#Neglect / #negligenttreatment is something that should never have happened. Particularly, when used as a ālearning toolā for 1st borns. Only when later children are raised ābetterā, by not exposing them do these āgodly folkā change their practices: Nothing to see here ā move on!
RETRIEVED via @treacl + @royalcommbbc tweets (May 2022).
Tags: NRS, RC, SDBC and tagged 1st borns, baptist, BBC, boys brigade, child sexual abuse, Church, church family, ecosystem, first borns, girls brigade, habitus, history, neglect, patterns, RC, redress, royal commission, SDBC, support, youth group
As I have been speaking with a close support-team, Iām starting to sketch out what Iād expect for both BBC/PMSA + Qld Baptist Church/QB to say (āa direct personal responseā). As my car accident had been linked with these memories, Iāll be requesting āunder special circumstancesā recordings to be made. Iāll keep you informed ā¦
Finding the right Counsellor may take time, yet when you do it can make needed impact. As I had attended BBC under an OCA award, there may be inclusion of this. Perhaps a seperate āApologyā will be neededā¦
Guys – an online support group that SAMSN are running, in case you are interested. I got info on it through an email from another Counsellor (BlueKnot)! Absolutely no pressure to join, Itās just in case itās something youāre interested inā¦ (6pm-8pm may be Daylight Savings time, which weāll check on before then)
Mon 21st Feb is in just over 1 & 1/2 wks away. This should be a wonderful chance for you guys! Youāre definitely not alone.
By Donna FieldPosted Tue 10 Nov 2015 at 2:27pmTuesday 10 Nov 2015 at 2:27pm, updated Tue 10 Nov 2015 at 5:11pmTuesday 10 Nov 2015 at 5:11pm
Gregory Knight gave evidence to the child sex abuse royal commission via video link.(AAP Image: Dan Peled)
A convicted paedophile teacher has accused students of making up stories about him after he was convicted of a child sex offence.
Key points:
– Convicted paedophile teacher Gregory Knight claims students made up stories
– In 1994, Knight was convicted of child sex offences in NT
– He taught music at Brisbane’s St Paul’s in the 1980s, 1990s
– He was convicted of sexually abusing a St Paul’s student
The conduct of former music teacher Gregory Robert Knight, as well as that of former counsellor Kevin John Lynch, is under scrutiny at the child sexual abuse royal commission underway at the Brisbane Magistrates Court.
Both men worked at Brisbane’s St Paul’s School during the 1980s and 1990s.
Knight later resigned from St Paul’s and moved to the Northern Territory to work at Darwin’s Dripstone High School, where serious allegations of child abuse were made against him in 1993.
The school and the NT Department of Education refused Knight’s offer to resign, with the school sacking him on the spot.
In 1994, Knight was convicted and sentenced to eight years in jail with a three-year non-parole period for child sex offences in the Northern Territory.
In 2005, he was subsequently convicted of sexually abusing a former St Paul’s student, identified at the inquiry as BSG.
He appeared this afternoon at the commission via video link.
“Now in Darwin as I have stated I went off the rails, I behaved badly and I’m not dodging around that one bit,” Knight said.
“It was after that and at the time when compensation was being handed out to students who had been at St Paul’s well after I’d left there that we had BSG come along and start asking ‘Oh, can I put in a bit of a story’ and away it went.”
BSG’s lawyer, Roger Singh, challenged Knight’s statement.
You are a disgrace. It cannot be denied that you are a paedophile.
“You were charged, convicted and sentenced for horrific sexual violation against BSG,” he said.
“There was no successful appeal, and for you to proclaim your innocence is absurd and delusional.
“You are a disgrace. It cannot be denied that you are a paedophile.”
Counsel assisting the inquiry David Lloyd also reminded Knight of his paedophile conviction and suggested: “It’s just delusional isn’t it, your position?”
Knight replied: “No, it isn’t.”
Knight sacked by BBC before being being employed by St Paul’s
Former Brisbane Boys College (BBC) principal Graeme Thomson told the inquiry he sacked Knight after hearing reports of questionable conduct from students in 1980.
