Nyngan man Steven Grainger has received an apology from the NSW Government for ‘’heinous and frequent’’ sexual, physical and emotional abuse he suffered as a child at three juvenile detention centres.
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The Department of Family and Community Services acknowledged Mr Grainger suffered at the hands of ‘’staff and others’’ between 1967 and 1972. In a letter dated March 17, Deputy Secretary Deidre Mulkerin described Mr Grainger’s abuse as ‘’reprehensible’’.
‘’The people who abused you, and the people who did not act to protect you from the abuse, breached your trust in them,’’ she said.
‘’I am also greatly saddened to hear about the suffering you endure in these institutions and the consequences of that abuse for your adult life. I deeply regret that as a child and a young person you did not experience the care and protecting to which you were unquestionably entitled.’’
Formerly from the Illawarra region, Mr Grainger, now 58, spent his childhood in more than a dozen different NSW custodial institutions. He was physically abused, humiliated, punished and raped at Mittagong Training School for Boys, Daruk Boys’ Training School and Tamworth’s Institution for Boys.
At the age of eight Mr Grainger had fled his Villawood home after his father was sent to jail. One time he went ‘’up the street’’ to a neighbour’s place, another time he ended up in Dubbo.
By age nine police had classified Mr Grainger as “uncontrollable” and he was taken into custody.
At the holding shelter a senior police officer took him to a room, told him to strip off, then the officer joined him in the shower. ‘’I remember him commenting on how smooth my skin was. I wanted to run away. But he held me. I was terrified. And then he raped me.’’
The next day, Mr Grainger was taken to the court house and remembers the magistrate asking him why he ran away from home. He was unable to speak due to shock. He was made a ward of the state.
‘’I lived in fear every day of my life and can’t forget what happened to me,’’ he told the Mercury this week. ‘’I remember every rape, every face, every ounce of pain and every humiliating episode.
‘’I’ve spent more than 80 per cent of my life in custody. I don’t trust anyone and I can’t help but blame the government who made me a ward of the state … and didn’t protect me from the animals who abused me.’’
After suffering through years of drug addiction and developing bipolar disorder, Mr Grainger is trying to turn his life around.
