Former students will not receive compensation for abuse at Canadian "school" for difficult children

From the Vancouver Province in Canada:

VANCOUVER — To the British Columbia government, it doesn't matter that Bill McArthur (pictured) was "beaten to a pudding on a regular basis" or locked outside naked at the age of six at Woodlands School — he will not get a cent of government compensation.

McArthur was sent to Woodlands, the notorious New Westminster, B.C., "school" that was a dumping ground for "difficult" children, when he was five years old in 1964. After years of harrowing physical, sexual and emotional abuse, he fled at age 14 in July 1974, just 10 days before the Aug. 1, 1974, cutoff for compensation.

"It may be legally right, but it is totally morally bankrupt and reprehensible that people like me should be denied compensation," said McArthur, who says he was left blind in one eye due to a treatable eye disease neglected at Woodlands.

He is among about 500 school survivors who will get nothing for their pain.

McArthur said he was repeatedly sexually abused by a male staff member who was known to be a serial abuser.

"We were only children and we could not defend ourselves — the provincial government wrapped its arms around us and told us they could be our parents, but they failed miserably, and we suffered terribly as a result," said McArthur, who works in a warehouse. "I can't have lasting relationships. I've had no therapy."

David Klein, lawyer for the Woodland survivors, said it's wrong that some will be left out of the settlement.

"It's really shocking that the provincial government could choose to ignore this very dark chapter in our history and refuse to compensate victims who were affected before 1974," said Klein.

B.C. Attorney General Mike de Jong announced Monday a proposed settlement to a class-action lawsuit brought by former residents of Woodlands, in which compensation will be doled out to some survivors if the B.C. Supreme Court approves the deal.

"It's estimated there are about 1,100 former residents who suffered sexual, physical or psychological abuse or injury on or after Aug. 1, 1974," said Klein, who said each claim would be worth between $3,000 and $150,000 per person.

"But it's shocking that another 500 people will be excluded from any compensation," said Klein. "On ethical and compassionate grounds, Premier (Gordon) Campbell and his cabinet can choose to ignore that date."

Klein noted that there is "considerable" precedent for both federal and provincial governments to set aside "arbitrary" cutoff dates, as in the federal compensation to victims of residential schools and a tainted national blood supply, as well as the Alberta government's compensation to women who were forcibly sterilized.

Bob Geddes, 73, who was sent to Woodlands at the age of 16 in 1952 "because I had too many epileptic seizures," says he was "terribly, terribly beaten. We all were at that place. The government knows who was in that place, and they should call them all up and let us all get compensation."

But Geddes, who is confined to a wheelchair partly because of the neglect and physical abuse at Woodlands, is not eligible for compensation.

DeJong said he couldn't comment because the case is "before the courts."

The school closed in 1996.