NT attorney general recounts abusive childhood and says: ‘Do not become a victim’

AUSTRALIA
The Guardian

Australian Associated Press
Monday 27 June 2016

The Northern Territory attorney general has used his farewell speech to parliament to recount his experience as a child sexual abuse survivor and tell others not to “become a victim”.

John Elferink, who will retire from politics at the NT August election, said that in his career as a police officer he used to raid haunts where he had been taken as a child, in the hope of rescuing others.

“I do recall that when I was being raped as a child that on one occasion the fellow who was doing all of this decided to take me to the local beat and share the wealth,” Elferink told the NT parliament on Monday night.

“When I was a police officer many years later, I used to go to that beat and raid it almost regularly in the hope – I think – of rescuing any other child.

“I suspect the truth is that I was looking to rescue myself.”

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