Technology
8 | I See You
In this gripping episode of 'Rotten Apple,' we delve into the harrowing story of Jemima, a young girl whose life was forever altered by an inappropriate relationship with her teacher, Michae...
8 | I See You
Technology •
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Interactive Transcript
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9 Podcasts
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For those of you pressing play on this for the first time, thank you.
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Rotten Apple is the twin sister to another podcast investigation called The Nurse.
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If you're interested, search for The Nurse wherever you found this.
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But a word of warning, both of these investigations deal with some very heavy topics.
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This episode will feature a special criminal case.
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It's special because it was the first of its kind in Australia.
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The word grooming has become part of the lexicon in our understanding of the targeting
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and abuse of children outside the home.
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And the possibility of online grooming is a headline feature of child safety education.
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But what you may not know is that a report from one Tasmanian girl may have started it all.
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She became a test case for the newly minted telecommunications act of 1997,
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when Aussie investigators found a criminal charge to apply to an adult in the Wild West of the World Wide Web.
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It only takes one rotten apple to spoil the bunch.
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Ever heard that expression?
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As a journalist, it's something I've heard often.
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And that pedophiles and sex offenders are just a bad apple.
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But here's the thing.
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Fruit grows on a tree, and that tree needs all the right conditions to thrive.
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I'm Camille Bianchi, and I've been working with my friend and colleague, Amelia Saw,
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on an investigation into some powerful people who took that power and abused it.
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We're in Tasmania, the little island off the bottom of the big island that is Australia,
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and Tazzi is known as the Apple Isle.
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Now, it's time to find the worst fruit of the bunch.
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And take down the whole tree.
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I eventually confessed to him that I had a crush on him,
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and his email back to me was his confession that he had won on me too.
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And that's where it got really inappropriate.
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The human brain is said to keep developing from infancy until age 25.
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There are proven biological factors at play, significant ones,
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that cause our child and teenage brains to send us signals to maybe be impulsive,
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or to form conclusions we don't agree with, or even recognises our own in adulthood.
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This biological process is one small part of the picture,
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when children and teens build a view of the world and their place in it.
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Jemima knows sadness.
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When she was only tiny, her beloved big sister, 10-year-old Sarah,
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died from a sudden stroke.
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The community in Lonsesta in Tasmania's north was devastated.
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My parents, I just can't get my head around what they went through,
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and I'm having a child die, and still having other children and having to
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go all together and live for them as well.
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It's such a complex thing to happen.
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This is her mother, Ruth.
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I isolated myself, became severely depressed,
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almost unreachable, major depression.
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The kids used to talk to me and three hours later I would answer them,
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but I didn't know that three hours had gone.
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And I just wanted to die.
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I used to walk around the streets and I used to live on two apples,
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basically a moxacoffee, lost over 40 kilos, ended up in hospital.
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Had a wonderful doctor who really supported me.
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Yeah, it was pretty horrific.
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The community was wonderful, but with all the will in the world,
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it was still a way that couldn't be shared, not really.
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And the way people at church behaved, you'd think grief was contagious.
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Maybe it was.
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Here's Ruth again.
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They just couldn't cope with my grief.
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If I started telling people they would say yes, you told me,
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or at least you have two other children, or at least she didn't die of cancer,
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or I understand because my dog died and I really loved my dog.
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I just, I understood their lack of ability,
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but it didn't do anything for me, it exhausted me.
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And that's when I stopped and started walking around the street.
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The family moved forward with a collective limp.
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Grief did impact everyone and there just wasn't the emotional capacity
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to put me first in any sense.
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And that doesn't happen normally.
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Normally families have that capacity.
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It's, but grief takes such a toll.
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There was, I wouldn't use the word neglect because I did everything they could,
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but they just didn't have the capacity to meet my developmental needs at that time
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with that amount of grief.
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And so any attention that I was shown at school,
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my other half of my life, I, I lapped it up, I really needed it and I thrived on it.
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By 1999, when Jemima was 12, a relief teacher came to her classroom.
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And for Jemima, that's exactly what he was.
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A relief, a little bit of light.
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Soon, life as she knew it would change.
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His name was Michael.
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There wasn't anything I could pull him up for.
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I would say actually it was almost, it was perfect.
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He was just really lovely and really excited by the work I produced and made me feel
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really good, like none of the other teachers were.
