Dominion Post
May 18 2004
'He was friendly, charming, brilliant'
by Fran Tyler
Terry Carter was
just 15 when Alan Woodcock became his teacher at St Patrick's College in
Silverstream.
"He was one of the most friendly people you could
meet," Terry says. "He was charming, brilliant – completely opposite
to the other priests."
Terry liked and trusted Woodcock, who taught him music and Christian doctrine.
Woodcock made friends with the boys, offered them cigarettes and joked with
them.
"He acted like he was just one of the boys," Terry says. But the
trust soon turned to betrayal.
After Terry got into trouble, the college's rector, Father Vincent Curtain,
through the Social Welfare Department, appointed Woodcock to give Terry
counselling - provided in Woodcock's bedroom.
"The first session I was really nervous. He asked me about how I got on
with my parents and he knew my grandfather, who I was really close to, had just
died - he was being quite friendly, but I didn't realise he was casing me
out."
At the second session the abuse began. "Although it was physically
happening, it was just unfathomable. I had always been taught that
homosexuality was a sin and here was a priest doing that to me. I thought I
would be going to hell because of it."
The abuse continued at almost every counselling session and included acts of
masturbation and oral sex.
Then a complaint about Woodcock was made by other boys in August that year.
Other boys were aware of what Woodcock was doing and Terry says he felt that if
he had spoken out he would have lost his friends.
"One boy spoke out about it and he was ostracised," he said. Instead
of telling police about the complaints, Father Curtain and then church
provincial Father Fred Bliss allowed Woodcock to remain at the school.
For Terry it proved to be a brief reprieve as Woodcock's behaviour was curbed
by the spotlight the complaints had put him in.
At the end of 1982 the church moved Woodcock to Highden,
a house for young priests near Palmerston North.
However, the abuse continued for several years with Woodcock calling on Terry
when he was in town.
The last time he heard from Woodcock was in 1985 when the priest was at Futuna retreat in Karori.
Woodcock called telling him to meet him in the river bank car park in
After the incident Terry moved away from his parents' house and the contact
with Woodcock ended, but the legacy remained.
After the abuse began, Terry turned to drugs. There were many overdoses, which
he says may or may not have been suicide attempts.
"I didn't care whether I woke up or not." Eventually he had a
breakdown and ended up in
In 1994 he complained to the church about Woodcock saying he wanted to make
sure the priest no longer had access to children.
Terry also wanted an apology for the abuse he had suffered. However, he
describes the church's attitude as less than helpful. "Basically it was
total denial."
In 1996 he took a civil case against Woodcock and the school.
After five years, Terry says, he was so worn down that he settled out of court,
receiving a sum of $45,000 and signing a confidentiality clause and an
agreement to take no further action.
However, the case left Terry angry and determined to give up his right to
anonymity provided by the law and speak out publicly to make sure it did not
happen to another child again.
"If that many people can know about one paedophile and do nothing about
it, then imagine how many are out there quietly abusing children."