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[This edited version of the report has been prepared by Dr Robert N Moles]

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Red Tape Rape by Ki Meekins

Foreword by Graham Archer

We remember and forget things for a reason, even if at the time we have no idea why. I have always remembered the first lines of Charles Dickens’ classic novel David Copperfield from the time I had them read to me as a young boy.

“Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show.”

I found the notion of being the hero of your own life a fascinating one. Few of us can genuinely claim such a title. In many situations we allow ourselves to be bystanders, preferring to play the crowd scenes rather than taking the lead role. Ki Meekins is an exception.

I have no doubt Ki Meekins is the hero of his own life as these pages will inevitably show. Such heroism is not just the stuff of fiction.

This book is about winning. It’s about triumphing over the odds. Most of all it’s about a child winning back his childhood. Of course it could never be totally reclaimed but Ki Meekins has done more than most to at least define who he was as a child, despite the forces that so selfishly and cruelly cast that precious innocence aside. What he has since overcome and achieved is a lesson to us all and is truly heroic.

I first met Ki in 2002 at a time when I was reassessing what we could achieve with our television program, Today Tonight. Though we had always gone into battle for people in difficulty, I felt there were bigger challenges we ought to be confronting. Ki’s case was one such challenge.

Ki had already fought a protracted legal battle over almost a decade against the State of South Australia with the help of such champions as solicitor Jenny Corkhill.  He and Jenny came to journalist Rohan Wenn and I with a body of information and documents which shocked us but seemed to make the telling of the story a straightforward task.

Those not working in television, particularly commercial television, won’t understand that certain subjects at the time were considered “taboo”. At the very top of the list were stories about child abuse and paedophilia. These were considered such abhorrent topics that audiences at home would not want to be confronted with them. Further, they were usually clouded with uncertainty, complicated by questions of confidentiality made more hazardous if the alleged victims were Wards of the State and potentially awash with a myriad of other legal land mines. Ki’s case involved most of these complications. Added to that he had signed a confidentiality agreement with the State intended to keep the lid on this massive “boil”.

If Rohan Wenn and I could be commended for anything it is that we helped break that taboo. However it was because we had the key ingredient and that was Ki. Ki and his supporters including Jenny Corkhill had managed, against enormous government resistance, to get his entire file from what was once the Department of Community Welfare. It was dynamite. Was it any wonder the government’s legal advice was to settle Ki’s case in secret and hope no one else had the fortitude to fight for as long as Ki had done?  Incidentally the Department excused their inability to retrieve the paperwork for certain other subsequent applicants because they claimed they had a “policy of randomly destroying files”. Such a “policy” would have made interesting reading.

So, we had hard evidence that Ki under State care had been knowingly exposed to the predators who worked in, volunteered for or simply lingered around the institutions brimming with vulnerable, affection starved children. But most importantly we had Ki.

Ki was prepared to breach his confidentiality agreement with the State to let the world know what had been going on for decades behind closed doors. If he was prepared to do that the least we could do was to support him. Fortunately the Seven Network was prepared to back us.

More than that Ki, despite what he’d been through, was a balanced, highly intelligent, articulate man who was not afraid to bare his soul to the world. Without those qualities this story could not have been told. In the process of gathering information I was horrified to discover that sexual crimes prior to 1983 were exempt from prosecution. Apparently some ill-conceived idea about avoiding retrospectivity meant that when the three year statute of limitation on the crime was abolished in 1985, its back dating was still limited to the original three years. There was much to learn.

Because of the nature of Ki’s case, which in fact replicated the experiences of many other children, we titled our story “The Takeaway Children”. It was the grim application of a word most children equate now with food and good fun. The first feature went to air on 10 February 2003.

What followed was a series of stories under the “Takeaway Children” banner documenting the systematic abuse of children in state care. The response was enormous. Here was one of the very few occasions when someone was prepared to stand up and be counted and the evidence and sincerity was unequivocal.  We, and Ki, received scores of calls and letters from many, many people, amongst them victims, parents, social workers and police officers who had been affected by the scourge of paedophilia but had never had a vehicle through which they could express their views. The topic which was also gaining currency in other States had suddenly been de-stigmatised.

