The Children of Woodlands

Alan Fryer, W-FIVE, Sat. Oct. 21, 2006

It was a visit to the dentist that, 40 years later, still haunts Gary Hill. The night terrors, like the constant pain in his jaw, have stubbornly refused to fade with time. As a teenager, Hill was put into a straitjacket and knocked out with gas. Then some dentist went to work, pulling out every one of his teeth.

Hill was a problem child who was sent to Woodlands because his parents couldn't handle him at home.

"And they did such a bad job that when I went to get my first set of false teeth, they wanted to know who the butcher was, that was the doctor's first word, 'who is the butcher that did this to you?'," Hill told W-FIVE.

While he's not sure who did it, he can't forget where -- or why -- it was done. Hill was being punished, taught a lesson.

"I was classified as a biter because I would kick and fight," he said. "Anything to get out of there.

He's speaking of Woodlands School, a complex of forbidding buildings in New Westminster, British Columbia which was opened in the 19th century as an insane asylum.

It changed over the years, became what was supposed to be a refuge, a place where the mentally disabled -- or just the kids who no one else wanted -- could come and be safe, protected by the caring arms of the state. But for many, the arms that held them were anything but caring. In fact reports of physical and sexual abuse have been circulating for years.

"You never get away from the horror, and what I mean by horror is watching a person eat their own stool and being beat senseless," said Hill, a problem child who was sent to Woodlands because his parents couldn't handle him at home.

Bill McArthur, another former resident called the school, "a garbage can for society's garbage can kids." McArthur was sent to Woodlands because he was a hyper-active child.

"It was a disposal ground that the government threw these kids into just to get them out of sight, out of mind," McArthur told W-FIVE. McArthur said he was unprepared for what lurked in the corridors of Woodlands.

Bill McArthur, another former resident calls the school, 'a garbage can for society's garbage can kids.'

"A staff member came to me into my bedroom one night, and he wanted me to go out with him to the day room when everybody was asleep so he quietly unlocked the door. I went with him, he asked me to perform oral sex on him."

Woodlands Expands

By the early 1960s, the place had mushroomed. New buildings sprang up and the population soared to almost 1,500, mostly children who were mentally disabled -- they called them retarded back then -- or just problem kids the province had nowhere else to put.

Carol Dauphinais was one of them, sent to Woodlands at the age of 18 to escape the sexual abuse she'd suffered since the age of five at the hands of both her brother and her father. But Woodlands offered no escape at all.

"I died a thousand deaths in there. That's a terrible place to be. And I am not sure who I was Read More ..raid of at the beginning, the other residents or the staff," Dauphinais told us. Like the others, Dauphinais wasn't an easy child and got into a shoving match with a nurse the day she arrived at Woodlands.

"And I hauled off and hit her back, and they said, 'oh, we've got a violent one here'," she said.

Carol Dauphinais was sent to Woodlands at the age of 18 to escape the sexual abuse she'd suffered at the hands of both her brother and her father.

Dauphinais was then put into a straitjacket and locked in a room with no bed and no blanket. She was left there for a week, terrified and alone. "I just thought why don't they just shoot me and kill me and get me off the face of the earth? I mean, I had no belief that I was ever any good. I had never been told I was good."

Her official Woodlands record labeled Dauphinais as a "moron." That "moron" eventually ran away, escaped Woodlands and beat the odds, building a new life with a loving husband. She later wrote a book about her experiences at Woodlands and has won several awards for her courage and community service.

Code of Silence

Among staff members at Woodlands there was an unofficial code of silence. No one talked about the abuse, much less reported it to the police or outside authorities. If you tried to, the cost was high.

Marie White tried to come forward. But when she reported what she'd seen one night in 1973 -- a patient being sexually abused by an orderly -- she herself became a victim. White was drugged by Woodlands staff and taken away to a hospital for the insane.

Her daughter Michelle remembers all too well the call she got from her mother that night.

Marie White's daughter Michelle remembers all too well the call she got from her mother that night.

"And she said, 'Michelle, they've locked me up. They say I'm crazy. You've got to come and get me'," Michelle White told W-FIVE.

Michelle did indeed come and rescue her mother, who died in 1999. She says the whole tactic by Woodlands was aimed at discrediting both her mother and her story about sexual abuse.

"They were trying to weaken her in the eyes of others, and maybe even in her own eyes, for all I know. But certainly they didn't want her to be taken seriously. It was like killing the messenger."

As time went by, others started coming forward with stories of abuse. And while the government was starting to get the message, it was doing precious little about it. And besides, by the 1980s institutions like Woodlands were becoming pass, and slowly being phased out.

Finally Closed

The government closed Woodlands in 1996 and sold off all the land to developers who tore most of the place down to put up condominiums. The centre block, which still sends chills down the spines of the residents who once lived here, is pretty much all that remains. And it's being preserved as a heritage site.

Former residents like Bill McArthur, have mixed feelings about that -- and about a memorial that's being built on the site of the old Woodlands cemetery.

"I'm happy in one respect that people will be remembered. But I also have criticism that they're spending a lot of money on people who are dead. But what about the survivors? Do they not deserve compensation and respect?"

