For almost a quarter of a century, Leah Sallese believed she had had an "affair" with her PE teacher — then one conversation changed everything.
This revelation and her subsequent experience with Tasmania's justice system formed part of her evidence on Friday morning at the Commission of Inquiry into Responses to Child Sexual Abuse in Institutional Settings.
"I believed that I had an 'affair' with the PE teacher," she told the commission.
"That was the blueprint I had in my brain whenever anybody referred to it.
"I basically took the blame and the shame of having that relationship — he didn't."
The abuse occurred in the early 90s, when Ms Sallese was 16.
Despite her view at the time that it was an affair, she made two attempts to report it to the school.
First, she told a school chaplain who went to the principal and vice-principal on her behalf.
"They dismissed him and told him he must have it wrong," she told the commission.
Her father and mother were "the next people to know" and reported it to the school.
"They were assured my abuser would be sacked immediately," Ms Sallese told the commissioner.
Conversation with psychotherapist changed everything
As far as Ms Sallese knows, the school never notified police.
She told the commission the first experience she had with police was when she came forward for a third time, in 2017.
By this stage, she was in her 40s and had spent most of her life believing it was an "affair".
It was a conversation with her psychotherapist that changed everything.
"That's the first time, as a 40-something-year-old woman, that I ever questioned what I had in my mind as a narrative my whole life.
"I'd avoided a lot of the trauma up until that point, so I actually re-experienced a lot of trauma in my early 40s from re-identifiying and re-writing that narrative to get to where I am today."
Part of that was realising that she was a "victim of abuse" rather than an "equal participate or instigator of an affair".
"I was a vulnerable child and he was twice my age and in a position of power," she told the commission.
"I'd never really looked at it like that before because I'd always shouldered the blame. All the adults in my life had held me accountable for it."
'I felt like some of my power had been taken away'
Ms Sallese also spoke to someone from the school about the abuse.
"She said to me, 'What happened to you should never have happened, I feel sick'."
"I felt a bit of validation in that as well, there was a light switch going on basically after telling myself for years, 24 years, that I had been an instigator and a party to something that really wasn't my fault."
Ms Sallese told the commission that when she went to police, she had a "wonderful experience", but prosecuting the case in court was another matter.
Her abuser admitted to the crimes, but Ms Sallese told the commission she was "interviewed and re-interviewed" by the Department of Public Prosecutions (DPP).
"How, why, when, over and over and in different ways … it's re-traumatising to have to go through the same information … looking back now, it was a big ask from them," she told the commission.
"Especially because he'd admitted to it.
"I don't see how me trawling over all of that information again when I'd already done an interview with police, it was just really unnecessary."
When it came time to write her victim impact statement, she said the prosecution "wrote and re-wrote it".
"I felt like some of my power had been taken away," she told the commission.
"I didn't really get to say everything I wanted to say. "
Language used at the time was 'offensive'
Her abuser was sentenced with the judge describing the relationship as "consensual", but inappropriate because of her age.
Ms Sallese told the commission describing the abuse as "consensual" was "offensive", as was the charge he was convicted of — 'maintaining a sexual relationship with a young person'.
"If you're a child, you can't consent: you can't vote, you can't drive, you can't buy alcohol, you can't do anything an adult does," she told the commission.
Premier Jeremy Rockliff has since committed to amend the criminal code to introduce a presumption that children under the age of 17 can't consent to sexual intercourse when a person is in a position of authority over them.
Meanwhile the charge 'maintaining a sexual relationship with a young person' has also been changed — due in large part to efforts from former Australian of the Year Grace Tame and Let Her Speak campaign founder Nina Funnell — to 'persistent sexual abuse of a child'.
As for future improvements, Ms Sallese told the commission she would like to see better support for victim-survivors through the witness assistance service and someone who was trained in trauma and psychology to support victim-survivors through "sessions where you're getting grilled".
Overall though, she told the commission, she was glad she came forward.
"It's a shame they don't get punished like we do, so that's something that doesn't sit very well with me, but it's the way it is."
