‘Give her my number’: Forty years after sexual abuse, a chance for justice

This story is part of the July 29 edition of Good Weekend.See all 15 stories.

″Hey David, just wondering if you’d like to catch up and have dinner one night soon, Paul.” In July 2018, newly single after the end of a six-year relationship, I received an out-of-the-blue text message from a man inviting me to dinner. It ought to have been cause for excitement. But this message made me nervous.

I knew there was nothing romantic about the invitation. Paul and I met at school in 1977, were friends throughout our school years and had remained in
contact in the decades since we graduated. His text seemed innocent enough – it was just an invitation to dinner, after all – but I was nevertheless circumspect about agreeing. My instincts told me there had to be more to it than just dinner. Something in my subconscious was warning me: approach with caution.

We ordered promptly, and were soon raising our glasses. There was some brief chit-chat about work and how we hadn’t seen each other in a while. We both apologised for being busy. Nothing out of the ordinary. Then he came out with it.

“You might be wondering why I wanted to have dinner. I wanted to let you know that I’ve been thinking a lot about Des and what happened to us at school.”

F---. Of all the reasons that had gone through my mind since receiving his text, this wasn’t one of them. Des was Desmond John Thornton, a teacher at Marcellin College in Randwick, an all-boys Catholic high school in Sydney’s east that we’d both attended in the 1980s. Separately, but under similar circumstances, Paul and I were sexually abused by Thornton, who taught social sciences while doubling as the school’s careers counsellor. Neither of us spoke about it at the time – not to a parent, a teacher, another student, or one another.

However, one night about 20 years later, when Paul and I were under the influence of a lot of drugs and alcohol, we told each other what had happened to us at school. Then we never spoke about it again.

“It’s been really difficult for me in the past few years, and I just can’t get it out of my head,” said Paul, who like me was now in his early 50s. “So, to cut a long story short, I wanted to tell you I’ve decided to do something about it. I’ve reported Des to the police and a detective has been assigned to investigate my case. I want to put this bastard in jail for what he did.”

Hearing Paul use Thornton’s first name after all those years jarred. It had been a trigger for me for more than four decades; I never liked hearing the name, even if in reference to a different Des.

“Just call me Des,” he’d said when I met him in 1980, on the first day of year 8. I was 13, so normal circumstances dictated that I ought to be calling him “Sir” or “Mr Thornton”, regardless of what he asked me to do. “Des” implied that we were friends or contemporaries. We were neither. “Just call me Des” was a deliberate attempt at affability and a way to counteract the power imbalance between us. “Just call me Des” was his first attempt to groom me.

Paul told me that Detective Senior Constable Annie Clark from the NSW Police’s Maroubra Detectives Unit had been assigned to investigate his case, and that his official police statement was now underway. He’d told Clark there was another victim but hadn’t given her my name or told her anything about me. He said she was keen to meet me.

Meagher as a schoolboy in 1981. He met his abuser, Desmond Thornton, when he was 13, on his first day of year 8. Credit: Courtesy of David Meagher

The prospect of Thornton going to prison for what he’d done to me was suddenly the realest it had ever been. If it happened, I knew I’d want to have had some hand in it. This wasn’t the first time I’d contemplated pursuing justice – I’d in fact taken a very small step towards it in 2013, when I’d tracked Thornton down to Alice Springs, where he was teaching at Centralian Senior College. Having found him, I sent an email confronting him with what he’d done. To my surprise, his written reply contained a kind of apology. “As potentially self- incriminating as this is, I take this opportunity to apologise to you,” he wrote, without specifying what it was he was sorry for. It would prove a pivotal email in years to come.

But right now, at that July 2018 dinner, when Paul raised the prospect of taking Thornton to court, I didn’t immediately agree to get involved. It took me more than six months to make my own contact with police.

---

I don’t recall a time at Marcellin when I wasn’t being bullied. If there was a honeymoon period at the beginning of high school, it was a brief one. Other boys were quick to recognise that I was different from them, and they pounced on it. I wasn’t interested in sport and when forced to participate, was terrible at it. I was shy and introverted and found the sporty boys (that is, most of them) intimidating. I didn’t know then that I was gay, but the other boys assumed my lack of sporting ability meant I must be – what other explanation could there be? – and wasted no time letting me know it.

What started as gentle ribbing for not being good at sport developed into full-scale, homophobic harassment and persecution; sometimes physically violent and always emotionally wounding. By the end of year 7 I’d been called every gay slur you can think of. I’d been punched, kicked, tripped, spat on, threatened, ignored and excluded. I’d been the subject of rumours and dirty looks.

It might seem counter-intuitive, but sometimes I was the one who got in trouble for being bullied. Another student would whisper an insult at me in class, or throw something at me, or spit on me. They would do it when the teacher was facing the chalkboard, which meant when he or she turned to see who was speaking, I’d be the one with my mouth open, muttering something back at my torturer. I’d be the one given detention, or sent to see the headmaster, or to receive six cuts of the cane.

