Howdy dear availees across the globe...last post I sortta' shrecked-about a fair bit, skirting 'round the many very unpleasant realities of the St Martins Cover-up, as much an act of self-preservation as anything else...(well I can't imagine it's gunna' help your own associated depression and traumas, etc, to go burrowing back-down into all of that horrendous Pro-Paedophile Corruption-Ed)...well quite, but that's what we're here to do, so today I'm just gunna' do it...no apologies if there's no humour apparent, usually we try, but probably not today...if y'all are a new availee, please refer to the immediate previous post 'cos this one directly follows-on from that...so here goes, oh, and if this causes you any distress, please do what you need to to look after ya'selves, eg, talk to someone about it, write an angry letter to someone even if you never post it, etc, etc...
Teacher Glyn Dorling was moved to St Martins Lutheran School in Mt Gambier in the late 1990s after being 'sacked' from his first position with the Lutherans in Adelaide, and there were immediate and multiple complaints about his conduct...these complaints continued into 2002, leading to a meeting between parents and Principal John Alexander (Friday 7th June 2002) that led to a further meeting that Sunday 9th June, also including Pastor John O'Keefe and senior Lutheran Peter Huezenroeder...since Friday a child had made specific disclosures to their parents about physical contacts and other behaviours Dorling was committing against his grade 2 students (7/8 year olds)...Alexander stated that Dorling had already been 'removed' Friday, and acknowledged that these new disclosures were 'abuse', but repeatedly asked parents to not report to SAPol (police) so that the school could sort it out internally...Dorling was at the school that Sunday, probably in his classroom, and saw parents leaving...Huezenroeder went to the Lutheran service that evening and deliberately played-down the seriousness of the abuses, describing them as a 'Christian Cuddle'...at approx 0700hrs on the Monday public holiday, 10th June 2002, Dorling
was caught in his classroom and was escorted off the site by security...
I saw Alexander twice on the Friday but he never told me about the meeting he was about to have, just had, or the next one on Sunday, so, 'cos I was away fishing, I found out about these meetings on the Sunday evening from another parent...
First thing Monday morning I rang Alexander but couldn't get a response, so I did a Mandatory Notification to SAPol...it was required I do a MN because I was not just a parent but also a Mandatory Notifier, given my often daily volunteer work, eg, doing reader daily with multiple children, multiple working bees, including the 100s of hours I contributed to mixing, barrowing and laying cement for the carpark mural, etc...I phoned SAPol and was told to attend the Mt Gambier Police Station and lodge a formal complaint, which I did later that morning with another parent, but the desk officer refused to take my complaint, stating that 1) another family/parent had already reported/notified SAPol, and 2) that my phone report would get forwarded to them (MGPS)...I eventually spoke with John Alexander (late morning), who stated he wasn't going to report to SAPol or contact other parents from Dorling's class because he (Alexander) didn't "want to start a panic"...at that point he was also going to have Dorling working at the church's office, immediately adjacent to the St Martins kindergarten...at this point, thinking we had all been deceived/manipulated by Dorling, parents were very much still backing the school/Alexander, and I stated to him that I thought it was a very bad idea to have Dorling so close to the kindy, not least-of-all because of the 'optics' of moving him from one site to another...I was with another parent during that call, and went with them immediately afterwards to Mt Gambier Police Station (as above)...
***...it seems appropriate here to point-out that I started this post on Saturday 5th October 2019, got halfway through that last paragraph, and then just 'crash-and-burned' for 3 days, it's now Tuesday 8th...just a few short paragraphs staring into the gaping maw of the howling void of avoided recollection, and I went down like a pole-axed hippy...even though I was aware that this was likely to happen, and similar to doing the counselling I did earlier this year, going back into the horrendous realities of the St Martins Cover-up is just such a massively traumatic experience that there's no amount of being 'prepared' what's gunna' help...I've barely left the house for 4 days, no gym, slept 12hrs straight Saturday/Sunday, ate nothing but frozen pizzas and pre-packed pastas, etc, etc, it's the worst I've been for years...but anyhoos, I'm well aware that I ain't the only one goin' through this sortta' shizzle as a result of the St Martins Cover-up, let-alone others who have experienced even worse...and I look at what others have survived and then achieved, people like Mathilda Duncan who has single-handedly taken on the Catholics and Tennyson Woods College, and the Morrison Jazz Academy, and my mate and critically complicit St Martins Cover-up Co-Conspirator Bill DeGaris, and the South Australian Judicial System, etc, etc, and whom continues to lobby for the safety of other young woman, particularly in educational institutions...
