HE is the smiling Hunter boy who represents many – a child who became a sullen teenager and later a troubled adult, whose suicide at 40 was put down to a life that had gone off the rails.
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Now his mother weeps at the thought Peter died alone in 2010 with a horrifying secret – that he was sexually abused by not one, but multiple child sex offenders.
“He was surrounded by them,” said Peter’s mother, who asked to be called Jane, and for the family’s surname to be withheld.
“We could never understand Peter’s behaviour and what went wrong.”
She has added her voice to a Hunter submission before the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, listing about 45 boys and men who died by suicide, drug overdoses or possible suicide, and who were subsequently found to have significant links to known or alleged child sex offenders.
The youngest was just 13 when he died in 1974. The most recent suicide was early this year.
“They’re the silent victims who can’t tell their stories to the royal commission,” said victims’ advocate Bob O’Toole who heads a group that has compiled the submission.
“For many of them we will never be able to say for sure whether they were victims of sexual abuse or not, but many died after very public battles, including with drugs, alcohol and crime. Many families had to cope with the public view that their loved ones were no-hopers.
“It’s time we looked at whether there were reasons for their silence and their battles, and gave them a voice.”
Peter was raised in a prominent Hunter family and was “a beautiful, smiling” only son, said Jane.
He was a Cub and Scout in the 1970s and 1980s, with direct and regular contact with identical twin Scout leaders Stephen and Richard Mateer, now 63. Stephen Mateer was jailed for 10 years for sexually assaulting six boys, and Richard Mateer was jailed for 12 years for sexually assaulting boys five boys.
They were charged three years after Peter’s death.
Peter was sent to St Pius X Catholic high school at Adamstown, although his family was not Catholic.
“We sent our children to Catholic schools. We thought they were going to get a good education,” Jane said.
Peter was at the school after convicted child sex offender priest and teacher John Denham left in 1979.
But in October, 1985 Jane wrote to the then director of Catholic Education in the Hunter, Father Frank Coolahan, alleging serious physical and mental abuse of her son by a St Pius X teacher. The teacher was later investigated by police after reports of troubling behaviour with boys.
In the letter Jane recounted how she complained directly to the teacher for telling Peter in class that he hated him. The teacher responded that “he would continue to do so if he felt it was needed”.
She described some of the teacher’s alleged physical abuse as “sadistic” in manner.
Jane wept as she produced a document from 1985 in which the school acknowledged the link between the teacher, Peter and his failing school results, despite being a high-performing student.
The document noted “the problem between Peter and (the teacher) is the reason for such disastrous results”.
She did not receive a response from Father Coolahan. After several months she phoned the Catholic Education Office, and the call was answered by former St Pius headmaster Father Tom Brennan.
Brennan was convicted in 2009 of making a false statement to police in which he said no one had ever reported child sex allegations about John Denham to him. At the time of his death, in 2012, Brennan faced charges of sexually assaulting a boy and concealing Denham’s crimes.
Jane said Brennan knew about the teacher’s targeting of Peter, and said he had taken steps to ensure the teacher was not able to teach again. Those assurances were subsequently found to be false.
Jane supports the Hunter submission for the Royal Commission to consider how many people who committed suicide in the past might have been victims of child sexual abuse.
She wept as she recalled how her son responded when she suspected his troubles as an adult might have been linked to child sexual abuse, particularly after publicity about Hunter child sex offenders he could have had contact with.
“He would just tell me to leave it alone,” she said.