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And he, after the two weeks was up, he stayed on at the school teaching a couple of days week.
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And I'd seen him in the corridor and we'd stop and we'd chat.
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Then my parents took me to the UK for a month because my cousins have moved over there.
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And when I came back, he had an interesting photography and he really wanted to see all my photos.
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It was just a constant source of positive validation.
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And it came to the end of the year and we had our grade six graduation ceremony.
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And he didn't need to be there, but he came to see us all graduate.
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And at the end of it, he sought me out.
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So we could say, I'll goodbyes.
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And I just kind of said off the cuff, you know, it's a shame we can't keep in contact.
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And he agreed and a couple of hours later I was back in my classroom and he came in and handed me
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a note with his address written on it. An invitation to keep in touch.
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And that's how that started.
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The note was fine, according to Ruth, with boundaries.
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The pair could be pen pals, but only if Ruth could review the letters.
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They were only a couple of exchanges.
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Or so she thought, Michael, the 24-year-old relief teacher scored a post at the Hutchins School
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in Hobart in the year 2000. He'd been teaching Jemima's class at a long-sessed in high school
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and was making the move two and a half hours south to the capital.
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He had left the scene of the crime.
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Only you can't really do that when the crime is online.
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Yes, by that point, the letters exchanged with Jemima had become emails.
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She told me that she, that he'd had a baby and she was all excited about it.
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And I said, how do you know? And she said, because he told me, but you haven't had an email.
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And she said, he emailed me. And I said, well, I told you that he wasn't allowed to do that.
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I said, I'd like to have his phone number and speak within place.
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Which I did. And I explained to him that I, in part of my practice, I did a lot of,
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um, employee assistance program work. And I did a lot with the education department and how that
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teacher, I worked with teachers have been accused of doing bad things to kids. And he was
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trading a very dangerous line there that I didn't mind him writing to her.
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But under no circumstances was he to continue to email her.
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It's a few months after that conversation. And Jemima is at the library to use the dial-up
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internet connection. It is slow. She's typing in her password.
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Arc Angel. It's her name for him. Arc Angel.
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I eventually confessed to him that I had a crush on him. And his email back to me was his
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confession that he had one on me too. And that's where it got really inappropriate. He used
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names with me all the time. It started out as Jem, Jemmy, Jemelito. And then it progressed to
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sweetie and babe. And again, no one else called me those things. So that made me feel really
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special. The way that he signed off, it was most commonly love, M. Or it would be love,
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me, which I remember thinking, you know, I've never seen someone sign off love, me.
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It was almost a plea for me to love him, rather than from him.
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They communicated via music lyrics. Jemima would use the cranberries. Michael would recite
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Savage Garden. She would listen to their music and feel like she was communicating with him.
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Michael got bold. He gave Jemima his phone number at Hutchins school.
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This was well before the day's mobile phones. I think my mom had one, but it was a brick,
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and it was for work only. I used to walk up the road and use the pay phone and I'd call him.
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I remember Michael had told me it was actually quite embarrassing for him because the secretary had
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played to him. I think perhaps I'd left a message on the answering machine and the person had
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then played that to Michael and he'd been embarrassed and not been able to explain it well and had
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asked me after that to try and sound more natural on the phone. I know that while he was emailing me
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on a number of occasions, he was actually sat at his desk with his computer in front of him in
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front of the class he was teaching. Jemima and I have been in touch for years and have recorded
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a collection of interviews over that time. I'd left it for many years, but the death of the perpetrator
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kind of sparked everything off. Through it all, she's had some wins. The emails her teacher,
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Michael, sent to her are classed as child abuse material. And for years, Jemima had to fight to see
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them herself. Until one day, she was sent them. It was a light bulb moment. I could see what a
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complete piece of scummy was, frankly. Yeah, it severed the emotional attachment I've had since I was
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a child. He went on to tell me again how I was a breath of fresh air and that he still cared for me
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and how our relationship would never be at risk and that I deserved some of my own age. And that made
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me angry. I thought, no way. I deserved him as an adult rooting through this. Obviously, he's
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cheating on his wife. He's cheating on this, um, supposed other friend. I mean, if we even
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forget that that I was a child, that, um, manipulative, it's false. The emails are coy. It reads as though
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he was dancing back and forth around the idea of sex and relationships to draw responses from Jemima
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that he would find gratifying. We were so on and off, um, push me pull you. It was, he was just
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gushing when you adoring off me one instant and then the next instant, he would say that he'd just
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arrived home and was expecting his wife to be packing his bags because he'd been visiting his friend
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who was female. Now she's seen the emails as an adult. Jemima's questions are answered. Her
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biggest question has finally been answered. Reading through the emails, I can, I can say straight
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away. No, he didn't, he didn't love me. I meant nothing to him. I gave him thrills.