I think of what some of the other St Martins parents and kids have suffered/endured, and gourd knows I've lived a goodly part of all of that, and still do...but I consider myself relatively lucky in that I have a voice via this ' ere blog, albeit a voice I've created for myself, and have suffered for using,
eg, my "bizarre trial" under the rankly Fascist SA ICAC Act 2012 Section
56, etc, etc...and so I continue to try to use that voice and use my words what I done have, particularly here on this 'ere blog, and for all it's toll, I'd rather fight and suffer for it than be silent about what I know to have happened with the St Martins Lutheran School Child Abuse Cover-up, and the Institutionalised Pro-Paedophile Corruption that rules South Australia and makes incidents/situations like the St Martins Cover-up not just possible but inevitable...my thoughts are with those other families and kids and I'll continue to try to do what I can...so that's that, now back to the review thingy...***
And now's as good a time as any to acknowledge my own personal sense of guilt, because it is a big part of what drives me to resolve this terrible situation...I'm hardly some sort of noble higher being borne along and held aloft by majestic wings of purest altruism, no, on my best days I'm a belligerent, vain, occasionally arrogant, and largely unmotivated stuff-pig, which I've covered in many previous posts, but what's happened at St Martins simply cannot be ignored for 2 reasons...1) like I said, if the St Martins Cover-up can happen, then how Pro-Paedophile Corrupt is SA and how vulnerable are all children in this sad, sick state? and 2) one day I witnessed what Dorling was doing to those kids but didn't recognise it for what it was and so those abuses continued for another 2-3 weeks after I might have stopped them...I walked into the class and saw him with the kids all gathered 'round siting on the floor, and he was in a chair with a girl on his left with his arm around her, which he slowly dropped away, and with his right hand he casually swept from left to right, gently pushing back two girls who had their heads on his knees...it has haunted me ever since, I can clearly picture it and identify 2 of the girls, the third had her back to me and I never saw her face...for a long time I was unable to process my 'failure', and it took me literally years to deal with it and reach some sort of 'rationale'...with the benefit of hindsight, I was in a rush to get my child for their piano lesson, and as someone who did a lot of reader with the kids, etc, I had often been hugged or had kids try to sit on my lap, etc, just genuine acts of simple affection, etc...it never occurred to me that what I saw that morning was anything more than the same spontaneous affection from the kids, it was only later that I learned that these physical contacts were initiated and even requested/required by Dorling and occurred daily, often for extended periods of time...
That interaction on that day, and the associated pall of guilt that consumes me every time I think about it, which is pretty-much daily, this all continues to motivate me on my 'weakest' and most depressed days...the memory is depressing but doing nothing about it is even worse...I have discussed this with various counsellors/family/friends and the best I can manage is to accept that what Dorling was doing wasn't my fault, and neither is the ongoing St Martins Cover-up...it is not my failure to get the appropriate actions from the rankly Pro-Paedophile Corrupt South Australian 'Authorities' like SAPol or the Crown Solicitor or the Director of Public Prosecutions or the Teachers Registration Board or the Parliament, to get them to act to prosecute Dorling and hold the Lutherans to account for their rancid corruption, etc, etc, nor is it the fault of other parents...we live in a definably Pro-Paedophile Corrupt State, at all levels, the Legislature, the Executive, and the Judiciary, and it has clearly been that way for many decades if not more than a century if not since Colonisation itself...our experiences, our 'failures', are in fact a litany of inevitable betrayals, deceits and corruption suffered at the hands of 'Authorities' wantonly and/or complicitly involved in protecting and/or supporting Institutionalised Paedophilia in SA...but again I digress, back to the details of the St Martins Cover-up...
Because Alexander didn't notify other families about Dorling's removal, 1) parents were dropping their kids off to school on the Tuesday morning (June 11th 2002) completely unawares of the 3 meetings Friday/Sunday and Dorling's abuse of their kids and his removal, etc, and 2) so it fell to us families who did know to inform others...I didn't know any of the other parents outside of the school environment, but went with another parent who did, and across several nights that week we visited some other families...other class parents also informed other families they knew...it was a gross and deliberate failure by the school/Lutherans and deeply unpleasant for all parents involved...it was later used by the school/Alexander/Lutherans to denigrate us few parents as 'troublemakers' and 'rumour-mongers'...I clearly remember one particularly distressing exchange where-in we were telling a family about what was already known of Dorling's behaviours...the parent I was with had been at the school meetings and had spoken to someone they knew within Child Protection, etc, and we were discussing one of the potential indicators of abuse, the child suddenly developing behavioural problems, eg, starting bed-wetting, when the mother burst into tears and fled the room sobbing...her husband apologised to us as we repeatedly apologised to him...it was a horrendous experience for all of us and I wouldn't blame those people for never talking to me again, but they do, and not just talk to me, they greet me warmly because they understand exactly what has happened and what I/we have been trying to do...for all the unpleasantness we might have brought into their home that evening, they understand that it wasn't malicious, and they understand and appreciate what I/we've done to try and resolve the St Martins Cover-up...
