reading: Talking to you today made me realise just how much I mucked things up doing what I did. I am now closer to the Lord than I ever was as an officer. We sent a 'feeler' to the Army concerning re-admission just a couple of months back and whereas initially the Chief Secretary, Colonel Calvert, was saying 'Never!', this time they said 'maybe'.

Sarah Dingle: Six months after Colin Haggar's dismissal, documents in support of his re-admission began to circulate amongst the leadership. In mid-1992 Colin Haggar's Salvation Army counsellor, Peter Farthing, sent a letter to the then head of the Salvation Army, recommending re-admission. It also suggested a three-year period during which time Colin Haggar would be 'specially mentored'.

Peter Farthing said he would be happy to be the special mentor, or Major James Condon, 'who knows Colin's case'. Major James Condon had provided pre-marital counselling for the Haggars and attended their wedding. Today James Condon is the head of the Salvation Army in the eastern states, and we'll hear more about his relationship with Colin Haggar shortly.

In January 1993, Captains Colin and Kerry Haggar were welcomed back into the fold, just three years after they'd been dismissed. Cliff Randall remembers that decision:

Cliff Randall: I was horrified to think that we allowed somebody to come back in who was a paedophile. Even when he was dismissed, he would be one of the first officers, him and his wife, that I know of who's been dismissed, given quarters, Salvation Army quarters, and a job straight away with all of the help and the support and the counselling, when nothing was offered to the victims.

Sarah Dingle: The victims of Colin Haggar's abuse found out he'd re-joined Salvation Army ranks from Colin Haggar himself.

JH remembers:

JH: One phone call said, 'We're back in the Army and we're now in charge of the Sunshine home for old people.' I said god no. I mean, he's stabbing me, all the time, every phone call that came, it was like a stab, stab; guess what, I've still got control, guess what, I've still got control, not only of you, I've got control of the Salvation Army, I've got control of everyone.

Sarah Dingle: At the same time, the Salvation Army was writing policies on child sexual abuse, but not following them.

Background Briefing has discovered a document not tendered to the Royal Commission. It's from 1994, and sets out guidelines for all Australian Salvationists on reporting child abuse. It says 'legislators believe that all citizens have a moral responsibility to report abuse' and 'legislation underlines this moral responsibility'. It also says every effort should be made to support the alleged abuser and the child.

Not only did the Salvation Army fail to follow its own policy in 1994, the organisation didn't officially report Colin Haggar's crime to authorities for the next 20 years. But claims of an unofficial report have surfaced. This year Australia's most senior Salvation Army officer, James Condon, claimed to the Royal Commission that in early 1990 he went with Colin Haggar in a personal capacity to confess to police.

James Condon: I really just went as a support person, to be with him, as I referred earlier in the mentor-pastor relationship that I had with him.

Sarah Dingle: It appears to have been an extremely unusual meeting with police. The Salvation Army Commissioner told Counsel Assisting the Royal Commission, Simeon Beckett, that the entire confession of child sexual abuse took place at the counter where Colin Haggar spoke to the duty constable.

James Condon: He told them that he had inappropriately touched a young girl. I remember him saying 'eight years of age'. I remember, as I stated earlier, when he said 'inappropriately touched' he referred to touching her on the vagina.

Simeon Beckett: Did he tell the police officer the name of the child?

James Condon: No, I don't recall him telling them, he wasn't asked for any specific details.

Simeon Beckett: Did he tell them the name of the family?

James Condon: No, I don't recall him telling the name of the family.

Simeon Beckett: Did he tell them the location where the offence took place?

James Condon: No, I can't say for sure that he did.

Simeon Beckett: What was the response of the police officer?

James Condon: The police officer as I recall it, in general terms, said, 'There's nothing we can do about that unless the girl or her family report it to us.'

Simeon Beckett: Commissioner, you would understand that on what you've just said, that Mr Haggar was effectively admitting or was in fact admitting that he had engaged in a criminal offence?

James Condon: Absolutely, that's why we were there.