Mr Thomson employed Knight unaware of crimes he had committed in South Australia, but said when boys from BBC came to him about strange behaviour around boarders in the showers, he took action.
I took cognisance and gave pre-eminence to two well-known truths, where’s there’s smoke there’s fire and prevention is better than cure.
He said he subsequently told St Paul’s principal Gilbert Case about the behaviour, yet Knight was still employed by the school.
“He [Knight] made no effort to offer an explanation and did not refute the details,” Mr Thomson said.
“I was confounded by his inability or his unwillingness to make a comment [about the allegations].
“When Knight did not respond with any denial, I took cognisance and gave pre-eminence to two well-known truths, where there’s smoke there’s fire and prevention is better than cure.”
Mr Thomson said he then registered his concern with BBC’s governing body and they agreed Knight had to go.
“I told Knight that his position was summarily terminated and I instructed him to make sure he left the school in the next 24 hours,” Mr Thomson said.
Former SA education minister ‘could have done more’
Knight had worked as a teacher in South Australia, where a 1978 inquiry held by the Education Department found he had engaged in disgraceful conduct towards students.
Dr Hopgood and Knight were in a band together at the time of the abuse.
That inquiry recommended Knight be dismissed from teaching, but Dr Hopgood instead accepted Knight’s resignation and gave him a positive reference “in the way in which he was able to lead a band”.
Knight admitted he had likely used the reference to gain a teaching job in Brisbane.
“It was a nice reference and it wasn’t drawing him into any conflict,” he said.
As long-lasting as the poor memories of our time at BBC may be, loss of positive ones can be just as striking. Chicri Maksoudās passing is striking many of his Mathematics š§® students with awe. Itās moments like this, which can reprioritise our āmost important thingsā/bucket lists ā¦
NERVOUSNESS As anxiety is setting in for some of those preparing to attend to the BBC/OCA commemoration service, here at RCbbc itās understood that some followers may also be affected by the loss of Chicri Maksoud. As I will be attending the service at 4pm in College Hall, I will also bring a bundle of the Living Well booklets. Should any of you wish to collect some, Iāll be in seat H-34.
Beloved Brisbane Boysā College teacher dies after long illness (Courier Mail)
Beloved Brisbane Boysā College maths teacher Chicri Maksoud died yesterday after battling a long illness, the Toowong private schoolās Old Collegians Association announced this afternoon.
Mr Maksoud at his desk early in his career.
Mr Maksoud was an honorary Old Collegian and taught at the school for nearly four decades, inspiring a love of maths and transforming its teaching.
Also a house master and co-curricular coach, he had a passion for coaching BBCās rugby, cricket, athletics, and cross country programs and was known for an ability to intertwine maths and sports.
He routinely gave up his own time to tutor students, holding a weekly lunchtime mathematics club and running the middle school mathematics competitionsā¦.
In keeping with a human nature (or animal instinct) of hiding/subverting past memories away, the oft-said belief of āthe past is the pastā, ājust get over itā is coming back to prove itself wrong. Deeply. As many of the support-therapists-Counsellors-medicoās I have dealt with told me: āyou canāt successfully move on from the past, if so much is hidden awayā. This post isnāt to repeat my past sorrows, rather shift the focus onto another of SEQās GPS schools: IGS Ipswich Grammar School.
Our RCbbc Blog is getting more contact, from past Surviving-Victims of CSA of IGS. As one predator of BBC employment (Anthony Kim Buchanan) had been known to have moved onto IGS, our 2022 goal can now be to unravel more of hidden truths, impacts and solutions of this growing habit. Speaking with others (support-therapists-Counsellors-medicoās), is the best place to start, which should provide help in moving forward.