What Alexander/the Lutherans did do that weekend was organise for Elizabeth Young, a personal friend from CAMHS (Child Adolescent Mental Health Service), to be at the school that Tuesday morning (11th June), to 'offer support and advice'...obviously many parents didn't know about that because they didn't even know Dorling was gone, so they just dropped-off their kids as per usual and left...I did attend that 'meeting' and was shocked to hear her describe Dorling as a "grooming paedophile", the first time I'd heard that expression, but even more surprised when she advised to 'just let it go because nothing's going to happen', that is, no investigation, etc...after that 'meeting' I went to the Mt Gambier CAMHS office and tried to lodge a formal complaint about her flippantly dismissive attitude and extraordinary advice, but was refused doing so because 'she wasn't on official CAMHS business'...Alexander/the Lutherans had got her in as a personal favour and quite deliberately misrepresented her attendance as being official CAMHS involvement...it was a deliberate and cynical Lutheran manipulation to try and dissuade parents from seeking further action, and partly what led me to be involved in notifying other parents...after the conversation with Alexander the day before, where-in he said he wasn't going to report to SAPol, etc, and this deliberate deceit, it very quickly became apparent that Alexander and the Lutherans were entirely disingenuous about their supposed concerns, etc...
We later learned, via the Teachers Registration Board, that what Alexander and Heuzenroeder actually did was to warn Dorling, either at the school after that Sunday meeting, or at his house later that evening, to warn him that he had been reported to police by parents...obviously I was unaware of these parent's reports when I reported on the Monday...Alexander and Heuzenroeder and Pastor O'Keefe clearly breached their official responsibilities about the welfare of the children, but far worse and legally inappropriate, they failed to follow their legal Mandatory Notification obligations by not reporting to SAPol, etc, and further breached the law by going to the Child Abuse perpetrator and warning him of the parent/SAPol report...I re-iterate, Dorling was seen at the school on that Sunday afternoon, and again at 0700hrs on the public holiday Monday where he was found in his classroom and 'removed' by security...both of these incidents/attendances allowed Dorling to remove any evidence and/or alter the classroom lay-out, etc, critically compromising any subsequent SAPol investigation...as it transpired, SAPol repeatedly deceived parents, never actually interviewing Dorling let-alone 'Charging' him with anything, and they never even went to the classroom, only attending the school on one occasion, for an evening meeting with parents and Child Protection Services on Thursday 1st August 2002...
Excuse me y'all, but I'm gunna' finish here because I've just had enough...I realise that I've barely scratched the surface, barely moved beyond that June weekend, barely covered anything I haven't in many of those early posts, but it is what it is...I'm trying to provide a comprehensive explanation and it ain't no pleasant experience, as I've explained...again, if you want to know more already, I suggest that y'all please go back to those early posts and trawl through that stuff...
Tomorrow: More St Martins
When I'm struggling through this stuff, as indeed I'm doing right now, I like to hook into Ye Olde Youtube and crank out some good ol' tunes, eg, The Night They Drove Ol' Dixie Down by The Band, or anything from the Woodstock era, eg, Ten Years After - I'd Like To Change The World, anything by Jefferson Starship, or Blind Faith - Can't Find My Way Home, etc...that song always reduces me to tears, as does Little Wing by Jimi Hendrix, which reminds me of an old girlfriend from the dim, distant past...and to y'all out there, but especially dear availees in the USofA, please to be checkin'-out his majesty Sir Jimi live at Woodstock and his extraordinary rendition of your National Anthem...given who it was, an African/Cherokee/American army veteran, the undisputed greatest guitarist ever, and given where it was, Woodstock, and the times, during the American (Vietnam) War, it is arguably the greatest piece of music ever recorded...the musician, the song, the place, the time, the context...never have these things converged so perfectly, and never will they again...I ain't no Seppo, a charming slang term derived from 'septic tank', to rhyme with Yank, but like any human being capable of emotion, I find this piece consuming and harrowing and uplifting all at once...unfortunately, given the lunatic maelstrom currently raging in the narcissistic wasteland that is the mind of the Orange Witch of the West Wing, this rendition of the USofA National Anthem is absolutely current and relevant...
I urge y'all dear availees in the USofA, watch this footage, listen to it, learn what it has to tell, remember the great things about who you are and not what this Donald person would have you believe you are for his own benefit...anyhoos, enough pontificating from me, until tomorrow at least...
I am Nick Fletcher and this is my blog, cheers and laters...
No comments:
Post a Comment