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I made him feel good about himself. He, he was aroused by my responses and he was curious as to
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what would happen when he poked me different ways. What happened was that she began to withdraw
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from her family, her real life. By late 2000, Michael was insisting he was devoted,
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musing about what would happen if Jemima became his real girlfriend. It was an idea that thrilled
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and scared her as a 13-year-old. I was embarrassed to even walk through my small hometown.
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I'd stay at home most of the time except for when I use the library to email. One day, at the end
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of the year, Jemima's mum was sorting laundry alone. And she found some torn up pieces of paper
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in my pocket. And my mother loves jigsaws. She hadn't thought anything of it other than
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why is this torn up and in her pocket? Because of what's rubbish, surely it would just be thrown away
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and not kept in the pocket. And why would you need to tear it up unless it was something you were
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protecting? Jemima was writing to a friend at school, detailing plans to travel to Melbourne.
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Here's her mother Ruth again. She'd gone to a youth group and asked me to wash her jeans.
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And I did what any mum does because they were her favourite pair. She went and left them.
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So I went through the pockets and there was this torn up paper and I just didn't really think about
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it, but it puzzled me because I thought, is it rubbish or isn't it? It's torn up so she
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doesn't want it but she hasn't thrown it away. Why? So I pieced it together and it was a note
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where she'd been writing to the friend next to her saying, I love him, he's going to take me to Melbourne.
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I'm pretty sure it was a teacher and it was just where this girl was writing back to her.
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And I didn't say anything to Jemima. She was away for the weekend but I said to Adam who was four
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years older and at that time we didn't have internet at home. They used to go across and up the road
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to the community centre and access the computers there. And he went and managed to find her
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password being that much older and knowing her very well. Arc Angel.
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Got into it and found these emails about this teacher who had propositioned her and had sex
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with her on the internet and even bits that said, but isn't this illegal, you're 12 years older than me
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and him saying, if we don't tell anyone it's okay, delete the emails and of course she didn't
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because this was a diary that just kept talking to her and telling her all this amazing stuff and
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she felt loved. That was the beginning of the end. I was absolutely totally disgusted and
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angry. I was working as part of my practice with a child protection. I had spent some time in a
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sexual assault service and I just knew exactly. Ruth was a mandatory reporter, a social worker,
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a mum and there was no doubt as to what would happen next.
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The principal kept ringing me up. You know when I first went to him and said, this is what's
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happened. This is what I found over the holidays. She's distraught. We're beside ourselves and he
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said to me, well, you work at child protection, really you're the best place to do something.
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So that was shitty of the school principal, but the family handled it. Ruth went to the police.
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I got in touch with the police and it was three months later the federal police got in touch with me.
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In the late 90s the internet was still a new frontier, cowboy country and this was their jurisdiction
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and said that it had taken them that long to try and find a law to put it under because at that time
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there were no laws. The only law that they could find, she was the first case in Australia
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for being interfered with on the internet and it was improper use of the Telecommunications Act.
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The Telecommunications Act had only just been written into law by 1999 at the time of the
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offences, which were child exploitation via the email's Michael sent to Jemima.
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He was arrested at the Hutchins schools end of Yebar Bacchew in late 2000.
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He wasn't allowed to teach again and I didn't cope well at all. I had no support. It was just over.
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It was like a missing person. We'd had this intense deep relationship and suddenly he was gone and
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there was nothing. Jemima's diary entries from the time are heartbreaking. Here she is as an adult
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reading them. Dear Michael, do you forgive me? I still love you. I mistreated you. I should have
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stopped you too. I wish you could have come up. I want to see you. Scrub that. I shouldn't ride
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as much as I want to. diary entry dated 8th of the 6th 2001. Mum just told me on Wednesday that
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when Michael changed his claded guilty he'd said something like guilty but she let me on or guilty.
