Terry Hayes was sexually abused by his school athletics coach in the 1970s, and he lives with it every day
WARNING: This story deals with trauma and child sexual abuse.
"Comments like, 'why now', 'why after so much time', and 'surely you should have moved on'," Mr Hayes said.
As a victim-survivor of child sexual abuse himself, it was hard to listen to.
"The impact of sitting through news broadcasts with people that have opinions — and I'm not judging that — but sitting through many of those moments in my life where it diminishes you, you get smaller," he said.
Mr Hayes was a teenager when he was sexually abused by then-athletics coach Paul Ronald Goldsmith in the 1970s at Marist Regional College in the north-west Tasmanian town of Burnie.
In 2005, Goldsmith pleaded guilty to 42 child sexual abuse crimes.
The crimes were committed between 1976 and 1987, and related to 20 boys — including Mr Hayes — who were aged from 13-16 years at the time.
Goldsmith was sentenced to six and a half years in prison, with a non-parole period of four years. He was released from prison in 2010 and moved to Africa after his parole ended.
Goldsmith died in 2016.
One of the reasons Mr Hayes wanted to share his story is to help people better understand the long-term impacts abuse can have.
He is very aware that, by sharing a story, it can affect others.
"Every time I see another one of these cases in the media it impacts me, so I just wanted to say I'm very aware there might be people likewise impacted, so I apologise to those people and I encourage them to seek out some support," he said.
As for the comments about why it takes so long for victim-survivors to speak out — whether in the media or privately — Mr Hayes said abuse was never in the past.
"It's gut-wrenching — whether it's 20 years ago, 20 days ago or 50 years ago, it's something that sits on your shoulder like [it happened] yesterday. And so it's not like you're talking about something that happened a long time ago; you're talking about something that's affecting you viscerally right in the here and now.
"You carry it with you, with the mistakes you make in life, with the judgements you make on yourself. [You think], well that's the way it is because you aren't a good person. Over and over again.
"It's diminishing and I've come to realise through the wonderful people that have been caring for me that I need to, or have begun, or am beginning to see myself in a better light, which, I guess, is why I'm here — hopeful that maybe I can shorten someone else's journey a little."
It was the police investigation into Goldsmith about 20 years ago that led to Mr Hayes telling his family about the abuse.
The first person he told was his wife, Janice, who has been by his side since his late teens.
"I can clearly recall the first conversations that I had, firstly with my wife on the back step, my youngest son in our lounge room, and my eldest son on a difficult, long walk," he said.
"They were terribly difficult conversations … from that point on, for Janice and myself, we had similarly difficult conversations with our parents and our extended family and they've been fantastic and supportive and still are fantastic and supportive throughout the whole legal process."
As difficult as it was, Mr Hayes said it drew him and his wife and sons closer.
"We've progressed through this whole thing safe in the knowledge we've got each other to talk to.
"And I know there are a lot of people out there in similar situations to myself, and they're not so fortunate, so one of the things I was grateful … it sort of confirmed to me that maybe I had done something right and that I wasn't a bad father."
Mr Hayes is suing Marist Regional College and the Archdiocese of Hobart.
He argues the college and the archdiocese are vicariously liable for the abuse and that they both breached the duty of care they had to him.
Before Goldsmith was an athletics coach, he was in training to become a Catholic priest in the Archdiocese of Hobart.
He did not finish the training.
According to Mr Hayes' statement of claim, filed with the Supreme Court of Tasmania, in 1969 when Goldsmith was still in training to become a priest, he was "the subject of a serious allegation made by parents of a Catholic schoolboy in Launceston to the Archbishop of Hobart, following which his training ceased and he was not ordained as a priest".
The statement of claim says Goldsmith became an athletics coach at Marist Regional College in 1976, and continued in that role in 1977, which is the time period when Mr Hayes was sexually abused by him.
Mr Hayes' lawyer Lucille Nel, a senior associate at Shine Lawyers, said it showed the archbishop of the day, Guilford Young, and the archdiocese had prior knowledge of "concerning" conduct from Goldsmith.
"And what we say is that conduct, the knowledge of that conduct, should have triggered more on the part of the archbishop and the archdiocese to protect children," Ms Nel said.
Marist Regional College has not yet filed a defence.
The archdiocese, in its defence filed with the court, does not admit that Goldsmith was an athletics coach at Marist in 1976, but said he was involved in senior boys' athletics in 1977.
The archdiocese also said in its defence that Marist Regional College "was the ultimate authority with the control of the college at all relevant times", not the archbishop of the day.
The archdiocese does not admit that it or Archbishop Young knew or ought to have known about the Launceston complaint regarding Goldsmith, and denies it had a duty of care to Mr Hayes.
It also said the facts alleged by Mr Hayes did "not give rise to any positive duty on the part of the [archdiocese] to take positive steps to protect the [Mr Hayes] from criminal acts by a third party".
The case remains in the early stages.
"For me this is about saying how it is, how people like myself feel," Mr Hayes said.
"Unless you've been in the arena fighting the fight, you really don't understand, and I sort of get it, but I don't want to be diminished.
"This is not my shame. This is the institutional shame."
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