The Rann Government, mainly through the voice of Attorney General Michael Atkinson, were scathing about calls for a commission of enquiry into the treatment of Wards of the State. Atkinson used the accommodating vehicle of late night talk back radio to scoff at Today Tonight and the requests for a thorough investigation into cases like Ki’s, plucking figures of millions of dollars out of the air to justify his stance:

“Graham Archer from Channel Seven's Today Tonight was calling for a Royal Commission into child abuse in South Australia covering a period of 30 to 40 years. And barristers were all joking  that this was a tremendous idea because it meant $35m would be spent on them.” (5AA)

The government had their own strategy. They had employed a QC Robyn Layton, now Justice Layton, and once the wife of former Labor Premier John Bannon, to prepare a report recommending changes to the welfare bureaucracy’s procedures to guard against child abuse in future. While it was part of an appropriate response to the problem, victims and advocates who had in good faith contributed to Ms Layton’s research were outraged to learn she had been instructed not to consider individual cases and she supported the government’s position not to undertake any such enquiry. There also appeared to be a wish to minimize the magnitude of past crimes

At the press conference in March 2003 launching her Report the following exchange between she and I on this exact topic took place:

 Robyn Layton QC:  “It is not a matter of justice. No body on this earth can usually get individual justice. You take even those who might go through the criminal justice system, many of them come out and say I don’t think I’d ever do it again.”

Graham Archer: “But there are hundreds of cases.”

Robyn Layton QC: “Well you say so.”

Graham Archer: “Well I'm sure you know so. You just peel back all of the files in DCW [Dept of Community Work] and FAYS [Family and Youth Services] and you have a look at what's written in there.”

“I think we'll move to other questions….”

For Ki this was the kind of rejection he had encountered before but now he was not alone, other media and advocates sought him out. This is where Ki’s true strength of character emerged. He impressed everyone with his ability to articulate the problem and stay true to the main objective. Through this period he tirelessly wrote to politicians, public figures and anyone else he thought might be stirred into action. He appeared in the media, he researched legislation, he posed questions and he meticulously documented all his correspondence and the replies he had received. He was determined to see people make themselves accountable. While on many occasions the courtesy of a reply was denied him, he never lost his temper, he never raised his voice and he never gave up. He was loyal to me and the program to a fault, always keeping us in the loop and always being ready to speak up if we needed his voice.

The Rann government to their credit, repealed the 1983 limitation to the pursuit of criminal charges for sexual offences and ultimately conceded to the overwhelming pressure for an enquiry into individual cases of abuse of children who’d been in State care. Supreme court judge Justice Ted Mullighan was appointed as the enquiry Commissioner. In an interesting twist Robyn Layton QC replaced him on the Supreme Court bench.

Despite this step the government still appeared not to grasp the sensitivity of the issue when Minister Jay Weatherill appointed Bill Morris, a close friend and former Power of Attorney of jailed paedophile Magistrate Peter Liddy, as one of the senior investigators on the inquiry. While there was no reason to doubt Morris was otherwise a proper appointment, it was hardly a diplomatic way to start.  Bill Morris stepped down after Today Tonight raised this issue and Ki again added his voice to the concern.  Bill Morris was later appointed as a Magistrate.

It became immediately clear that Commissioner Mullighan was shocked by the extent of the problem. Perhaps this illustrates just how much of a taboo this subject had been in so many quarters. The Commissioner had entered a world the dimensions of which he didn’t realise existed and I understand Ki became something of a sounding board and guide for him, at least in the early days.

At this point everyone with an axe to grind or a case to argue wanted a “piece” of Ki. Ki gave those who stood beside him credibility. However true to himself he was never in this for the glory, for popularity, sympathy or political advantage. It was then Ki decided the best way to get his own point across was to write this book. With the help and courage of publisher Michael Madigan, that’s exactly what he’s done. It needs to be read.

It should be said that this is an enormously difficult area to traverse. There are and have been many dedicated social workers and foster carers who have at considerable personal risk attempted to extend a compassionate hand to  troubled children. Their good works must remain untainted. In the end the rule of law and its scrupulously even handed application must adjudicate on any alleged criminality. There can be no greater stigma than to have the innocent branded with the scar of the paedophile.

I began this foreword with a quote from literature and I’ll end with one which I think sums up what Ki has attempted to achieve. The author is George Elliot, a woman writing at a time when she needed a man’s name to be published at all,

“Our deeds travel from afar, what we were makes us what we are.” 

If we don’t confront the wrongs of the past we don’t change as people and a society. Ki has looked the demons in the face and in his own way been reborn. We should all take inspiration from his example.

Graham Archer
PRODUCER
Today Tonight – Adelaide
March 2008

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