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But she encouraged me and makes me for angry towards him. On the 19th of July 2001,
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Michael the teacher was convicted and sentenced to five months jail time for improper use of a telecommunication service.
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Back at her home in Lonseston, months later Jemima was still offline, pouring her soul once more into her diary.
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Diary entry dated 5th of the 8th 2001. I asked Mum if I could look through the case file in Hobart
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when we go down in September. She said no when I am an adult. My final diary entry was dated
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27th of the 12th 2001. I don't like writing and hearing it anymore. In fact, I hate it. There are
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too many secrets that I want to write and can't for fear of them being found and it's too dangerous
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to even hint. I found a letter I'd written to Michael but never sent. I don't want the responsibility
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of having to write and keep secrets. This is it. I've had enough. It was painful while it was
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happening but it also felt really really great and it was tragic when it stopped because I no longer
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had those good brain chemicals happening and to be told that it was wrong and it was actually harmful
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to me and then to see the harm play out and realize it to be true. I was expected to get over it
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and move on. Everyone was very understanding to begin with when they found out what had happened
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and then were supportive but of course the court case doesn't just happen in a night. It
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went on for a full year and at each stage the trauma would come up and I would be emotionally
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overwhelmed and things at school would trigger it. I went to an English class that was a grade
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above mine and outside of that class the girls in that class would bully me. So being in that class
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could be a trigger just seeing unfriendly people but content of classes, romantic,
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Romeo and Juliet and conversations between other school kids that were sexualised, all sorts of
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things would trigger me and I just needed to cry a lot and I think the adults in the environment
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simply got sick of it. They expected some improvement in me but there was no improvement that
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could be made when it was so constant. By this time Jemima was a teen and had been marked as
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trouble at her long-seston school. I had emotions that I couldn't handle and they were spilling
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out everywhere and it was on my shoulders to get myself together because I felt pathetic
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because I wasn't normal like every other kid in the school and that it was constantly pointed
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out to me that I was not coping and it felt like it was my fault all that time. Then she met
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another teacher. Within a short time she says she was being groomed and abused again. This time
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physically. I felt like I was in control. I was making the decisions and he didn't try and mess with
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my head. I said to him a couple of times I love you and he didn't reply so I knew that that meant
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that he didn't love me. He liked me but he didn't love me but at least he wasn't going to lie to
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me that he loved me and he said to me at one point you're not going to grow up and decide this was
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abuse and it all come back and bite me are you. I said yeah and that's subconsciously always
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kept me silent about it. I've always protected him because I agreed to that.
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Until now. Her first abuse and Michael died by suicide in 2019. She believes for most of his life
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nobody knew what he'd done to her. In 2020 she visited the site where his ashes were scattered.
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It was complex. There was so much. When I first learned of his death I was camping by myself
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for the first time in Mount William National Park and I was the only one there. I had an entire
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beach to myself and very poor internet access but having just discovered that he had died
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I felt a profound sense of loss and then I felt an intense anger
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because while he'd been alive there was there had never been any sort of closure ending
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finality of it for me. It was he had been prosecuted. He'd served whatever sentence was given him
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and that gave me nothing. When he died none of that mattered anymore none of that counted.
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I didn't have to keep silent. I didn't have to worry about the impacts of my actions on his life
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which is really ironic because he never worried about his impacts on my life. I had a moment
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naturally the other day that it occurred to me that I think I'm all way is going to struggle
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with these issues and triggers. It's not something that's ever going to go away no matter how much I
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work on it. I would have loved my life to be so much simpler and not have to worry about that
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but it impacts on all my relationships. I've just gone I was going to say back to dating but
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really it's my first proper period of dating I've ever had and to do it at age 36 is surreal.
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Well that's been one of the consequences of everything that's happened. Now Jemima is in control.
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She has power and she is poised for great change. I don't know what it's going to look like
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but I think there there's a lot of improvement that's going to happen in my life. The one thing that I
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really want is for it to be known that Michael Lurdy-Key abused me as a child
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because that's that's my story and it's it's his story too.
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There are so many stories like Jemima's. There are so many victim survivors who have spent decades
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reckoning with what happened to them as children and it is difficult to see the past few years
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in Tasmania as anything but that are reckoning into the issue of child sexual abuse.