How much of āunfair smear-campaigns that will be initiated at breakneck speed to everyone the parents know, the lack of compassion, understanding and support from others, and the loneliness, confusion and grief to process after we sever ties.ā ā¦ #dysfunctional family? (1 of 2)
ā¦understanding and support from others, and the loneliness, confusion and grief to process after we sever ties.ā ā¦ are experienced by those whoāve withdrawn from a #dysfunctional family? #nationalredress is approaching settlement for 1 CSA surviving-victim: āApologiesā awaited. (2 of 2)
Although weāre each taught that toddlers-teenagers are to be treated with āpurety + innocenceā, as āchildren of godā, Institutions of #BaptistChurch, #BrisbaneBoysCollege + #BoysBrigade have had their past behaviours brought into question. -(twitter)- #DSS-#NRS will now research their inclusion, in preparation for assessment of these #ChildSexualAbuse impacts. Bless each of you.
From a comment added to SDBCrcās āChurch in conflict?ā Blog, overlapping family patterns being shared do become clearer. āCommunity-family, Institution-family + Family-family parallelsā draws our attention to an oft-discussed, positive call amongst our BBC culture. Also, as concerned āCommunity-familyā we should know of the directions to quickly use whenever suspicions of CSA are made.
One of the most challenging things to undertake is separating ourselves from a toxic family. The āfamilyā is reveared as something too sacred to separate from, regardless of its toxicity. Adult children feel an obligation to stay connected even when it goes against their best interest. As adults, we stay connected out of fear and guilt. We fear the lack of understanding and recrimination to come from others who falsely assume all children are loved deeply. To follow are the entanglements suffered in a toxic family system, and how to break free.
1. Starved.
Children (no matter their age) of toxic parents are emotionally starved. The family dynamic functions around the needs, wants, desires, and dramas of the parent. Children are not viewed as people, but rather as things to be controlled, used and manipulated. It is common for parents to abuse one child and worship another. Each childās role serves some distorted need in the parent. The more abused child is raised feeling unloved and rejected, while the worshiped child feels loved for āgood performance and behavior.ā Each child has some awareness they are not loved for who they are, and both suffer low self-worth.
2. Sly.
The reason it is challenging to separate from these dynamics is because the type of abuse these children endure is not obvious. Itās the passive-aggressive, guilt-driven, needy, jealous, divisive, martyring, baiting abuse that somehow disappears into ether whenever confronted. These parents are sly, underhanded, blaming, manipulators who use their children for games, positioning and getting them to feel guilty, ashamed and increasingly needy for parental approval, which they can never authentically secure.
3. Scapegoating.
Toxic parents scapegoat their children for their own personality flaws and dramatics. They turn everything around to be the childās fault, and claim how āmean and disrespectfulā their children are. These children grow up feeling nothing they do is ever enough. They are consistently rattled with back-handed remarks by their overly critical parents, and are accused of being too sensitive. Being raised like this is no different than living in a house of mirrors, where even the fake apologies initiated by the parents are designed to put the child at fault.
4. Frozen.
Children become frozen under the hypocrisy, constant projection, and circular communication style these parents utilize. They quickly learn that being good enough in the eyes of their parents is about as likely as successfully scoring on a moving goalpost. They live trying to avoid conflict, or trying to express themselves to the point of rage or meltdown, only to face being shamed for their emotions and ātreating their parents so poorly.ā These psychological games lead children into a state of helplessness, self-hatred and guilt, as every situation is set for their destruction. There is no way to win.
5. Frustration.
There is nothing more psychologically debilitating than living in a world of unexpressed frustration. Very few, if any, validate what these children see and experience. In fact, most attempts at sharing their story are met with disbelief and the minimization of; āthings canāt be that bad, your parents love you.ā These children are typically advised to be more loving, to do as their told, and to accept who their parents are; thereby, blaming the victim. There is no amount of convincing these children can do that will be more powerful than the societal standard held to never separate from family.
6. Disenfranchised grief.
These children/adults live with a grief not accepted by society. Loss is one of the most common experiences to bring about grieving, and although this is often viewed as normal, there are times when grieving is disqualified; cutting ties oneās family members being one of those times. Traditional forms of grief are more widely accepted, like when a parent dies. When grief is not accepted, but rather viewed as something a person brought on themselves, there are few, if any, support systems to help them cope with their disenfranchised grief.
