A FORMER RAAF teenage cadet who was pursued by a cadet instructor until she had sex with him had a message for the Department of Defence from the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse witness box on Monday.
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“You’re all talk,” she said after shaming Defence in public about its failure to pay her psychologist’s outstanding bills despite promises they would be paid, and she would be supported.
“The trust I had in the Defence force is completely diminished,” the former cadet said after sobbing about the impact of being pursued by a man with authority over her, and the silence of the Department of Defence after former Williamtown RAAF cadet instructor Christopher Adams was convicted of offences against three teenage cadets.
“An apology (from Defence)? No,” she said.
The Royal Commission is holding a two-week public hearing into child sexual abuse within Defence. This week it is considering abuse cases within cadets, where children as young as 13.
Two teenage cadets pursued by Adams until they had sex with him said they were not told it was a crime for a person in authority to have sex with cadets under 18.
Both were the subject of suggestive text messages by Adams, unprovoked sexual touching and manoeuvring by him so that they were alone together.
One former cadet sobbed as she spoke about Adams locking the door to his room and having sex with her, and later making her leave the room by the window so that noone could see her.
“I didn’t want him touching me but I didn’t know how to stop it,” she said.
She told the Royal Commission Adams sent her text messages while she was at Williamtown RAAF Base and responsible for 30 other cadets in March 2013.
“He started sending me text messages asking me to send nude photos of me. He said ‘I want a nude. I want a photo of your downstairs parts’.”
She was fearful if she spoke to anyone about the incidents “I would be blamed and kicked out of cadets”.
Both young women criticised the Department of Defence’s response to a complaint by a more senior cadet instructor about Adams.
In both cases they were phoned at home unexpectedly by a Defence employee who questioned whether they had had sex with a cadet instructor on Defence sites.
One teenager said all she wanted was an apology.
She was devastated when a senior cadet member rejected her application for a promotion because she “lacked maturity, decision-making skills and integrity".
The senior cadet member had never met her or spoken to her, but was aware of the Adams matter, she told the Royal Commission.
Adams was jailed for two years in December. The Royal Commission continues.