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Throughout this series we've taken you on a journey through time around Tasmania the beautiful
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island below the mainland of Australia. We've been trying to get to the bottom of how so many
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children could have been hurt and how nobody seemingly stepped in. The thing is children can't be
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expected to advocate for themselves when they're not even sure what will happen when they do.
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Like Azra, a foster child living among police officers. It's really complicated because like again
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it comes back to that mindset of not being believed. And Peter, who was molested by Jervis Holloway.
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I guess culturally as well coming from ethnic background I mean that sort of stuff I guess also
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at the time we talked in here the early 70s wasn't often discussed and I wasn't very experienced
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in life being 12 years old and a form of communication and we're certainly no education at school
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about that sort of thing not even much sex education to be quite frank as well having
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having gone to a private school. Then there's Lee who did report his abuser to police and learned
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to fear the people who were meant to protect him. A young constable took the statement I was
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saying I got a bit of a touch up there put in the police car and taken up the
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uncession George and ended up with a very severely broken arm because still struggle wasn't
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told what had happened to the fires on the surface they heard anymore. We call them survivors because
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so many don't like Kevin and Gareth. That mongrel person you know we know it's what he did
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so we know who but we've been trying to work out how and there are many facets to the answer.
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Alliances David Stewart could get pulled over and he'd be the one saying don't you know who I am
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he used to have some police officers come in one would head straight to his office and the
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thing about that office is there was a light over the door if it was off you could go in but if
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it was red nobody was allowed to knock or go inside protection of upstanding institutions and people
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Penny Grace's mum found that out when she and her daughter Grace tame tried to get to the bottom
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of who knew what about the teacher that abused Grace at school. So at that point when we originally
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took civil action we thought that the school was just as shocked as we were that he did this and
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that it was a big surprise for everybody it wasn't until a few years later quite some years later
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that we found out that actually the school knew all about him and had known all about him all
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then there's the culture of a town a state an institution like Tasmania police in
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Biagon decades an institution that threw a police funeral for a top officer under investigation
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for child sex offenses it's something Tasmania Greens leader Rosalie Woodruff has questioned in
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parliament how unknown pedophile could have been given a public funeral a police funeral with
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eulogies all bells and whistles for a person who was actively under investigation with material
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available of his some abuses to young children over years and years then there's that dark law
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that muddied the waters being gay was criminalized until 1997 in Tasmania it was the last state in
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Australia to uphold that law so when you call someone a sex offender until 1997 in Tazzi that might
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have meant someone who was gay which made investigation of historical offenses highly complicated and
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fraught aside from the terrible impact the conflation of being gay and hurting children has
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historically had on the LGBTQ community then there's plain old bribery i've heard much about one
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method that pedophiles and institutions that have protected them have used in Tasmania what I
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ineligently call a 20 grand fuck off fee where an adult abuses a child or teen and pays them off
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usually with some desperately needed money and in doing so gives their victim the impression they
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can never say a word like they've been bought like whatever amount is valid compensation
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a lot of these amounts were just done as hush money
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kirsten nasa is an abuse law clerk with shine lawyers a massive Aussie legal firm that deals with
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many different claims including child sexual abuse all over Australia in Tasmania they get a lot
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of cases related to the Catholic and Anglican churches kirsten recognizes this situation from many
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victim survivors claims it's obvious that these people were pressured or bullied into accepting
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amounts that really were conducive with the damages that they should expect to receive even then
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my direct message would be it's a very David and Goliath situation you know you've got
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this organization that doesn't frankly pay taxes with expensive lawyers attempting to bully and
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silence any victims from coming forward from fear of losing their homes or losing any livelihood
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that they've managed to get together despite their difficulties throughout the years with these
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injuries and my message would be don't let the bastards get you down keep on the good fight
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no matter what anyone has told you don't believe that taking money means you don't have a right
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to justice if you sign something or took a bit of cash from someone who hurt you or even an
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institution that does not mean a criminal act is absolved you can reach out to a lawyer or a
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support service like Laurel House if you're in tazie ditto if you've signed an NDA a non-disclosure
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agreement i think what people are remembering is these deeds of releases or the NDA is actually
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negotiable you don't have to sign that you don't have to hold yourself to that commitment if there's
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room to negotiate and there's certainly been a lot of noise around this issue i would certainly say
