A VICTIM of child sexual abuse says she is “gutted”, “furious” and “hurt” after ribbons tied to the old Ben Venue Public School fence were hacked off.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
The ribbons were tied on the fence of the school on Friday afternoon by victims, who just hours beforehand, had delivered emotional impact statements at a sentencing hearing for paedophile teacher John G Ferris in court.
The victims, who were students when they were abused, returned to the school to tie ribbons as part of the Loud Fence Movement, but by Sunday morning, the ribbons were violently cut down, leaving just a few frayed stubs of bows, and the fragments of a plaque explaining the significance of the monument.
“We just wanted to leave a little something to say these beautiful ribbons are for our beautiful hearts that weren’t broken completely and that we were going to mend,” the victim said.
“That’s the statement it was for us; we were here, we were broken, but we survived.
“This was going to be a way of healing.
“And then somebody had to rip our hearts out.”
On Sunday night, ribbons tied to the city’s Catholic Cathedral had also been chopped down.
Police were called to both scenes, and New England Inspector Chris McKinnon said it was disappointing to see the monuments torn down.
“These ribbons are being placed there in support of people who have been subject to child abuse,” he said.
“We would encourage the community to respect those people and the fact that they have placed the ribbons there.
“We would be reliant upon information from the public for any evidence that may be available to assist in identifying who removed the ribbons.”
The two sites became tributes to victims of child sexual abuse after former Catholic priest John Farrell was sentenced to 29 years jail for dozens of historical offences upon children, while Ferris made admissions to a raft of charges dating back to the 1960s and ’70s.
The Loud Fence Movement sought to commemorate victims by tying bright ribbons onto public fences, as well as start conversations in the community about keeping children safe.
But the discovery was a cruel end to a tumultuous week, one victim said.
“They had not cut them off, they had not taken them off, they had hacked them off,” she said.
“They hacked the little plaques that we had put there to pieces.
“The anger in the way they were cut off is clearly evident in what they left there.”
