Birthday confessionals, home visits and a little black notebook were part of Father Damian Barker's sordid toolkit, his alleged sexual abuse victims say.
Joe* was just eight years old when he wrote a letter to his mum to tell her he was running away from everything.
"I'm going away," he wrote in pencil.
"I can [sic] stand it any longer."
It had all become too much for the little boy, who claims he was sexually abused by Carmelite priest Father Damian Barker in his home in Perth's southern suburbs in 1976 and 1977.
WARNING: This story contains content that readers may find distressing.
But today, Joe is in his 50s — and after decades of darkness and alcohol abuse, he's not running away anymore.
Instead, he has joining a growing community of Australians who are bravely speaking out about Fr Damian's brazen, calculated grooming and alleged sexual abuse of children in WA and Victoria.
Gemma Taylor, principal lawyer at Perth's Maurice Blackburn, now believes that Fr Damian, who died in 1998, could have allegedly abused hundreds of children in the 1970s and 1980s.
A pattern repeats
The ABC has spoken to more than a dozen people about Fr Damian's behaviour, revealing an alleged pedophile's modus operandi, including:
- Exploiting the privacy of confession to isolate children, from offering them bedroom confessions to creating a lockable confessional room at a Catholic high school in Fremantle;
- Operating in low socio-economic, devoutly Catholic communities, where priests were considered second to God, welcomed into homes and rarely had their authority questioned;
- Ensuring access to children by being constantly on school grounds, attending school camps and randomly turning up to family homes before and after school;
- Blurring the lines between affection and abuse by presenting himself as a friendly male authority figure who expressed his love by kissing and touching children;
- Targeting vulnerable children, especially those with absent fathers;
- Hanging around places where children would be naked, such as the shower block on school camp or in their bathrooms at home.
Perhaps most disturbingly is the revelation that Fr Damian had a black diary in which he noted children's birthdays.
Many people told the ABC about Fr Damian's habit of turning up unannounced at children's homes to wish them a happy birthday.
But some survivors have told Ms Taylor about the priest's black diary, where he would document opportunities for abuse.
"So the young boys would be offered a birthday confession and they would be abused at that time, which as many of them said, is now a pretty horrific way to remember their birthdays," she said.
Ms Taylor described this behaviour as "calculated, manipulative grooming".
"This is not someone who is an opportunist," she said.
"This is someone who has calculatedly decided who he is going to abuse and when."
Incredibly, all this information about Fr Damian has only emerged since August, when Fremantle man Travis Adams told the ABC of his experience at the hands of Fr Damian at CBC Fremantle in 1984 and 1985.
Mr Adams alleged he was sexually abused every time he was alone with Fr Damian in the lockable confession room the priest built in the middle of the busy primary school.
Before then, nobody had spoken publicly about the white-haired school chaplain who stank of whisky and cigarettes as he kissed children on the lips in front of parents and teachers.
His story also prompted his former junior school headmaster to speak out about his regret he didn't do more to act on "gut feelings" about Fr Damian's behaviour in the 1980s.
Now in his 80s, Doug McKirdy said he warned senior Carmelites in 1986 that Fr Damian was hanging around the shower area when boys were washing themselves.
Fr Damian left his position as junior school chaplain soon after, but remained living in Hilton parish until 1989.
Church records show that Fr Damian moved to St Killian's parish in Bendigo that year, later shifting to Our Lady of Mount Carmel parish in Wentworthville in Sydney in 1992.
He spent his final years at an aged care home in Bateau Bay on the NSW Central Coast.
Screams fell on deaf ears
But Joe, who does not want to be identified in order to protect his son, claimed the Carmelites could have stopped Fr Damian's trail of destruction as early as 1976.
He said while he did not tell his mother about his alleged abuse, his sister remembered their mother screaming at Fr Damian:
"Get out of this house, get out of this house."
Joe said he strongly believed his mother reported Fr Damian's behaviour to senior Carmelite leaders, who he remembered took the unusual step of visiting their home.
"I distinctly remember my mother giving me the orders, 'Don't you dare go near Fr Damian, do you hear me?'," he said.
He said he believed the Carmelites knew Fr Damian was a threat and should have investigated him.
Like so many survivors of Fr Damian, Joe grew up in a devoutly Catholic family that welcomed all priests who appeared on their doorstep.
"My mum would bake beautiful cakes and put on afternoon teas," he said.
But Joe said Fr Damian used these visits to sexually abuse him in private moments — in his bedroom and after he got out of his bath.
