Now 48, Mr Anderson has started a new life on the Border where he's found a peace and happiness he has never known. And he has also found the strength and conviction to start a quest for closure.

THE adult who had sex with Tom Anderson for three months in 1977 made the 14-year-old schoolboy feel like a man.

That's how the 40-something aged man groomed him.

Quiet, naive and unremarkable among his seven siblings, the Greensborough paperboy was one of those teenage drifters; not into sport, not much good at music, intelligent enough but not quite "gifted".

Young Tom Anderson always seemed to be on the periphery.

That was until his boss started to take "an interest".

Anderson was promoted from delivery boy to corner stall-holder - a lucrative position in the newspaper sales market of outer-suburban Melbourne.

The stationary nature of the new job also made Anderson easily accessible for a sexual predator.

The visits started innocently enough.

"He would bring a drink, sit with me and chat," says Anderson. "When it was cold he would open up his delivery van and let me sit inside.

"We just struck up a friendship."

But it turned sinister when the man began providing cigarettes, alcohol and pornographic magazines, both gay and heterosexual.

It was a dangerous mix for a teenage boy.

"He made me feel like a man, a real, big strong man. The way he planned it all was just so perfect," Anderson says.

The man used the magazines to broach sex with Anderson, asking him "if I liked (the pornography) and if I'd like to do that sort of thing".

"I'll admit, as a testosterone-fuelled teenage boy, I went along with it."

The predator had hooked his prey and a three-month sexual relationship ensued.

ANDERSON isn't sure at which point he decided to tell his parents. "It just got to the stage where I didn't want anything to do with him so I said 'mum, there's something I have to tell you'."

Shocked and devastated, his parents immediately took their son to the police station. He was questioned for hours and gave a formal statement before being taken to the Russell Street police centre for a medical examination.

He recalls that, as a 14-year-old, the invasive examination was pretty traumatic in itself.

As a result, charges were laid against the man who pleaded guilty to several counts of sexual abuse and faced jail time.

But the cruelest twist in Mr Anderson's nightmare was still to come.

In 1977, partaking in homosexual activity was an offence that could attract a jail term and Mr Anderson, who admitted to penetrating his abuser in his statement, was considered complicit in the act.

Police charged the 14-year-old with two counts of sodomy and he was found guilty.

In what was supposed to be an act of compassion, the judge offered to let the abused teenager off with a 12-month bond if he apologised for the sodomy.

"So I sat in front of the court and apologised for a crime I didn't even understand," he said.

"I was 14, I didn't know what buggery or sodomy was."

Former human rights lawyer Jamie Gardiner, vice-president of Liberty Victoria and a one-time member of the Equal Opportunity Commission in Victoria, was a major player in the crusade to abolish those homosexuality laws at the time.

He succeeded in 1981, four years too late for Mr Anderson and several others.

"The terrible injustice that was so wickedly inflicted on Anderson so clearly epitomises the evil that we were campaigning to put an end to," Mr Gardiner said.

"The police did not, I am sure, absolutely have to prosecute Anderson as there is always a discretion, but their behaviour, reprehensible though it was in my opinion, was an all too common - and legal - consequence of the deep prejudice against gay men of those times, aided and abetted by a bad law."

THE events of 1977 and that "bad law" left Mr Anderson badly scarred. The qualified accountant claims police recommended against counselling -- "they told my parents I'd grow out of it" -- and the ordeal was barely spoken of until Mr Anderson's 40th birthday when his mother made an impassioned apology for her inaction.

In the decades between, Mr Anderson battled against substance abuse and bipolar disorder, although he is reluctant to blame the events of 1977 for his personal troubles.

"It might have played a role, it might not have, I don't know - I don't think it's wise to think about it in that way," he says.

Although he was mostly "back on the rails" in his 40s, Mr Anderson became increasingly unsettled and deeply resentful about his treatment from Victoria Police and the government.

A lifetime of ignoring mental scars made him ill-equipped to face his demons and again he tried to bottle it up. That was until he came to Wodonga in 2009.

"Moving here is the best thing I have ever done," Mr Anderson said at a Wodonga cafe this week.

"I love the fact that I'm out of Melbourne. I think Albury-Wodonga is one of the greatest country places I've ever been to.

"Life couldn't be better."

The open spaces and laid-back pace of the Border gave Mr Anderson, who works in the disability sector, the clarity of mind and conviction to pursue what he hopes will set his mind at ease.

"I've started a campaign to get Victoria Police or the Victorian government to acknowledge they made a mistake in charging me," he said.

"I've kept the whole thing a secret all this time and it's time to let it out. I can't get over it if it stays bottled up."

Such apologies are not unprecedented -- Jamie Gardiner cites the stolen generation as an example.

But he has warned Mr Anderson that his crusade could be quixotic.

Mr Anderson, who spoke about his ordeal on Melbourne radio with Derryn Hinch earlier this month, is unperturbed.

"I've found the apology is becoming less and less important to me," Mr Anderson said.

"The response I've already received from people, the way people have instantly reacted with shock to my treatment, has meant more to me than I thought.

"At the end of the day, that could be enough. I hope it is, anyway."