Simeon Beckett: And that that would have been sufficient on its own to take further action by the police?

James Condon: One would have thought so, yes.

Sarah Dingle: In a written statement to the Royal Commission, a Detective Inspector from the New South Wales Child Abuse Squad described police procedure at the time James Condon says Colin Haggar confessed to police. He said as per state police regulations in 1990, any such confession would have immediately been referred to detectives, who would have separated the two Salvation Army officers and interviewed them both.

No police records of Colin Haggar's alleged confession have been found.

Commissioner Condon said although he was wearing his Salvation Army uniform to accompany Colin Haggar, he didn't make any notes of the police visit. Nor did he report to the Salvation Army to say he had gone with Colin Haggar to confess his crime to police.

The Royal Commission heard the first written record of this joint visit was in February 2014. In an email to an internal investigator, Colin Haggar's former counsellor Major Peter Farthing wrote: 'James Condon told me that he went to the police with Colin, so it did happen.'

In March 2014, Commissioner James Condon initially made a statement to the Royal Commission that the police station was in Sydney's eastern suburbs. But in April, on the day he appeared at the hearings, he said it was in Parramatta in Sydney's west.

James Condon: And the reason we went to that police station, as I recall it, at that time was it was the…I'll use this term, but headquarters in terms of the Sex Crimes Squad.

Simeon Beckett: Has it been suggested to you that the Sex Crimes Squad was located in Parramatta back in 1990?

James Condon: Yeah.

Simeon Beckett: And is that what then triggered your memory about…?

James Condon: Yes.

Sarah Dingle: The next day James Condon was cross examined by John Agius QC, acting for the police.

John Agius: Do you know that there was no child Sex Crimes Squad in the Parramatta police station in 1990?

James Condon: No, I didn't.

Sarah Dingle: Salvation Army chaplain Major Cliff Randall was listening to James Condon's evidence.

Commissioner James Condon told the Royal Commission that he took Colin Haggar to a police station in 1990. Do you think that happened?

Cliff Randall: That puts me in an awkward position. You've got to listen to what was said at the Commission and wonder whether it really did happen or not. You'd hope that the Commissioner was telling the truth. But I'm not sure. I'm not sure.

Sarah Dingle: James Condon told the Royal Commission that for 25 years he accepted Colin Haggar's assertion that JH and her family forgave Colin Haggar. James Condon said he believed the victims' parents forgave Colin Haggar straight after he told them he had sexually abused their eight-year-old daughter.

Karen McGlinchey, lawyer: They forgave him?

James Condon: Yes.

Karen McGlinchey: And they asked him to stay for dinner?

James Condon: Yes.

Karen McGlinchey: And they asked him back for dinner a number of times?

James Condon: Yes, yes.

Sarah Dingle: Colin Haggar didn't give evidence at the Royal Commission, but his wife Kerry did. She also claimed that after admitting to sexually abusing JI, she and Colin Haggar were invited to dinner with JH, Bill, and their children, including the victim.

Simeon Beckett: Was there any discussion specifically of what your husband was said to have done to JI?

Kerry Haggar: I spoke with JH and apologised to her.

Simeon Beckett: At that stage, what did you understand had occurred?

Kerry Haggar: That my husband had inappropriately touched JI.

Simeon Beckett: On how many occasions?

Kerry Haggar: One.

Simeon Beckett: What was JH's attitude?

Kerry Haggar: She was very forgiving. She told me not to worry about it.

Sarah Dingle: Both the victim JI and her mother JH dispute there was any such dinner.

Kerry Haggar and James Condon gave evidence to the Royal Commission after JH, who was unable to publicly respond to their claims.

JH: In fact I sent an email to the Royal Commission...I mean, how could you do that? No mother would do that to their child. They wouldn't put her through it. And even if I was down in the depths of hell I would have probably put a knife to him.

Sarah Dingle: In 2002, the Salvation Army supported Colin Haggar in obtaining a Working with Children Check. Five years later, Colin Haggar's former counsellor Peter Farthing wrote the organisation's Sex Offender Minute. It's a policy saying no one convicted or cautioned for a sexual offence can be readmitted to officership. But Peter Farthing told the Royal Commission he didn't mean for that policy to act retrospectively.

