AUSTRALIA
The Guardian
Shalailah Medhora
Monday 26 October 2015
Simon Cole was nearly 40 years old when he read a newspaper article noting the conviction of the man who he alleges abused him as a child. For a decade prior, he had been slowly piecing together the effect that the childhood abuse had had on his mental health.
“I was around 30 when I really started to make the connection,” Cole, who at 52 still suffers from anxiety and insomnia, said.
For three decades, he had been carrying the burden of the abuse on his own. Reading that scoutmaster Rod Corrie, the man who he said inappropriately touched him, had been jailed for abusing other children over a 30-year period, was the circuit breaker he needed to speak out and seek help.
The article prompted Cole to launch a civil case against Corrie and the scouts, which was settled out of court.
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