I was a victim of child sexual abuse. It occurred more than forty years ago, when I was just thirteen years old. This is the story about what happened to me, how I kept it to myself, how I eventually fought back and how - after decades of living with the impact of the abuse - I decided one day to finally seek justice. It's also about what happened next.
For forty years David Meagher harboured a secret. Then, in mid 2018, a text message from an old school friend forced him to confront his past and finally deal with it.
Secrets and Lies is a story about child sexual abuse. The culture that enabled it. How the perpetrator groomed his victims. How the abuse finally came to an end. And how, four decades after the crimes were committed, his victims embarked on a successful two-year journey to bring the offender to justice.
David Meagher delivers an intimate account of the lasting impact of child sexual abuse on survivors. From growing up gay in a censorious and very Catholic suburban environment to struggles with mental health and substance use, Secrets and Lies tells the full account of child sexual abuse. Meagher's story, however, is ultimately one of hope and even a bit of humour. After all, it has a happy ending, or as near to one as is possible under the circumstances.
Quote: ″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.
