(Image: Private Media)

This is part three in a series. Find the rest of the series here.

It turns out I haven’t been the only one writing about Andrew Coffey’s alleged abuse in 1974 at the Shore school in Sydney. Coffey, too, has been at it, writing emails fashioned into arrows to those on the other side of the legal divide. 

Reading his recent missives it’s as though he has gone rogue, abandoning any process that a lawyered-up victim is meant to follow. It appears, though, to have borne fruit. 

Coffey has basically thrown the rule book away. He’s written directly to Shore’s lawyer, John Dalzell, and has put Dalzell on the spot about why he does what he does. Here are excerpts from one email:

“Hi John,

“I thought that I would email you.

“I’m trying to figure out why you do what you do; what drives you to take on victims of sexual abuse, and how does doing so fulfil you, how your conscience decides that you are making a worthwhile contribution in the area you are best known for.  

“Man, a bloke of your learning, your experience, your intellect — how can I convince you to decide that you would rather represent the victims?”

“Anyway, you and I will meet. You will try your very best to defeat me, as I see it. A tip from me here is for you to harass me as much as possible, put me down, upset me and continue to deny liability on behalf of your client — because although I’m going to fight you as hard as I can, I’m liable to lose that ability to go on with the fight based on my history. At some point, it is conceivable that the upset will get on top of me and force me to give up on all this.”

Dalzell has replied the only way he legally can, by pointing out that the rules of the game prevent him from writing directly to a litigant. Nor was he able to give a comment to Crikey. But Coffey’s email frenzy has, amazingly, hit the mark.

Shore’s community chaplain, Rev Dr Nick Foord, wrote back, expressing horror at what he’d learnt from one of Coffey’s emails. And it was more than lip service: Foord got into his car and drove north three hours to Coffey’s house. The two met and conversed.

Within days Foord got back to Coffey with a development: he had arranged a face-to-face meeting for Coffey with Shore’s headmaster and the head of Shore’s school council, the well-connected Bay Warburton, one-time chief of staff to former NSW premier Mike Baird. 

How did that feel?

“Yeah. Good,” Coffey said. “It’s not everything yet but it means I can talk to them direct and let them know how I feel. I just want them to know.”

The meeting is set for later this week. 

Around the same time there has been news from a whole other quarter which had nothing to do with Coffey and yet everything to do with him. The Armidale School (TAS) in northern New South Wales had decided to resolve outstanding grievances from a paedohile teacher in the 1960s by agreeing to publish a full-page apology in The Weekend Australian, along with the school’s “unequivocal support” to alumni. 

“We encourage former students who may have suffered from, or have knowledge of, historical abuse to come forward so the perpetrators can be brought to justice,” it wrote. 

Like Shore, TAS is an Anglican school. Maybe, just maybe, schools will see the sense in facing up to the past with openness and compassion. If they do, Andrew Coffey is part of a small revolution.

Crikey asked Shore if it might take a similar approach to TAS and openly confront the past. It declined to comment but said in a statement that it was committed to engaging with and supporting any individual who says they have been the victim of sexual abuse and was willing to listen to all voices.

In the meantime there’s still a legal mediation booked for early next year.