Compensation for school sex abuse the least victim deserve
The victims of child sexual abuse deserve compensation and should not be forced into court by schools that refuse to take responsibility for shocking crimes, writes Kylie Lang.
Kylie Lang
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Court is the last place victims of historical sexual abuse belong.
Reliving the shame they never deserved to feel but have carried for decades is a bitter outcome.
But court is where the broken but brave will end up when schools deny or downplay the abuse, or admit liability but then offer a compensation sum so paltry it is not only insulting but also pointless.
What can you do with $30,000 that could ever assuage the lasting damage caused by sadistic paedophiles? Renovate a bathroom? Buy a car?
Hiding behind expensive lawyers – many of them former students themselves – these elite schools responsible for allowing heinous crimes to be committed against innocent children would really rather the whole messy business just go away.
They might talk the talk, professing to be outraged by what happened and committed to supporting victims, but very few walk it.
Preserving a school’s reputation – and future enrolments – is paramount.
Lawyers acting for these esteemed institutions will, inevitably and I suppose understandably, try to prove that what happened to these men when they were boys couldn’t have caused the extent of harm and dysfunction claimed.
Many of the victims I’ve spoken to have told me former classmates can’t understand why they can’t just “get over it”.
Old boys are outraged their school is being dragged through the mud, and being written about in this newspaper.
But when you sit with these victims, whom I’d like to call survivors except that implies they are somehow coping, you realise the extent of their brokenness.
When you spend hours listening to their stories, so horrific and heinous you can scarcely process them, you understand why they can’t move on.
As David Welsh, who is now 51 and was abused by notorious paedophile Kevin Lynch at Brisbane Grammar School in the 1980s, said to me: “Some part of you stops growing at that point.”
The abuse stunts their emotional development. They remain trapped as that teenager, whose dreams and aspirations were destroyed through no fault of their own.
While no financial figure can heal the hurt, there must be some meaningful recompense for lives – and livelihoods – lost.
For the pain these grown men have also caused those who love them, again, through no fault of their own but because of the actions of sick and twisted individuals they were meant to trust.
Research proves that being sexually or emotionally abused as a child can impair brain development.
Dr Martin Teicher, associate professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, has done extensive work on the impact of childhood abuse and neglect.
Particularly at risk are the parts of the brain that regulate emotions and control memory.
Victims can develop a “wide array of psychiatric disorders” as adults, Dr Teicher says, as a direct result of their earlier maltreatment.
Depression, anxiety, PTSD, irritability, unchecked anger and extreme difficulty in forming relationships are, tragically, par for the course.
But for every adult who feels able or compelled to speak out and take on the institutions they say wronged them, there are many, many more who stay silent.
Some carry their shame to the grave. Some suicide.
As one victim, a 57-year-old father of two who was abused while attending Anglican Church Grammar School, said to me this week: “I feel guilty that I’m still here.”
How is that fair?
As the $300 million Royal Commission into Institutional Responses into Child Sex Abuse has found, schools engaged in cover-ups, disbelieved boys who reported abuse, and failed in their duty to protect the safety and wellbeing of students.
What happened to these precious kids all those years ago should never be forgotten, excused or hushed up.
Their lives have been compromised, if not ruined, and they should be justly compensated. It’s the very least they deserve.
Kylie Lang is associate editor of The Courier-Mail
kylie.lang@news.com.au
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Originally published as Compensation for school sex abuse the least victim deserve
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