Peter Farthing: So when I wrote 'will be reaccepted' I meant from that date on, someone who reapplied will not be reaccepted.

Justice Peter McClellan: So what it meant was 'from September 2007 don't bother applying'?

Peter Farthing: Yes, that's right.

Sarah Dingle: In 2012, still with his Working with Children Check, Colin Haggar was appointed manager of Samaritan Services and Foster House, a shelter for homeless men and adolescent boys. After his appointment, Samaritan Services took over a Salvation Army women's and children's shelter. Colin Haggar became assistant director of the combined service.

Once again, Salvation Army chaplain Cliff Randall was horrified.

Cliff Randall: It would be like putting a drunk in charge of a bar really. You're putting temptation in front of him.

Sarah Dingle: Background Briefing understands that the Salvation Army chaplain at Foster House under Colin Haggar had no idea of Colin Haggar's past. The chaplain declined an interview, saying there were parts of the Salvation Army he wasn't happy about, but that's life.

Last year, Colin Haggar appeared on Channel 7's Sunrise, presenting Salvation Army research on the number of children living in poverty, and spruiking the Red Shield Appeal.

Melissa Doyle: So for more on this I'm joined now by Lieutenant Colonel Colin Haggar from the Salvos, good morning to you.

Colin Haggar: Good morning Mel.

Melissa Doyle: The number of kids living in poverty, does that number surprise you?

Colin Haggar: Look, it does. A lot of the figures out of the report sadly don't surprise me. Anecdotally over the years…

Sarah Dingle: JH was watching Sunrise at home.

JH: I actually saw him on TV on the Sunrise and I looked and that was it. I said, no, this is no good, why the hell don't they wake up to themselves, why can't they realise that they've got an abuser in there.

Sarah Dingle: Apart from Colin Haggar's sexual abuse of JI, Background Briefing can reveal at least five other allegations of sexual abuse against Colin Haggar have been made to the Salvation Army over the years.

A May 1990 Salvation Army file note marked 'strictly confidential' records an alleged phone call from JH to the Salvation Army, where JH cited 'other cases of his advances to other women which confirmed his sexual problems'.

Background Briefing has learned that in 2008 a further allegation against Colin Haggar was made to the Salvation Army, which was not revealed at the Royal Commission hearings. An officer sent a memo to her superior, saying that while she was collecting money for the Salvation Army at a pub, she was approached by a woman. The woman asked if Colin Haggar was still in the Army, and said while Colin Haggar was in JH's town in the late '80s, he'd molested her daughter and given her a disease. JH says that woman was not her.

In April 2013, Commissioner James Condon ordered officers to report all allegations of child sexual abuse to headquarters so that the Salvation Army could prepare for the Royal Commission.

Salvation Army officer Donna Evans emailed saying she was working in a town close to JH's in 1989. She said while there she was told that on one occasion Colin Haggar had been minding children, and when a parent returned they found semen in a girl's underwear. James Condon told the Royal Commission he considered that hearsay and did not investigate it.

But he did interview Colin Haggar in 2013 about the allegation that Colin Haggar had touched the intellectually disabled Mrs Milton, which had surfaced again.

Karen McGlinchey: And what was his response?

James Condon: He denied it, yes.

Karen McGlinchey: And what did you do then?

James Condon: I don't recall that we did anything further following that.

Sarah Dingle: Once again, Commissioner James Condon said he didn't make any notes of that interview.

Colin Haggar remained in his position as Assistant Director for Samaritan Services until September 2013, when a young Salvation Army officer blew the whistle. Captain Michelle White had become aware of Colin Haggar's name and child sexual offence in May. After a series of meetings and emails with Commissioner James Condon about the need to report Colin Haggar to authorities, Michelle White became concerned that Colin Haggar had been left in his position.

In August 2013, Colin Haggar applied to renew his Working with Children check.