Thousands of Woodlands residents who died were buried here, but in the 1970s the B.C. government inexplicably ordered all the headstones removed. They ended up being used to build barbeque pits and walkways. Others were just tossed into a nearby ravine.

"It's just a disrespect and a contempt that society had as a whole towards the people of Woodlands, said McArthur as he strolled through the grounds of the cemetery. "We were basically considered little more than cattle and had no rights."

Systemic Abuse

McCallum spent nearly two years sifting trough thousands of dusty old Woodlands files and photographs, many of them saved at the last minute from the government shredder.

Woodlands may have closed but the stories of abuse continued to surface and grow, and with it the political pressure on the NDP government of the day to so something. So in 2000 it appointed Dulcie McCallum, a former Ombudsman and long-time advocate for the disabled, to look into just what went on at Woodlands and what should be done about it.

McCallum spent nearly two years sifting trough thousands of dusty old Woodlands files and photographs, many of them saved at the last minute from the government shredder.

"It wasn't just the paper for me. I could see the person and relate. Their whole life was documented in this file. And just how boring and dreadful a life it must have been. And then to add to that the insult of being abused, it's quite shocking," McCallum told W-FIVE.

McCallum's main finding was that the abuse at Woodlands was systemic. In other words, it was rampant.

"There seemed to be an assumption that these people didn't feel pain the same way or that they were somehow should be treated like this. I mean those words come out of the charts. They didn't come out of my creation. And it's very disturbing," she said.

McCallum's report also documented the code of silence that appeared to exist among members of the Woodlands staff when it came to acts of abuse.

"They rarely got reported to police, rarely got reported to the Superintendent of Children, rarely got reported to relatives and parents. There's rarely any documentation on the person's file, other than the actual documentation of the hurt. And they moved the personnel around rather than firing them or terminating them," said McCallum.

The Fight for Justice

The vast majority of the Woodlands residents aren't around anyRead More .. tell their stories -- they're long gone. No one knows for sure just how many are still alive, although estimates run as high as 4,000.

A group of about 60 -- they call themselves "We Survived Woodlands" -- gets together once a month. They share their horror stories but, Read More ..portantly, find some comfort in one another. What they haven't found yet -- and are still fighting for -- is justice.

Jim Poyner, an experienced class action lawyer, represents the Woodlands survivors.

The present Liberal government of BC has offered an apology but little else, essentially dismissing Dulcie McCallum's report, with its findings of rampant sexual and physical abuse, as "flawed". The former Woodlands residents had been hoping for some compensation, but received none. That's when they decided to take the government to court.

A class action suit was launched in 2002 on behalf of the Woodlands survivors. Four years later the government offered to settle out of court. But the proposed agreement outraged many of the former residents, who went public to denounce it.

According to the terms of the proposed settlement, residents would have to prove to the satisfaction of a court approved official that they were indeed abused. Compensation would be linked to a point system. The worse the abuse -- the Read More ..ints -- and the Read More ..ney -- would be awarded. Forced anal sex, for example, would be worth Read More ..ints than forced oral sex.

And here's the strange part. That hated settlement offer -- wasn't entirely the government's idea. It was proposed in part by Jim Poyner, an experienced class action lawyer, who represents the Woodlands survivors. In spite of the displeasure voiced by many former residents, Poyner insists it was the best deal he could get.

"The point system is a good system. They're likely going to end up with Read More .. money, through the point system than without the point system."

He defended the point system as well as the process that would require survivors to come before an arbitrator to prove their case, even though, in many cases documented evidence may not exist. And many former residents may have a difficult time making their case since they are unable to express themselves clearly, while others are unable to speak at all.

"Now, if there's no evidence, then you're not going to get anything. It's as simple as that," Poyner told W-FIVE.

Former residents like Bill McArthur accuse Poyner of betraying the group because he did not consult with the survivors. Poyner says that would be unworkable and the survivors will have the opportunity to make their positions known at the time the proposed settlement agreement is brought before the courts for approval.

And as for Gary Hill, who had all his teeth forcibly extracted at Woodlands, he says it's simply too painful to talk about the past -- money or no money.

"They can stick it right where the sun don't shine," he said. "Because I'm damned if I'm going to go and drag up garbage from the past, again. I don't need it and what they're asking us to do is inhumane, totally inhumane.

Dulcie McCallum who investigated Woodlands for the government agrees. She said she broke down the first time she read the details of the proposed settlement.

"It was so disturbing I couldn't read it for about a day. I just literally couldn't read it because we're still placing the high jump too high for people. We're still asking them to have to come forward and tell their story in an environment, whether it's judicial or quasi-judicial, that's been extremely unfriendly to people labeled intellectually disabled. It's just harsh, it's so undignified.

"Nobody stepped up to the plate for those folks who we had been doing harm to for so long. I mean they've always been last in the queue. And that they didn't get what they deserved and they haven't still today, that's what's most disappointing for me," said McCallum.

B.C.'s Attorney General, Wally Oppal says he's open to compromise. The Woodlands survivors are still waiting.