Oscar was isolated in a boarding school with violent and sadistic teachers
All names and identifying details have been changed.
Participants have given us permission to share their experiences.
Oscar’s parents were both in public service and were posted to different locations, sometimes overseas.
His education was paid for by the state and when he was seven years old, he attended a prep school as a boarder, where he suffered physical and sexual abuse.
Oscar describes the school as a ‘floggers’ paradise’ – ‘a prison’ from which he was so desperate to escape he once tried to smuggle himself out in a delivery container.
Mr A was the headmaster, whom Oscar describes as ‘sadistic beyond comprehension’. Oscar says he was beaten on the backside ‘each and every single day’ regardless of whether his behaviour was good or bad.
He says how isolated he felt, with no one outside the school to talk to. Telephone calls were not allowed and letters were censored. One of his grandparents visited him every six or seven weeks, but he did not feel he could talk about the abuse.
Even more unpleasant than the headmaster was a subject teacher called Mr B, who liked to ‘to pounce on his victims’ at weekends. Oscar describes how Mr B’s ‘idea of entertainment’ was to strip Oscar naked, bend him over with his arms behind him and make him recite verbs. Sometimes the teacher beat Oscar on his penis with a hairbrush. He says he passed out with the pain on one occasion.
At some point, Oscar and some other boys reported Mr B to the headmaster. They all received a vicious beating for doing this, but Mr B left the school soon after.
He relates incidents of sexual and physical abuse committed by other teachers, and also a visiting scoutmaster. One teacher used to walk round all the boys in class putting his hand inside their trousers. He even did this to his own son, who was a pupil at the school.
A few years ago, Oscar received a letter from the school to former pupils. It was several weeks before he could bring himself to open it. When he did, it prompted him to tell his wife about the abuse he had suffered at the school.
He decided to write a detailed letter to the current headmaster, describing what had gone on at the school when he was a pupil there. The headmaster replied, expressing deep regret, and asking whether Oscar wanted to involve the police and try to have the perpetrators prosecuted.
After talking it over with his wife, Oscar decided he wanted to forget it. He reasoned that if he was the only person who came forward, the teachers might be acquitted and that would make him feel even worse. The school closed down not long afterwards.