The Press
May 18 2004

Woodcock case

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," Carter said. "He was charming, brilliant -- completely opposite to the other priests."

Carter 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," Carter said.

But the trust soon turned to betrayal. After Carter got into trouble, the college's rector, Father Vincent Curtain, through the Social Welfare Department, appointed Woodcock to give Carter 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.

Instead of telling police about the complaints, Father Curtain and then church provincial Fred Bliss allowed Woodcock to remain at the school.

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 Carter 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 carpark in Lower Hutt. "He wanted me to have sex in a toilet block with two other men besides himself. I just locked myself in a toilet cubicle, I wouldn't come out."

After the incident Carter moved away from his parents' house and the contact with Woodcock ended, but the legacy remained.

After the abuse began Carter turned to drugs. There were many overdoses, which he says might or might not have been suicide attempts. "I didn't care whether I woke up or not," he said. Eventually he had a breakdown.

In 1994 he complained to the church about Woodcock, saying he wanted to make sure the priest no longer had access to children. Carter also wanted an apology. 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, Carter said, 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 Carter angry and determined to give up his right to anonymity and speak out publicly to make sure it did not happen to another child again.