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if you sign a confidentiality clause go and speak to a lawyer go and speak to them about what the
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terms of it mean let us see what we can do to help you if you'd no longer want to be done by that
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clause because there is a change in the tides of the way that the legislation is written and the
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way that these cases are dealt with it is important to say these issues are by and large Australian
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and global issues around child sexual abuse but there's no denying there's a unique situation
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that has emerged in tazmania with seemingly larger numbers of professionals appearing in clusters
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it's a pattern seen in professions which offer authority and access there have been 22 complaints
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sexual abuse by tazmania police officers from 2000 to 2022 149 education department employees
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mainly teachers between the 1960s and 2020 as we've already heard from professor Michael Solter
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what we have had i think in tazmania is an unusual level of visibility and scrutiny of that
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including the ways in which these men have entered into the public service into law enforcement
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in our interposition of authority in such a way that there is a critical mass then of victims
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another factor vulnerability we touched on the claims by witnesses that a group of men in
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Hobart were targeting children in care homes through the 80s 90s and noughties there is well documented
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evidence that was a phenomenon that began as far back as the 1960s in tazie out of home care is the
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broad name given to the system that housed orphans and children without guardians they've lived in
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group homes foster placements and boarding houses in the 60s and 70s some would even be sent to
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Ashley boys home that later became Ashley youth detention center and there is one particular
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story i've heard many times most recently from david it's about his father he didn't want to speak
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on mike but said he's comfortable with his son sharing what happened he was in boys homes
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juvenile detention center since he was from about the age of 11 it's totally was old enough to go to
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wrist and prison down here and he told me a story about being farmed out on a weekend to a priest
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because what happened was he got sent to this priest house for a you know weekend release kind
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of thing was supposed to you know they said it was like um you know to get him ready to be going
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home to be released and all this other stuff but it was when he was about 12 and he was a big 12
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year and he could fight so this priest said this priest got him to go up a ladder to change a light bulb
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and tried to put his hand up dad's shorts so dad just jumped down and passed the sheet out of him and
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he was never sent on one of these weekends ever again so and then he's talked to other former inmates
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who are wards of the states you know that got payouts and stuff um compensation payouts and stuff
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that have said you know there was a pedophile ring band running out of the boys home that was the
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1960s a rumored pedophile ring in the boys homes why were children being sent from places like
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Ashley boys home to adults on weekends and coming back with stories of being molested we know
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this story isn't an outlier in Tasmania virtually identical ones have been told before
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victim survivor and advocate Walter Tusson blew the whistle on this practice in 2003 he'd been
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placed into the care of a pedophile when he was a little boy in the 60s these guy came took
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Walter home from where he'd been placed by the government at Wibrah Hall a group home for children
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without parents and when Walter tried to report this abuse in 1961 to the superintendent of Wibrah Hall
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well here's a snippet on that from ABC's state line program in 2003 and I indicated that
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he did things with me that hurt and he just didn't want me to go on any further and say any more
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Mr Beemesh says he doesn't recall any reports of Walter being abused adding have the issue been raised
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it would have been one for the department and not for Wibrah boys home there's no evidence on
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Walter's case file of the incident being taken anywhere when Long was interviewed and his
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identification was established the report states Long did not try to defend himself he even asked
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whether the boy could remain another week with him Walter was never medically examined or counseled
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for decades we've heard stories in Tasmania about men who would come and pluck a kid from a
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boys home like a toy from a claw machine abuse them and drop them back at which point nobody seemingly
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gave a shit what they said happened to them these cases have been looked at individually as class
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actions and in whole of government compensation schemes but it seems like nobody's asked the question
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about how it even happened we've learned some things about the profile of men not always men but
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overwhelmingly so who molest children since taking her abuse at a court grace tame has become an
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advocate speaker and runs the grace tame foundation which has lobbied for crucial law reform in
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this space here's her take on who commits these offenses and why one of the key
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revelatory elements of the University of New South Wales recent study of child sexual offending
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behaviors and attitudes among Australian men that painted a portrait of the typical offender base
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the the cohort of offenders who have offended against children but may not explicitly declare that
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they have sexual feelings towards children which indicates that they offend for other reasons
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and it doesn't have it doesn't necessarily have to do with sexual interest it could be entitlement
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power misogyny or a combination of factors it may be sexual gratification but it doesn't have a
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boundary it doesn't have a particular orientation other than towards people or children who are