In September Michelle White had had enough, and went outside her organisation to report Colin Haggar to the Office of the Children's Guardian, the Royal Commission, and the New South Wales Ombudsman. It was the first time on record that anyone from the Salvation Army had reported Colin Haggar for sexually abusing an eight-year-old girl in 1989, even though he'd admitted it at the time.

That victim, JI, realised what Captain White had done at the Royal Commission.

JI: I just wanted to thank her for not letting it go, because she could have just let it go and it could have disappeared again through paperwork or whatever, but she didn't let it go and she stood up for people like me. She put her uniform at risk for someone she didn't even know.

Sarah Dingle: Background Briefing contacted Captain Michelle White for an interview but we were told she was not permitted by the Salvation Army to speak to this program.

Background Briefing can reveal that Colin Haggar is not the only Salvation Army Major who allegedly abused children and women in the community and was not reported to authorities by the organisation. Multiple allegations of sexual abuse have been made against a second Major, now in his 80s, which were not examined by the Royal Commission hearings. We'll call him Major A.

Background Briefing understands in the last fortnight, three women have made statements to police about Major A. Two were young women at the time of the alleged sexual abuse in the early 1980s, and one has an intellectual disability. The third alleged victim is now a 49-year-old professional we'll call Bronte. Bronte alleges from the age of four, Major A began to sexually abuse her.

Bronte: We're talking…initially the abuse started as him inserting his fingers into my genitals.

Sarah Dingle: She says the sexual abuse continued until she was 11, when Major A allegedly attempted full intercourse with her in his Sydney office.

Bronte: With every ounce of courage that I had at 11-and-a-half I kicked out and pushed and shoved and screamed and yelled as much as I possibly could, and he backed away.

Sarah Dingle: After years of secrecy, Bronte says she reported her child sexual abuse to the Salvation Army in 1995, almost 20 years ago.

Bronte: I sent that information to Territorial Headquarters in Sydney, to the attention of the then Chief Secretary of the Salvation Army, and received no response whatsoever.

Sarah Dingle: Last December, a friend encouraged Bronte to again make a statement to the Salvation Army about her alleged sexual abuse as a child. She did so in January.

Bronte: I have no official correspondence from the Salvation Army acknowledging that I have made these claims, assuring me that they'll be fully investigated, nothing whatsoever. To me that's not transparency. That's not a genuine concern. And it makes me feel very nervous about where the Salvation Army's position in regards to all of these claims actually is. My gut feeling is that the Salvation Army would prefer for it to just go away.

Sarah Dingle: Background Briefing has found evidence of Bronte's alleged perpetrator playing an active role in the Salvation Army until as recently as 2013. Bronte says she finds his continued work for the organisation appalling.

Bronte: I feel disgust and disappointment that he wears a uniform that he's not worthy to wear. I feel disappointment in the leadership, that the priority has been to extend grace to this man and not justice to the victims.

Sarah Dingle: Bronte has now made a full statement to police about Major A.

Background Briefing can reveal that days ago the Army was left without either of its trained internal investigators. Background Briefing understands one is on stress leave, and the other has had his contract discontinued before finishing the investigation into the Army's handling of Colin Haggar.

Last month James Condon had his position as head of the Salvation Army in the eastern states renewed by his superior in London. JI believes that James Condon, for so many years Colin Haggar's mentor and pastor, should step down.

JI: I don't think he should have his job.

Sarah Dingle: Will you go to the police about what Colin Haggar did to you?

JI: Yeah, my counsellor's helped me a lot and I feel like I'm ready to do it.

Sarah Dingle: Background Briefing requested interviews with Colin Haggar and Salvation Army leadership, including Commissioner James Condon, but no one was prepared to speak with us.

We asked the Salvation Army a series of questions, all of which they declined to answer. You can read our questions and their response on our website.

Background Briefing's coordinating producer is Linda McGinness, research by Anna Whitfeld, technical production by Phil McKellar, the executive producer is Chris Bullock, and I'm Sarah Dingle.