7. Courage.
As adults, we have the right to determine when enough is enough. If we know it is not possible to be healthy in tandem to staying connected to a dysfunctional family, then it is time to let go. We must have the courage to face the unfair smear-campaigns that will be initiated at breakneck speed to everyone the parents know, the lack of compassion, understanding and support from others, and the loneliness, confusion and grief to process after we sever ties. We will likely have to create distance with mutual connections that bind us to our family, as the more strings attached to them the less likely we are to protect ourselves from their toxic drama.
8. Duty Days.
After we cut ties, it is common to receive cards/gifts on āDuty Days,ā such as holidays. These gestures allow them to maintain that they try, and we are just too stubborn to let things go. What is missing in their communication is any combination of three sets of three simply-worded statements; āI am sorry,ā āI was wrong,ā or āYou were right.ā They are incapable of owning what they have done; always viewing themselves as right. They show up on āDuty Daysā to assuage their guilt, to save face, and to add more drama to their smear-campaign . Andā¦people will believe them.
9. Reclaiming yourself.
In severing ties, we are not doing so to punish anyone else, as much as we are doing something to protect ourselves. Once minimal or no-contact has been established, we must reclaim our lives and rebuild our self-worth. When we risk it all, the Universe in all its magic, will organize and materialize the supports, loves and people we deserve to live lives we love. We build a chosen-family who shows us that love is thicker than blood. Most importantly, we develop a self-respect no one can shake. We are free to live from the truth of who we are, as we come to trust our inherent goodness. The greatest power we have is not give these people what they wantā¦our attention. We must now give our attention only to those worthy of it.
I recently had the opportunity of revisiting a question that I have struggled to find answers to for many years. The question is, why, in the face of a parent sexually, physically or verbally abusing a child, does the other parent remain silent?
This is a phenomenon I have been aware of in countless numbers of cases reported to me by patients who are now adult and clearly recall not only the abuse but the fact that the other parent offered no safety.
The question others have asked me and that I ask myself is, how or why would a parent remain silent in the face of children being abused. Here a few hypotheses.
1. Denial is a powerful and primitive defense mechanism. Someone who is dependent, frightened and themselves the victim of abuse, can remain silent and not even see or hear the abuse in order to maintain the desperately needed relationship with the abuser. In a way, it is a variation of the old saying, āHear no evil, see no evil.ā Well, people do hear it and see it and fail to act.
2. Both abuser and spouse can be mentally ill people who collude out of mutually shared sadism. In others words, there are a few people who can get a sense of pleasure out of treating children abusively.
3. Over the years, I have known a few cases in which the wife has such a deep need to avoid sexual relations that they prefer their husband engage in Oedipal relations with a daughter. This is usually unconscious with full denial in operation.
4. Chronic and severe drug and alcohol abuse loosen inhibitions that otherwise sober and sensible people do things that would shock them if they were not under the influence of certain types of drugs.
5. There are parents who, having been raised in strict and abusive environments, then repeat the pattern once they are parents. The vicious cycle of abuse is probably the major cause of domestic violence in the United States.
One of the distressing and utterly frustrating and despairing things that survivors of abuse discover as adults, is that their parents deny that anything ever happened. Patients have reported to me that parents, when confronted by their adult child with the abuse they committed, tell their son or daughter that their memory is wrong.
It is natural to ask why an adult would now confront their parents about abusive acts that happened during childhood? Apparently, the answer is that these survivors are seeking an apology and an affirmative statement admitting their wrong doing. This is what makes the discussion so filled with despair for so many survivors. The despair results not simply by the refusal of an apology, but the complete denial that anything happened. This is further exacerbated by the fact that neighbors and friends of the parents think them very ānice peopleā who would never do such a despicable thing as abuse a child. When Joan Crawfordās daughter published the story of her childhood, a story that depicted Crawfordās cruel and outlandish acts of abuse, there was a public outcry that this never could have happened. Later, the outcry vanished when the truth and accuracy of the story emerged for the public to see.
It is the responsibility of neighbors, family, friends, teachers and school officials to report suspected abuse to the authorities who will then conduct an investigation. Do not play the āhear no evil, see no evilā game. Act on what you know or have good reason to suspect.
Your comments, experiences and questions are welcome in relation to this important issue.
