Gary Hill was considered a biter and a bolter by staff while a resident at B.C.'s notorious Woodlands School for the mentally disabled.
The labels cost him all his teeth and sexual innocence. He was 11 years old.
“They put me in with sex offenders and I learned all about sex really fast. It took me a week,” he said outside B.C. Supreme Court Wednesday.
Hill was locked in with the high-risk patients because he had run away from the school before.
Inside the courthouse, Justice Robert Bauman was hearing details of a provincial government settlement proposal that would cover about 1,100 victims of abuse at the now-closed school.
But Hill isn't among those being compensated.
He had the misfortune of being locked in the school in the early 1960's, long before August 1, 1974 legislation was passed that said the B.C. government was liable for abuses suffered at such institutions.
Hill and about 500 other abuse survivors won't receive compensation or even an apology for a litany of abuses ranging from daily beatings to sexual and psychological abuse.
“The government, with a flick of a pen, they change this law that is in front of us. They can do the right thing,” Hill said.
Woodlands was in operation for more than 100 years in New Westminster, B.C., and housed children and adults with mental disorders. It closed in 1996.
A 2001 report by then-ombudsman Dulcie McCallum details horrific physical, emotional and sexual abuse against students by staff and fellow students.
Among other things, she found many students had their teeth pulled out because they bit themselves or others.
Former residents of the institution launched a class action lawsuit in 2003.
A negotiated settlement was reached this past December and the B.C. Court of Appeal refused to overturn a lower court ruling which excluded the victims before the 1974 legislation.
Arlene Schouten, a legal representative of a man severely abused at Woodlands, noted that by the mid 1970s, governments were starting to become aware of such abuses.
Schouten said those forced to stay in the school before then were horribly abused and no one was paying attention.
“It's unfair, it's unjust and it's just morally wrong,” she said of the compensation plan that leaves the more elderly of the victims without help.
If the proposal is approved by the court, those eligible will be able to apply for compensation ranging from $3,000 to $150,000, depending on the severity of the abuse they endured.
Bill McArthur, with the group We Survived Woodlands, said he met with B.C. Attorney General Mike de Jong two weeks ago to convey the unfairness of the random date.
McArthur was discharged from the school 10 days before the 1974 legislation went into effect. He had endured numerous sexual assaults and beatings.
A spokesman for de Jong confirmed the meeting and said the attorney general told the group he would share their concerns with his colleagues in government.
In the mid-60s, Fay Sherlock was told by Woodlands staff she was going to have a bladder operation.
“They tied my tubes and stole my appendix,” she said outside the courthouse. She was 19 at the time.
Sherlock left Woodlands in 1973.
“If you were in our shoes, wouldn't you fight to get what's coming to you?”
Shelly Starr stuttered as she recalled the constant violence from staff at the school, at times for no bigger reason that splashing while jumping into the pool.
“I lost my childhood,” she said wiping away tears. “You don't get that back.”
The court hearing was expected to last two days and if the judge approves the provincial plan, eligible survivors can begin the process of reporting the wrongs done to them to determine where they fit on the compensation scale.