I acknowledge that the school doesn’t operate in the same way today. The school’s website says it provides a safe, supportive and inclusive environment to nurture the wellbeing of all students and that it rejects all forms of bullying behaviour. But my story isn’t about the environment in schools today, it’s about how the bullying and victimisation to which I was subjected four decades ago created a perfect opportunity for a paedophile.

Being bullied at school has an amplifying effect. You become a lightning rod for the insecurities and frustrations of other students. No one wants to be a target, so they pile onto those who are, as a survival mechanism. If you’re part of the bullying pack, the logic goes, no one will notice your own difference, and you’ll be left alone. When the persecution involves being called gay, it’s a double whammy. Other boys don’t want to be seen with you in case they’re thought to be gay by association. All of this meant that I didn’t have a lot of allies at school.

I preferred the verbal abuse because I learnt to ignore it, but with hindsight it might have been better to take the punches. Bruises heal quickly, but the damage caused by insults takes a lot longer to repair. It took me years to recover and at times it seemed like it was going to get the better of me. When I was 14, I contemplated taking my own life, and even took a feeble step towards it. “You can’t bully or sexually abuse a dead kid” is how my teenage brain rationalised it.

Needless to say I hated everything about school, but the thing I dreaded most was lunchtime. At least in class there was structure and closer adult supervision. I looked for any opportunity to have something to do at lunchtime apart from socialising with the other boys. I went to the library; I hung out in the classrooms; I tried to find a quiet spot to sit. That my absence in the playground often went unnoticed proved an added bonus for Des Thornton.

The last thing he wanted was for someone else to earn the punishment of staying after class. He wanted me alone.

Aged 26, Des Thornton was an ex-student living at home with his parents in Malabar when he took the job at Marcellin, only his second teaching position. I knew this because he went to great lengths to befriend me, to ensure I saw him as different to the other teachers. “Just call me Des,” remember.

I got in trouble a lot in Thornton’s classes. With a particularly finely-tuned ear for when I was talking, he’d sternly instruct me to stay back after class, threatening to use the cane or give me a detention if there was one more word out of me before the bell sounded. His bluster was just for show, though. He wanted to look like a tyrant in front of the class but the last thing he wanted was for someone else to earn the punishment of staying back after class. He wanted me alone.

When the period finished the first time this happened, and it was just the two of us in the classroom, he asked why I was so disruptive in class.

“I dunno,” I said. I was shy and uncomfortable around adults. I didn’t like the attention and I just wanted to shut down the conversation.

“I’m concerned about you. You’re always talking in class and the other teachers tell me you’re disruptive in their classes, too,” he said. “If you continue to talk in class and don’t pay attention, your grades will
suffer, and then you might have to repeat year 8.” Thornton knew that repeating a year was a bullied kid’s worst fear; he threatened me with it a lot.

“What do you want to be when you grow up?” he asked.

“I dunno,” I replied.

“What do you mean you don’t know? You must have some idea of what you want to do. What are you good at?”

“I dunno.“

“I’m sure you’re good at something, we just need to find out what that is.“

“I suppose.“

“You’re going to be in year 9 next year and you’ll have to choose elective subjects. That’s a big responsibility. If you don’t choose the right ones, you might not be eligible for the university course you want. You need to start thinking about what you want to be now. All the other boys already know what they want to do.“

“I guess so.“

“I’m just trying to help you. Why don’t you come and see me in the
careers room one lunchtime, and we can work together to find out what you’re good at and what interests you. Or I can give you a detention notice, but I think you will benefit more from coming to the careers room than being on detention.”

Teacher Des Thorton invited 13-year-old Meagher to call him “Des”, which the writer calls a “deliberate attempt at affability and a way to counteract the power imbalance between us”.Credit: Courtesy of David Meagher

I didn’t want my parents to know that I was on detention again and I didn’t want to stay back after school. The less time I spent on the school grounds, the better. Going to the careers room at lunchtime seemed like an easy alternative – and I genuinely didn’t know what I wanted to be when I grew up. On top of that, it meant that for at least one lunchtime that week I wouldn’t have to find something to occupy myself with. Thornton told me to come and see him on Thursday, and I did what I was told.

---

Early in 2019, Paul and I agreed to meet up again, this time at his home. Paul went to buy coffee and pastries at the Kings Cross markets while I sat on his rooftop terrace, admiring the view. When he returned, he handed me my coffee. “Shit’s about to get real,” he said. My first thought was that he was referring to the crowds at the markets.

