‘I want the truth known’: why Andrew Coffey wants a face-to-face with leaders of an elite school

This is the second part in a series. Read the first part here.

Note: this story contains descriptions of sexual abuse.

Andrew Coffey’s parents believed they had done the right thing by their son in getting him a place in Sydney’s exclusive harbourside Shore school. Shore was reminiscent of the English grammar school tradition with its boaters and grey suits and prefects and house groups familiar to the Coffey family.

Andrew’s was a life of innocence and hope. Colin Fearon’s was the polar opposite. Unbeknown to the Coffeys, the school had on its staff a man who was on the run.

Years earlier Fearon had fled New Zealand after police began investigating allegations of sexual abuse made against him when he was a teacher at a boys-only high school in Christchurch.

After arriving in Australia he was hired by St Aloysius College, a Jesuit-run boys’ school on Sydney’s lower north shore. While there he sexually abused at least one student, then 15-year-old Lucien Leech-Larkin. The abuse changed Lucien overnight.

His mother went to the school principal who denied any knowledge or liability. But quietly Fearon was, it seems, moved on. For Lucien the encounter with Fearon ushered in decades of depression and destruction. (He died this year aged in his early 60s after battling chronic illness.)

Fearon’s next school was Shore, another boys-only high school just up the road. It was here Fearon pounced on a young Andrew Coffey for skylarking in a classroom at break time. Andrew remembers being grabbed from behind by the teacher and marched into the empty office of the school’s sergeant-major. Fearon allegedly told him to remove his trousers and then caned him twice, allegedly on his bare buttocks.

In a police interview decades later, Coffey described the sensation of what happened next as being “fucked in the arse”.  He also recalled being left in a state of “shut down, shocked and stunned”. Records assembled by his law firm, Koffels, show the teenager’s grades soon dipped. He became troubled, so much so that the school suggested he move on.

Coffey never really recovered. He spent decades adrift and in despair, behaving in ways which have shamed him. He has been in and out of psychiatric care and has taken more than his share of illicit drugs. He is married and has two children, one of whom has disabilities and needs daily care. 

For most of his life he had believed he was the only one. But he wasn’t.

By the late 1990s Fearon’s crimes had caught up with him. He was charged with sexually abusing three teenage boys. One was a student from Shore in 1974, the same year as Coffey’s alleged abuse. Coffery knew nothing of this until very recently. (Fearon avoided a court hearing on the grounds he was too ill to stand trial. He is now dead.)

Later NSW police records obtained by Coffey disclosed that there had been yet another complaint about Fearon from a former Shore boy, also relating to an act committed in 1974. The police file revealed that investigators had obtained documents from Shore on Fearon years earlier. 

Among the notes was a startling revelation: police had received documents on “historical sexual assaults correspondence” covering the period 1952 to 1996. It meant that Coffey was far from the only boy to allege abuse by Fearon. It also meant that Shore, pillar of the establishment, had a long record of not dealing with abuse allegations.

The school has declined to comment on other former students’ claims of abuse stemming from 1974. It has also declined to comment on how it came to employ Fearon. 

The great and the good

Shore was established under the St James’ School Compensation Trust Act (1886) and is governed by a 17-member council which is dominated by Anglican church appointments. Six clergy and six lay members are appointed by the synod of the Sydney diocese. The remaining five members are elected by the Shore old boys’ union.

The council’s president is the Archbishop of Sydney, the Most Rev Kanishka de Silva Raffel. The school is a highly successful business operation which commands enormous fees from parents keen to see their children prosper. At the same time its pitch is soaked in the religious language of compassion and love. It offers a long and well-argued case for the role of faith in the 21st century. 

Its website promotes a sterling image of itself — past, present and future — when it comes to sex abuse. Shore insists that it holds “and has always held a commitment to be above reproach in our responsibilities to all children and young people entrusted to our care”, despite police records indicating problems back to 1952.

Shore is a signatory to the National Redress Scheme, the legal mechanism which offers a way for parties to avoid the courts. But the standard compensation levels on offer are relatively low and much less than the awards being made by courts.

Coffey is in the middle of that court process which has been a case of lawyers at 50 paces.

In the legal contest between victims of sex abuse and institutions, the institution and its insurers have the upper hand. They have the money and resources to withstand a drawn-out process while victims enter a nether world of waiting for some form of resolution as they tell their story again and again to lawyers and independent psychiatrists with no clear end point. Insurers have no emotional tie to the case. For the victim the opposite is true. 

The role of non-disclosure agreements 

Coffey — like many in his position — has one card to play: the story of what he says happened to him at Shore is bad news for the school’s reputation. In most negotiations it is the one bit of leverage victims have, and silence can come with a premium in exchange for signing a non-disclosure agreement (NDA).

So is Coffery throwing away whatever advantage he might have?

“No. I have no intention of signing an NDA. I want the truth to be known and to be out there, even if not signing it gets in the way of a settlement.”

Coffey also has a challenge for the clergy and the leading citizens that make up the Shore council. It involves getting the insurers out of the frame.

“What I would really like to do,” he told Crikey, “is to meet with the council members and discuss this person to person, even if it is one versus 17.

“I know none of them are responsible for what happened in 1974 but to me this is an opportunity for them to accept responsibility on behalf of the school and to be open about the past and make a statement about who they are, rather than try to keep it shut down.”

Shore has declined to comment on specific questions put by Crikey. It issued this statement through its communications advisers, Cato & Clive, which specialises in media and issues management advice to companies, their boards and chief executive officers:

“Shore treats any claim of historical sexual abuse seriously. All children have the right to be and feel safe and to be protected from abuse, maltreatment and harm. Where there are individuals the school has failed in the past, we apologise.

“Shore is committed to engaging with and supporting any individual who says they have been the victim of sexual abuse and is willing to listen to all voices. Shore is a participant in the National Redress Scheme, which was established in response to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

“As this matter is before the courts, it would be inappropriate to comment further.”

Tomorrow: a development in the Coffey case as hope emerges for a form of resolution.

Survivors of abuse can find support by calling Bravehearts at 1800 272 831 or the Blue Knot Foundation at 1300 657 380. If you or someone you know is impacted by sexual assault or violence, call 1800RESPECT on 1800 737 732 or visit 1800RESPECT.org.au. In an emergency, call 000.