"I was a little lad," he said.
"I had my shortie pyjamas on in my bedroom. He came into my bedroom."
He remembered Fr Damian as "always about on the school grounds" of Our Lady of Mount Carmel (OLMC) primary school in the Hilton parish, in Perth's southern suburbs.
Next door to the school was a Carmelite church of the same name and a house where priests like Fr Damian lived.
It is unclear when and why Fr Damian left Hilton parish but he moved to Port Melbourne, a Carmelite parish.
Church records show he was in Port Melbourne parish by 1981 and 1982.
But some people have contacted the ABC to say they clearly remember him in Port Melbourne, including at St Joseph's primary school, as early as 1977.
The devastating ripple effect
Melbourne man Adrian Ristau despaired at the possibility his decades of self-destruction could have been spared if the Carmelites had acted on concerns about Fr Damian in Hilton in the 1970s.
Instead, he claimed, they allowed the ripple effect of Fr Damian's predatory behaviour to wash over another community.
"How could they? How could they? How could they cover up?" he said.
Mr Ristau alleges that he was abused by Fr Damian when he was in years 5 and 6 at St Joseph's in Port Melbourne in 1981 and 1982.
But until he heard Mr Adams's story told to the ABC, he thought he was the only one.
Discovering he was one of many survivors of an allegedly prolific paedophile, he said, was almost as traumatic as his alleged abuse.
"I'll be honest with you, after hearing Travis's testimony if you will, I was in the foetal position for about 72 hours," he said.
"I couldn't function."
Mr Ristau said he could not believe how similar his and Mr Adams's experiences were, even though they grew up on different sides of the country.
"The way he described the scenarios and how it all played out — it was literally word for word," he said.
"I've had trouble. I don't drink a lot of alcohol as an adult but I tend not to drink too much alcohol because sometimes the taste will remind me of Fr Damian."
In the 1980s, Port Melbourne was a working-class suburb.
Mr Ristau and his younger sister Neva were raised by a single mother, who worked long hours in a factory to send her children to a Catholic school.
Fr Damian would make "pastoral visits" to families in the state housing estate where they lived.
"He at first appeared to be very kind, especially for a man back then," Mr Ristau said.
"I had grown up in an environment predominantly surrounded by women, a lot of single mums, and kids.
"He was seen as a role model and yeah, I think that's how he got me in".
But one day, Mr Ristau said, Fr Damian suddenly vanished.
"People said Fr Damian had transferred to Perth and that's all we knew of it," he said.
"There was no ceremony, no goodbye party. He just went."
Historical records show that Fr Damian returned to live in the Hilton parish in 1983 and work as the chaplain at CBC Fremantle — where he would allegedly abuse Mr Adams and other men the ABC has spoken to.
Ms Taylor said she had spoken to survivors of alleged abuse at both the church and primary school in Hilton, and was aware of concerns raised about Fr Damian in Port Melbourne.
"I've certainly heard that prior to coming to WA, there were some charges and complaints made to obviously his order about his conduct," she said.
The ABC has contacted the Carmelites multiple times seeking its response to various claims about Fr Damian, but it has declined to comment further.
"Given that allegations against Damian Barker by Travis Adams are currently before the court, it would be inappropriate to make any comment," a spokesman said.
But all three men desperately want the Carmelites to open up and share what they know about Fr Damian.
Like Mr Adams, Joe is suing the Carmelites and is calling on them to release all their records.
"There is no point hiding it anymore," he said.
"It has destroyed countless individuals, absolutely countless individuals, and if I'm an example of a ruination of a soul, there has to be justice here."
Joe describes his life since the alleged abuse as "like a long suicide".
Two things have bolstered him: his son, who has reinvigorated him, and his art.
"[My art is] one of the few things in life that I have bloody controlled," he said.
"It's just within the bounds of a piece of paper or a canvas."
For Adrian, he wants the Carmelites to appreciate the "ripple effect" of his experiences, especially the impact on his sister, who took her own life at the age of 19.
"We had an incredibly traumatised home life," he said.
"A lot of my guilt from my younger life is that I wasn't there for her.
"I was desperately trying to numb the experiences of my earlier life with drugs and alcohol back then."
But he said sharing his story to reach out to other survivors had "definitely lightened my load."
*Joe's name has been changed to protect his identity.
Credits
Words: Rebecca Turner and Nicolas Perpitch
Photographs: Julian Robins, Simon Tucci
Production: Fran Rimrod