Detective Annie Clark, he said, was poised to make an arrest. I immediately felt guilty that I’d done nothing to help get the case to this critical point. Paul had done all the work and I was riding on his coattails. We talked about how Clark’s investigation had progressed: what she’d found out and what she hadn’t been able to ascertain or verify. Paul told me that Clark was keen to speak to me, to add a final piece to the puzzle. I could remain anonymous – my identity would be tightly protected and suppressed if the matter went to trial. Paul assured me Clark just wanted to hear my story.

I realised that if Thornton was charged and sent to prison, it wouldn’t be for anything he’d done to me. I felt guilty for not helping Paul but I also had an inkling that I was missing out on something momentous. “F--- it, I’m in. Give her my number, call her and tell her I want to make a statement,” I told Paul. “I’m sorry I’ve been so flaky, but I’m ready to do this now.”

In March 2019, two weeks after that coffee meeting, I sat in an interview room at the Kings Cross Police Station, giving my official statement to Annie Clark. It was a difficult and traumatic process that would ultimately take two days and necessitate, among other things, that I describe a penis I had seen only briefly, and that I draw a floorplan of an apartment I was in for less than an hour – both based on my 40-year-old memories.

My police statement says I went to the careers room “at least 10 times” but since I gave that statement some memories have become clearer, and I’m sure it was many more times than that. In fact, I think it was every week until the end of that year, which is what Thornton prescribed.

My police statement details what he did with me in that room. How he would place two chairs opposite each other and that they were uncomfortably close. How when I would move my chair back to regain some personal space, he would swiftly drag it closer to him.

I told Clark about how he would play with my penis through my school shorts and how he eventually took it out of my shorts. I told her how he would grab my pubic hair and pull it if I tried to move away. I told her about ejaculating for the first time ever in the careers room. That I didn’t know what it was. How Thornton got angry and just left me there to clean it up.

I also told Clark about moving into year 9 the following year and deliberately choosing subjects that Thornton didn’t teach, as a way to get away from him. And of how that strategy worked – until it didn’t. Not being one of his students forced him to become a little more creative in thinking up ways to get one-on-one access to me.

I told Clark how, one day, Thornton showed up at my house with a story about being locked out of a nearby apartment he was looking after for his brother. He needed someone small to climb through an open window and let him in. I told her how things escalated to a terrifying new level in that apartment. I told her how frightened I was to be in a strange apartment with Thornton and how no one in my family knew exactly where I was.

I was frightened. No one in my family knew exactly where I was.

I told her that, once I’d climbed through the window and let him in, Thornton gave me breakfast and sat me in front of the television, then went to the bathroom to shower. He emerged and sat down beside me on the sofa, wearing only a towel. I told Clark about how he undid the towel and masturbated himself with one hand while doing what he’d done to me in the careers room with the other. And I told her how he stood up, naked, and blocked my view of the television. How he forced me to perform oral sex on him. I told her that I couldn’t recall how long it lasted but that at one point I did something I still can’t believe I had the courage to do. I pushed him away, stood up and moved to the other side of the room.

“I don’t want to do this any more,” I said, crying. With that he told me to get dressed and that he would take me home, then on to school.

He never spoke to me again. At some point in the middle of the following year, Des Thornton left Marcellin College, with no apparent explanation.

---

When Thornton left Marcellin, the only thought I had about the abuse was that it was over. There was nothing he could do now to get me alone. There was nothing but blue skies ahead for me.

It didn’t take long for me to become acutely aware of how immature that idea was; how long-lasting the effects of sexual abuse are on victims. I first saw a psychiatrist when I was in my early 20s because I couldn’t put thoughts of the abuse out of my head.

Meagher took drugs to escape his thoughts, but the comedowns became persistent enough to leave him in a “permanently bad mood”.Credit: Nic Walker

Later in life I found other solutions, including drugs, most specifically ecstasy, MDMA and crystal methamphetamine. When I was high, I didn’t have a care in the world. The only thing I had to worry about was coming down, and when I was in my 30s and early 40s, coming down was easy to handle. Drugs were fun because they were mind-altering. They took me away from my thoughts for a few hours.

However, while the highs don’t get any higher, the lows gradually get lower and lower, such that the time spent high becomes immeasurably outweighed by the time spent recovering from it. Because I was often coming down, I was in a permanently bad mood, easily irritated and rarely happy. I wasn’t so much a glass-half-empty guy as a glass-completely-drained one.

That said, I never considered myself an addict and never went into recovery. I managed to hide my drug-taking well. I was single and most of my friends were in relationships so it was easy to go unnoticed for a weekend while on a drug and sex-fuelled bender. I thought I was smarter than other drug users and would never let it get out of control. Then, in 2002, following one of those drug and sex-fuelled benders, I was diagnosed as HIV positive. It was caught early and I’ve been on effective antiretroviral treatment ever since. I’m going to live as long as the next person, but in 2002 I thought it was a death sentence.

