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| Photo courtesy of the Newcastle Herald |
Oh, how the mightly have fallen.
No Gorokan High School blog would be complete without a mention of Doug Carley. Remember him? He transferred to Gorokan High from Cardiff in early 1979 and taught in the English Department.
He was Canadian, and thus one of his hobbies was Ice-Hockey. He also participated in Basketball, Drama, Philosophy and was a general agitator for the common good. He transferred away from Gorokan High the next year, citing the fact that all the rest of the staff had ostracised him. This seemed to be a pattern with him, as his history shows him transferring to quite a number of high schools in the Newcastle and Lake Macquarie area.
He joined the ALP and went on to get preselection as a Lake Macquarie councillor, eventually progressing to become Mayor in 1991. I can remember a Lake Macquarie Post article of the time depicting his father coming out from Canada to proudly see his son receive the Mayoral chain and robes.
In Easter 1993 he went to Fiji with a 15-year old youth called Derryck who supposedly referred to Doug as a
"Dutch Uncle" (whatever that is). After all the inuendo and speculation he resigned from the post of Mayor and went back to teaching. It was at this point that he separated from and became divorced from his wife Judith - they used to live just up the road from me at Caves Beach and attended the Swansea branch of the ALP when I was frequenting it.
In 1996 he was placed on a three year good behaviour bond after being charged and convicted of indecently assaulting a fifteen year old boy who he coached at basketball. Hopefully the education department came to their senses at this point and stopped hiring him as a teacher.
In the intervening years he must have hit the skids, as he's popped up living in Fowler Street, Hamilton South, an inner-southern suburb of Newcastle. For those who know Hamilton South it needs no repeating that it's an area of Public Housing - reasonably high density flats and villas, all occupied by people from a lower socio-economic status.
Well, just recently he's hit the newspapers again. In 2009 he pleaded guilty to the aggravated indecent assault of a 12-year-old boy whilst living in the Fowler Street area. I need type no further, for those of you interested in reading the links to the Newcastle Herald articles, here you go:
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| From Lake Macquarie Council Collection |
He's also mentioned in Jeff Corbett's blog (
Housing Children - 24 Sep 2009), and made
The Australian in 2006 as the start of a string of ex-ALP Lake Macquarie councillors who seem to be into sex crimes (Doug Carley and Milton Orkopoulos (who actually gave me a lift home from a Swansea ALP branch meeting one night)).
He'll be out of gaol at the current point in time, and he was mentioning his intent to return to Canada. I wonder whether they'll let him back in?
