clark-infested waters

There have been some dramatic developments in the Geoff Clark case in the past 48 hours since a jury branded him a rapist and the leader of a gang of rapists in Warrnambool.

A clearer, frightening picture, has emerged of a country town in which Clark was known to be a serial sex offender against teenage girls and how such a culture of fear existed that victims were too scared to complain to their families or Police or anybody.

They seemed to believe Clark’s boast to his 16-year-old victim Carol Stingel that ‘I am Geoff Clark. I can do anything.’ He still apparently believes that as he continues to paint the media as the real villains in all this and talks of a political agenda against him and casts himself yet again as ‘just a poor black fella’. (Well, half-black anyway, his father was Scottish).

More alleged rape victims of this brutish creature are now coming forward and in e-mails and through talkback callers people are asking: Can he now walk free? Apart from the $20,000 in damages and around $70,000 in legal costs he has been ordered to pay.

Has the statute of limitations run out on all the crimes?  Yesterday on my 3AW programme I talked to Carol Stingel who got the verdict in a civil court she could not get in a criminal court. I also talked to another  alleged rape victim, Sharon Handley who fled the Clark-infested Warrnambool and now lives in Queensland.

There was Mary, now dead, raped in a motel room. And there were others. And close calls.

This e-mail from Jenni to Carol Stingel: ‘I’m so thrilled  that you have been able to reveal the truth about  Geoff Clark. You have achieved vindication for what must have been years of pain and anguish. Many others who were victimised and bullied, as well as those who were raped, by Geoff Clark in those days in Warrnambool will be indebted to your for your courage and persistence.’

She then spells out her own experience. ‘ As a 15-year-old, in the summer holidays of 1970-71 I was chased after a Surf Club dance by a group of about 7-8 guys, which I believe included Geoff Clark. They had been drinking in two cars across the road at Lake Pertobe. After I hid in the sand dunes, they hunted for me for about an hour and a half.  This is the short version of what was the most terrifying experience of my life – although nothing compared with what you must have gone through at the time’.

In our interview Carol Stingel said it is up to the Police to investigate and track down the other members of the rape pack who attacked her.

Well, I have acquired the name and phone number of  a person who was there. He was part of the group. He saw the rapes. He was fifteen.

You hope for Carol Stingel the nightmare is fading. For Geoff Clark you hope it is just beginning.

Friday, February 2, 2007

©Copyright Derryn Hinch 2007