FOR many child victims of abuse at Fairbridge Farm there was nowhere to turn, despite the Fairbridge Foundation and the Australian Government being alerted to shortcomings at the school during a child welfare investigation in the late 1950s.
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The complaints, from children who ran away to escape savage beatings, raised no more than a cautious bureaucratic concern and the abuse continued for decades.
After being sent from the United Kingdom with the promise of a new life, the children were confronted with harsh conditions, physical, sexual and psychological abuse, and isolation from the rest of the community in an environment akin to child slavery, according to some former residents.
Living conditions that forced boys to get out of bed at 2.30am in sub-zero temperatures to work in the dairy, as well as juggling other chores and schoolwork, were accepted as part of the children’s daily routine, with concerns raised in a 1958 child welfare report brushed aside by the Fairbridge Foundation.
Unsupervised house parents thrashed young children with riding crops and electrical cords and principal Frederick Woods used a hockey stick to discipline children who he felt broke the rules of the institution.
Ron Simpson, who had his back broken after a beating by Mr Woods, who ran the farm from 1939 to 1966, carries the scars of that injury and those of a sexual assault by another male staff member.
“It was a big relief when the abuse was finally acknowledged. When you were beaten and sexually assaulted, it’s with you all the time,” he said.
“I missed out on my childhood and teenage years and a large chunk of my education
“When I heard the case was over I started crying. I couldn’t believe it.”
In the 1958 child welfare report, obtained by one of the former residents, the director of the government department overseeing child protection said that while Mr Woods was acknowledged as a hardworking “individualist” who “ran a one-man show” at Molong, he was not able to appropriately oversee the care of all the children without adequately-trained staff.
Parents in England believed their children were coming to a country with unbridled opportunity as part of a British government migration scheme, working with what was considered an enlightened model devised by Kingsley Fairbridge.
Children shipped out from England were to be brought up on a working farm, enjoying the benefits of sunshine and fresh country air.
Instead, the children, some as young as four, became shackled by the burden of inadequate education, poor literacy and a lack of social skills to carry them into adult life, and the memories of harsh beatings and sexual abuse at the hands of incompetent, untrained and uncaring staff.
When former child resident David Hill lifted the lid on conditions at Fairbridge, including physical, sexual and emotional abuse, in his 2007 book The Forgotten Children it compelled more former child residents to come forward and tell their stories of childhoods deprived of love, affection and opportunity.
Former resident “Smiley” Bayliff, who ran away from the school when he was 16, never to return, said it was often the youngest and smallest children who suffered the most, at the mercy of staff who were cavalier and cruel in the way they punished the children.
“I remember one of the smaller boys who was only four tried to run away up to the back paddock but he was dragged back,” he said.
“He was stripped naked in front of us and beaten with a riding crop at least 40 times as a warning.”
Soon after, an eight-year-old Smiley fell ill and was diagnosed with rheumatic fever.
“My house mother Miss de Fraitas was pure evil itself,” he said.
“I tried to walk up to the hospital on Fairbridge and she kept belting me on the legs all the way, saying I was a malingerer.
“One of the other boys picked me up and piggy backed me because I was too sick to walk.”
When his condition worsened he was transferred to Molong hospital. It was there at the small country hospital he felt warmth and affection for the first time in his young life.
“Although I was really sick it was the happiest time of my life. The nurses were so loving and caring. I couldn’t stop crying when they told me I had to go back to Fairbridge,” he said.
Mr Bayliff said although his early schooling at Fairbridge was limited, he welcomed the later experiences when children were educated at Molong Central School.
“Although the teachers there were strict they had our best interests at heart and encouraged us, there were some wonderful teachers,” he said.
Mr Bayliff said girls at the school also suffered physical and sexual abuse at the hands of some of the staff, who were social misfits, alcoholics and paedophiles.
Lynda Craig will never forget being humiliated and beaten when she was just five by her house mother.
“I was told my mother was dead and I started wetting the bed. I would be dragged out, beaten with an electrical cord and made to stand naked holding up my sheet,” she said.
Mr Hill said, while he escaped abuse at Fairbridge after his mother emigrated to Australia and took him and his two brothers away from the school, the stories told to him by people traumatised by abuse were disturbingly similar, often involving the same perpetrators.
“When I started interviewing people they were telling their story for the first time, and as time went on and we put together the documentary The Long Way Home, they drew a collective strength from each other to truly reveal all the horrors of what had happened,” he said.
“One of my most vivid memories is of two women in their 70s holding hands to give each other strength as they told of the sexual abuse, which they hadn’t even told each other until that day. It was an incredibly sad and moving experience.”
Mr Hill said it was the name Jack Newberry, who became principal after Frederick Woods was sacked in 1966, which repeatedly came up when women spoke about their sexual abuse at Fairbridge Farm.
Mr Hill said Woods was sacked by the Fairbridge Farm board for “besmirching the name of Fairbridge” after his notice of intention to marry one of the house mothers, following the death of his wife Ruth in 1965.
Newberry was sacked three years later over allegations of sexual assault of several girl at the school, which were not made public at the time.
Following this week’s announcement Mr Bayliff said he hoped other former child residents would come forward to be part of the compensation payout.
“Many I have spoken to didn’t think they could go into a courtroom and tell their awful story, but now they just have to send off a letter about their experiences and they can be included,” he said.
Solicitor representing the claimants, Roop Sandhu of Slater and Gordon, said the six-year battle for justice for the Fairbridge Farm children would hopefully bring some peace to those who had suffered.
“When the official apology was delivered by the NSW government recently in Sydney to many of the claimants, it was an incredibly moving experience,” he said.
“Everyone was in tears, as it was a very genuine and heartfelt apology from the government through the NSW Department of Family and Community Services.”
Former Fairbridge Farm children have until July 24 to register their intentions with Slater and Gordon to be considered in the compensation payout.
janice.harris@fairfaxmedia.com.au