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less able to fight back their powerless and that's the attraction is the powerlessness and also in
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the case of children the liability to mimic the offender and self-incriminate which further helps an offender
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cover their tracks because they can they can apportion blame to their victim as is their playbook
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that research was led by UNSW Professor Michael Solter who we've heard a bit from in this series
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he believes Tasmania is a particularly tough place for victim survivors and witnesses to report
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predators a lot of pressure is brought to bear on victims and survivors because everybody knows
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the offenders but of course in these small communities the risk is the offenders know each other
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as well and so it can become a kind of child sexual abuse in those communities can become
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something of a runaway train because offenders get to know one another there can be a kind of a
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quid pro quo circumstance that they establish where they're sharing information about children with
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one another meanwhile offenders sorry victims are under a lot of pressure not to talk because they
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know that their parents know the offenders and they know you know the offenders will often be
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fairly respectable people in their communities and something that we see with some sex offenders is
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that you know they will actively seek positions of community trust partly I think to provide them
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with more access to children and just more ability to manage potential exposure I think also with
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some offenders what we see is they're trying to offset the bad things that they do by these good
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public works where they might be really charitable they might be really generous they might be really
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kind in some aspects of their life and I think internally there's kind of a calculus which is like well
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okay well yes I'm abusing children over here but I'm a good person over here that becomes a really
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very disorientating environment for victimised kids as a society we've relied on and continue to
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rely upon whistleblowers to protect children and speak truth to power these brave people who saw
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something and said something have done so at an immense cost their well-being from Scott Goldsmith
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the athletics coach at the track in Hobart who saw something disturbing one night that was the
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night that I went home and made one phone call to discover that the guy shouldn't even be at the track
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to Steve Fisher a victim survivor who set up a hotline to catch a predator or two people were
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incredible and the stats that we found out were incredible there are so many more brave people
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and stories but they've been outnumbered by those who saw something and did nothing a colonial court
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heard in 2022 it was an open secret high-ranking police officer Paul Reynolds had inappropriate
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behavior around children his colleagues didn't investigate the issue when it became a rumor at
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the police academy bar that was until junior colleague Will Smith did what nobody else would
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let's remember a senior colleague in Tasmania police also had his back he just backs me in
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and just said listen this is the right thing to do and none of that matters um he said that he asked
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if I wanted to to put my name to it and I said that I didn't I said I was happy to have provided
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the information and he he decided that he would put his name on the report and I would go in as an
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anonymous uh as an anonymous entry in the wash of revelations of people who abused their power to hurt
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the most vulnerable remember the whistleblowers there are a large number of Tasmanians Australians
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people all over the world many of them victim survivors who have been magnificent in this space
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we need to strengthen laws that protect them support whistleblowers raise them up as a society
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make speaking out the easiest option not the most difficult.
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At times there's a view that people that speak up just in general about things
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there's a view that um you know those people might be seeking attention or seeking the opportunity
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to try manipulate the story to benefit them they may be the perception that um you know you're trying to
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use the opportunity to promote yourself I don't know just feel like I've tried to do the right
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thing and I've been caught up in something I don't want to be caught up in.
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We need to report all crimes to the police we need to say thank you to Tasmanian's victim
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survivors of child sexual abuse for the immense heavy burden they've carried especially in the past
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four years a gruelling march towards safety for future generations this has been rotten Apple
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thank you for joining us over the past eight episodes go well
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if you have any tips info or just want to say hi email the nurse podcast at protonmail.com
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and if this episode raised any issues with you and you'd like support please contact brave
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hearts the national child sexual assault charity you can ring 1-800-272-831 and you can
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receive support in Tasmania from Laurel House with 24 hour support available on 1-800-697-877
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if you're struggling you can also ring lifeline on 13-11-14 all these details in the notes
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overseas listeners search online for your nearest support service that is help
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this podcast series is a joint production with investigative journalist Amelia Saw and me
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Camille Bianchi the executive producer is Delphortum and our senior producer is Hannah Sterling
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with sound design by the nine podcasts team
Topics Covered
Rotten Apple podcast
The Nurse podcast
grooming and abuse
child safety education
telecommunications act 1997
Tasmanian girl case
online grooming
emotional impact of grief
teacher-student relationship
child abuse material
Jemima's story
Michael the teacher
manipulative relationships
childhood trauma
investigation into abuse