Clergy sex abuse survivor opens Hobart support centre

Anglican clergy sex abuse survivor Steve Fisher wants to help others like him making their way through the legal “minefield” on their path to finalising compensation claims.

Beyond Abuse CEO Steve Fisher at the support centre’s new Hobart office. Picture: CHRIS KIDD

A TASMANIAN sex abuse survivor, who was preyed upon as a teen by an Anglican priest, has opened a new support centre for others like him navigating the legal “minefield” to compensation.

Steve Fisher was only 12 years old when now-convicted Devonport paedophile priest Garth Hawkins began preying upon him during the 1980s.

Now, decades later, Mr Fisher is pursuing compensation for the ongoing, daily impacts the abuse has caused.

Knowing “just how daunting” the road to compensation is for survivors, Mr Fisher in 2003 opened Beyond Abuse, a service providing legal, financial and mental health support, run via telephone, an office in Devonport and home-delivered help from Hobart.

But as of this week, Beyond Abuse will now have an official site in Hobart, run by a team of volunteers who are all sex abuse survivors themselves.

“All the staff at Beyond Abuse are survivors. They’ve all been through the system and they know how it works,” Mr Fisher said.

“Anything like this is a minefield. We can step them through the whole process because we’ve been there and we’re still going through it.”

Mr Fisher said he was previously given a payout in 2005 under the Anglican Church’s pastoral assistance scheme.

But, like the National Redress Scheme introduced after the royal commission into institutional child sex abuse, compensation payouts were capped.

Now, thanks to new laws, Mr Fisher has been able to seek the deed of release he previously signed to be set aside.

Mr Fisher said the royal commission showed how much sexual abuse had been swept “under the carpet”. “When I chose to speak up about what happened to me I found that there were gaping holes in the system. People didn’t have the time for me that I needed and deserved,” he said.

Beyond Abuse aimed to address those problems, Mr Fisher added. Survivors can turn up to the new support centre Beyond Abuse at 30-38 Innovation Drive, Dowsing Point, or email [e-mail].

■ Mr Fisher was the first person in Tasmania to be granted a court order allowing him to publicly tell his story and be identified in media reporting. Section 194K of Tasmania’s Evidence Act precludes publication of sex abuse victims’ identities, but the State Government has promised to scrap the law following the high-profile #LetHerSpeak campaign, spearheaded by Grace Tame and backed by the Mercury.