Eventually, a psychiatrist who I’d told about the abuse recommended I go on antidepressant medication. I was in my late 30s and holding down a position as a senior journalist on a magazine. I felt like I had the journalism job I’d always wanted but was increasingly struggling to find the joy in it. I didn’t make the connection between my drug-taking and my mood and resisted my psychiatrist’s advice.

“What have you got to lose?” he finally asked. He meant what did I have to lose from trying an antidepressant drug that might help me, but he asked it during a time in which I’d been thinking that I had nothing to lose from no longer living. I had no firm plan for taking my own life, but I thought of suicide as a kind of trapdoor I could escape through if things ever got too hard to handle.

I knew it wasn’t good to have those thoughts, and I was so ashamed of them that I couldn’t even discuss them with my psychiatrist. It’s stupid, but I thought he would judge me for my suicidal tendencies – which of course was precisely what I was paying him to do.

So, I took his advice to heart and thought, what do I have to lose from taking another drug? I’ve put worse shit into my body. If this doesn’t work, I will still have my trapdoor.

I took antidepressants for more than a decade and they did their job. The thing about taking antidepressants and amphetamines, though, is that they kind of cancel each other out. Recreational drugs just didn’t have potency and I gradually lost interest in them. I focused on my career and the more I did, the more demanding it became. Eventually I was hired to edit a magazine, my dream job. My career took off, my dark thoughts disappeared and my memories of the abuse were no longer front of mind.

Until that dinner with Paul in 2018.

---

On September 4 , 2019, Des Thornton received a knock on his Alice Springs door. It was officers from the Northern Territory Police Force. They asked him to go with them to the station, where he was arrested for multiple historic sexual abuse offences relating to Paul and myself. He was taken into custody, staying overnight in the cells, and appeared before a magistrate the next day.

Detective Annie Clark: “I think [Thornton] had been expecting that knock for a very long time.”Credit: Jessica Hromas

By then, detective Annie Clark was on the next plane out of Sydney, bound for Alice Springs. “We don’t fly out until there is confirmation that they have the person,” she would later tell me. “The words that were said to me after he was arrested by the police in Alice Springs was that he didn’t seem surprised. I think he’d been expecting that knock for a very long time.”

Thornton was ordered to appear at Maroubra Police Station in Sydney a couple of weeks later, where he was charged with multiple offences relating to the sexual abuse of two minors between 1980 and 1982. Our matter was handed over to the NSW Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions. It proceeded with more than a dozen charges relating to me and Paul.

Thornton agreed to plead guilty to seven of the charges: five for Paul and two for me. Our lawyer, Amanda-Lee James, assured us the charges he was willing to plead guilty to would be enough to ensure a custodial sentence, so we accepted the defence’s revised statement of facts and avoided what would have been a traumatic trial.

On February 25, 2021, at the Downing Centre District Court of NSW, Judge Ian McClintock sentenced Desmond John Thornton to a prison sentence of four years, with a non-parole period of 18 months. In NSW, pleading guilty early attracts a 25 per cent discount on the sentence for those charges. It’s a reward for saving the time and resources of the court, as well as for making the legal process less painful for the victims.

On August 24, 2022, Desmond John Thornton was released on parole. That morning, I got a phone call from NSW Victims Services to tell me the news, which I’d been expecting. It was a brief call. I was asked if I had any questions. I didn’t. I thanked the caller for letting me know and hung up. I don’t know if they were expecting more emotion on my part, but there wasn’t much to say.

I’ve barely thought about Thornton’s release from prison since. He served his time, and from a legal point of view, the matter has been resolved. After the
sentencing hearing, Amanda-Lee James said she thought that four years with a non-parole period of 18 months was on the lighter side. A longer sentence could however have given the defence cause to appeal, and dragged out our case further. On balance, we agreed, it was a satisfactory outcome. Thornton’s release from prison meant the case was now closed. The end.

In the weeks leading up to sentencing, some of those who knew my story asked how I’d feel if he wasn’t sent to prison. No one asked how I’d feel if he was. Bringing the person who abused me as a child to justice gave me confidence – in the police, in the law, in myself.

How did I feel when he was sentenced to prison? I felt like a changed man. I felt happier, as if a weight had been lifted from my shoulders. It was the end of a 40-year struggle and I’m glad I did it. One of my reasons for writing a book about my experience has been to let go of the secrets, the shame and the stress I’ve held on to for four decades.

But forgiveness? That’s the hardest thing. I’m not there yet – and if I ever get there, it will be for my benefit, not his.

Lifeline: 13 11 14. Beyond Blue: 1300 224 636

This is an edited extract from Secrets and Lies: A Story of Justice, Perseverance and the Life That Comes After (Penguin Random House, $35), by David Meagher, out August 2.

To read more from Good Weekend magazine, visit our page at The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age and Brisbane Times