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November 27th, 2014 
Awake Goy A man hired as a teenager to sift through graphic evidence of brutal crimes says he wants Victoria’s Office of Public Prosecution (OPP) to front the child sex abuse royal commission.
As a 13-year-old in 1987, Paul was one of a group of boys paid to sort through photos, videos and transcripts of murder and sex crime cases in a bid to reduce the file sizes for archiving, to minimise storage costs.
Paul said he had considered suicide, angry at inaction by the Victorian Government to investigate what he said was a form of child abuse.
“At a very young age, we realised there are people that will rape someone, murder someone, do things to their body afterwards, amongst other things,” he said.
“Pornography was rarer back then. If someone had committed rape, they used the fact that they had pornography as evidence against them.
“We decided what documents were kept on file or shredded, and if it had been the Walsh Street murders or something… if as 13-year-old children we decided to shred the documents, they were gone forever.”
Speaking to AM 27 years on, Paul knots his trembling fingers, lapses into long silences and his eyes dart away when they well up.
The holiday job at the OPP was good money for a teenager because no staffer wanted this tedious job. The boys’ supervisor was a teenager himself.
After being engaged by the OPP Paul drifted from friends and family, his school grades plummeted and he made dubious decisions.
‘It affected every relationship and every friendship I had’
Paul was recently diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and wonders whether his former workmates were similarly affected.
One has since taken his own life while another was convicted of murder in his 20s.
‘I don’t understand why they think it’s in their best interests to sweep it under the carpet
Paul
“Hypervigilance took over me. It affected every relationship and every friendship I had,” he said.
“I don’t know of anyone that’s thrived after having gone for this experience.”
A different group of boys was recruited for the task the following year, and Paul wonders how long this practice continued.
Paul wrote to Premier Denis Napthine last year, believing he was sincere when he remarked the religious organisations needed to display strong leadership in confronting child abuse.
But he said he was repeatedly dismissed.
“I don’t understand why they think it’s in their best interests to sweep it under the carpet,” Paul said.
“I wanted to draw a line in the sand and stand up for myself and move on.”
The closest thing to an apology he has received, is a letter from the Attorney-General Robert Clark, saying he was sorry to read of Paul’s “experiences”.
Paul said an “experience” is when you travel overseas but the task he was hired to perform at the age of 13 was a form of child abuse.
Too young to tolerate exposure to graphic content: psychologist
Psychologist Rosemary Williams, who treated Paul, said it was irresponsible for the OPP to expose children to graphic content.
“Videos and photos of murders and rapes and mutilations, he was far too young to be able to tolerate psychologically that sort of exposure,” she said.
“I don’t know about the legality… certainly my client was far too young to be exposed to this sort of material.”
As for his former colleagues who have suffered sad fates, Ms Williams concedes they may have had unrelated demons but said it is an “usual cluster”.
“It suggests, at the very least, that they struggled to adapt to adult life,” she said.
Ms Williams has advised Paul to cease contact with the Government over the matter.
The OPP told AM it would look into the case but said it did not offer work to students aged under 18, that its work prosecuting serious indictable offences makes it difficult to minimise the risk of their exposure to graphic and distressing material.
Paul said he would be making a submission to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-11-25/prosecutors-office-hired-teens-to-sort-criminal-evidence/5915218?WT.mc_id=Corp_News-Nov2014|News-Nov2014_FBP|abcnews
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