The issue of the Tara School court case still reverberates. Most media articles express dismay at the methods used by the school's barrister while questioning the student in court. All I've read accept that the girl (codenamed 'N') was raped as claimed. (Here is a previous post on the subject)
Some of the students who were on the excursion were upset by the way the court case unfolded, and how events were depicted in the media. They went public in today's Sun Herald.
[One] student said she too felt compelled to speak out after reading how her teachers and principal had been portrayed as cold and uncaring."They were all awesome," she said. "They did everything short of chaining us all to the beds.
"If I have any sympathy for anyone, it's them, not her."
Unfortunately, their depictions confirm that the adults supervising the girls failed in their duty of care by not taking all steps to prevent the rape from happening. Noble as the students' intentions were by going public, they make the same mistake as the school's management; they blame the victim.
According to the girls' accounts, there was a group of year 10 girls on the trip, 'N' included, who didn't comply with the rules, and repeatedly put themselves in harms way. Another student who attended attended the trip stated:
"The year 10 girls and particularly N had become a law unto themselves . . . on three separate occasions. Year 11 students, including myself, were forced to sit them down and explain how they were on the verge of having us all sent home."We said: 'You're ruining the tour for us, you're disobeying teachers, you're breaking curfew every night, why are you doing this?'
"We also warned that anything could happen if they kept on picking up these boys who were complete strangers. We said, 'Never mind what the teachers might do, you could get yourself into some real trouble'."
And as it happened, one did.
The danger in reading the above is to think that the girl got what she deserved. Obviously, her behaviour contributed to her being assaulted, but it seems that this was not the first time she'd misbehaved on the trip. Yes, she was stupid and disobedient, but she was also only 15, and clearly not appreciative of the danger that her actions put her in.
It wasn't as if the adults on the trip were unaware of the problem.
Another student told how the only male teacher on the trip broke down on a bus as he made one final desperate plea for calm and order.The student said: "He stood there and in front of the whole bus, gave this speech which, looking back, came straight from the heart. He explained that while everyone [the girls] might not realise it, he had been handed the responsibility of being a father to them all.
"That's when he started crying . . . because he said he felt as though he was failing. He warned the girls that while their late-night drinking and frolics might seem like fun, the boys they were meeting could be quite literally anyone. He warned they might be dangerous."
The fact is the teachers didn't do everything to stop the trouble makers misbehaving. They knew what was going on, but their actions didn't go far enough. The adults on the trip were negligent because they didn't stamp out the rule breaking from the onset. After a couple of warnings, 'N' and the other miscreants should have been sent home.
The adults supervising the trip were in a difficult position. They would have weighed up what was happening, and balanced the risk of harm coming to the girls verses the flack they would have received by sending them home early. They got it wrong.
The school was negligent if, as I suspect, they didn't have a mechanism to easily expatriate troublesome students if the need arose.
It's going to be a lot stricter for students going on everseas excursions from now on.
