Ruben and Joan

Ruben was a ward of the state when he came into Joan’s care at the age of six. He had been abused and neglected as a baby. He has a mild intellectual disability and is autistic.

Ruben found a loving home with Joan, but the bullying, neglect and sexual abuse he experienced throughout his school years have left him with ongoing trauma as an adult.

When Ruben started at the local public school, staff knew about his diagnosis, his traumatic history and challenging behaviours. Yet, Joan said, they showed him little understanding or compassion.

The bullying from students began straight away. Time and time again, he would get in trouble for reacting to the horrible things other kids would say or do to him. Teachers blamed Ruben for the bullying behaviours of the other children. One teacher complained that ‘the other students had become more challenging since [Ruben] arrived’.

Joan enrolled Ruben in a support class for the first time when he started at high school because she was worried he would not be given enough support in the mainstream class and she was concerned about the bullying.

This was an ‘exceptionally difficult’ year for Ruben. He had limited contact with the few friends he had in the mainstream class, and the behaviour of some students in the support class was ‘very challenging’. He was being threatened and physically assaulted.

By year 9 Ruben was ‘miserable and afraid almost every day’. Joan decided to transfer him to a different public school for a ‘fresh start’.

At the new school, little changed. Joan said Ruben received little to no encouragement, even though from time to time she would hear isolated reports that he was doing well.

For example, one casual teacher told Joan that Ruben was ‘the best reader in the unit’. Another said how pleased he was with Ruben’s work and his attitude. Yet it seemed, on the whole, teachers were inclined to think poorly of Ruben and were ‘unkind’ to him.

There was a particular incident at Ruben’s final cricket match in year 9. Joan’s sister, May, was watching from the bleachers. When Joan joined May later she found her in ‘a distressed state’, angry and crying. Two people sitting behind May, not knowing she was Ruben’s aunt, had been making fun of him the whole time, ridiculing the way he was playing, his poor eyesight – May couldn’t even bare to tell Joan the worst of it. It turned out these two people were teacher aides from Ruben’s support unit.

Throughout year 10, Ruben’s behaviour deteriorated. He was often ‘angry, hyperactive and fearful’. He was given formal cautions and suspensions, and was sometimes placed in isolation.

There was one kid in the support unit who caused particular problems for Ruben, a boy named Brady. One day Ruben told Joan that Brady had been boasting that ‘he was going to have sex with [one of the girls in the special unit] tomorrow’. Joan immediately notified the head of the unit so they could protect the girl.

By year 12, Ruben was ‘miserable’ all the time and was often sent home sick from school, only to feel much better once home. Finally, towards the end of the year, Ruben told Joan that Brady had been sexually harassing him for a long time.

When Ruben needed to leave the class to use the toilet, Brady would sneak out and assault him.

The deputy principal told Joan that, even though he believed Ruben, the school wouldn’t pursue consequences for Brady as he had denied any wrongdoing.

Joan withdrew Ruben from the school until they could work out a plan to keep him safe, which took a couple of weeks.

‘Ruben was very upset at home,’ Joan said. ‘I attempted to work through these issues with him. He identified the problem as being afraid he would be punished if he used force. He was also angry with Brady and angry with the school for not doing anything …’

‘Ruben said his whole life was like “prison torture”. He talked about his bad dreams where he had been forced to do terrible things.’

The year after Ruben graduated from high school, Joan received a call from a detective from the child abuse squad. He asked if Ruben would be prepared to give a statement about what happened to him at school. Brady had been charged with assaulting other students and the detective wondered if Ruben would like to join the case and have Brady charged with assaulting him. Ruben made a statement and agreed to have Brady charged.

A few years on, one case has already been aborted. Joan says Ruben has never wavered in his resolve to have Brady charged. ‘He says he understands that there is no guarantee of a guilty verdict but he believes he needs to tell his story in court.’

Meanwhile, Ruben is doing well. He has almost completed his TAFE course, which he loves. ‘He has an excellent teacher and support teacher,’ Joan says. ‘He has some supportive friends around him at last’. He has a driver’s licence and Joan is ‘hopeful’ he will find stable employment.

Nonetheless, Joan says, ‘flashbacks and nightmares recur fairly often’.

‘I’m stuck here in the prison cell in my mind,’ Ruben told his mum. ‘I don’t have the key. I’m free of school but in my mind I’m still trapped in my cell.’