Katrina Munting's academic results were excellent — she could have been anything she wanted, but a desire to protect children led her into teaching.
WARNING: This story contains details that may cause distress.
"For every minute my students sit in my class, I know that they are safe," Ms Munting told the Commission of Inquiry into the Tasmanian Government's Responses to Child Sexual Abuse in Institutional Settings on Tuesday.
Ms Munting knows what it is like not to feel safe at school.
As a year 9 and 10 student in the 1990s, she was sexually abused by one of her teachers, who the commission is referring to as Peter (not his real name).
"I made my career choice based on the fact I wanted to protect children... I decided that for every one person like me, there was one less person like him," she said.
Ms Munting told the commission about Peter, how friendly he was with students on a camp she went on, and how his behaviour towards her became sexualised.
She said Peter abused her at school and out of school, including at his home, and that he wanted Ms Munting to telephone him regularly.
"I conformed to anything a teacher said... prior to that never really questioned it because they were teachers.
"These people that for so many years have been so trustworthy, and have looked after me so well, all of a sudden I'm met with the total opposite," Ms Munting said.
"Even though it was he crossed a line, what power did I have to do anything about it?"
During class one day when she was in year 10, Ms Munting said another teacher took her aside.
"I was mortified. I was so scared because my world was about to end. Essentially, my goals, my perception of what life was going to be had just been shattered because someone knew and I feared so much what was going to happen to me."
Ms Munting said she felt blamed.
"They hadn't acknowledged what they thought was going on, they did not make it stop. The abuse continued, he did not desist," she said.
"I was the one that was expected to make it stop, I was the one that made it stop."
Ms Munting told the commission she later found out Peter had been spoken to, but the conversation was different.
"He was told to watch himself. That was it. Not that his actions were inappropriate, what he was doing was criminal," she said.
"''Watch yourself' — In other words, keep doing it, just keep doing it better so no one notices."
Ms Munting told the commission that after she was able to stop the abuse from happening by making excuses and avoiding places where Peter might be, he would write letters to her and leave them in her locker, and he would call her a "bitch" if she walked past him at school and no one else was in earshot.
She was also placed in one of his classes later that year.
"It was agonising," she said.
"If there were [work] sheets that needed to go out he would hand them to everyone else and he would throw them at me."
Minister turned down meeting 16 times
Ms Munting said she was let down by her school and the Education Department.
"There aren't adequate words, to be honest. It was beyond devastating, it's beyond mortifying, it's beyond horrific," she said.
"I can't find a strong enough word to reflect my disdain for the school, for the Education Department in the way that they let me down."
She told the commission no-one from the Education Department had proactively reached out to her, despite her initial disclosure in 2000, her full disclosure in 2018, court proceedings, and her comments in the media.
The commission heard she wrote to then education minister — now Premier — Jeremy Rockliff 16 times over 16 weeks, asking him to meet with her.
She said Mr Rockliff declined a meeting, but she did meet a deputy secretary from the department.
"In that meeting I felt heard, I felt that I was believed by him and he apologised," she said.
But Ms Munting said while she appreciated that, what she wanted was to "speak with whoever was ultimately responsible".
Mr Rockliff said he was "deeply sorry for what happened to Ms Munting".
"I did have correspondence with Ms Munting in 2019, however, given the case was being assessed by the Director of Public Prosecutions I was advised that it was not appropriate to meet with her until the outcome of the criminal justice process.
"I instead arranged the Department of Education deputy secretary to meet with Ms Munting to discuss any concerns and provide a full apology."
Mr Rockliff did not say whether he would meet with Ms Munting now that the court proceedings against Peter have been finalised.
Ms Munting told the commission she felt that much of what the Education Department was saying it was doing to address child sexual abuse was "hollow words, shallow promises".
"A lot of it is... changing policy, changing wording, changing all of the things they can do in the background apart from changing what's going on at the ground level where the abuse is. They're not tackling the main issue."
Education Department secretary Tim Bullard is among the commission's witnesses on Wednesday.
