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It is promoted as "a safe environment for children", but the Gore Operatic Society turned out to be nothing of the kind.
The families of two 15-year-old girls - and the town at large - now know sexual predators like computer technician John Rountree and teacher Ben Harvey
used its productions to prey on underage girls.
Harvey, 32, and Rountree, 46, have started jail sentences after being convicted in the Gore District Court on Wednesday.
Rountree was sentenced to two years' jail for seven charges of sexual connection with a 15-year-old girl between August 20 and 31 this year.
Harvey got 3 1/2 years for 10 charges of indecent assault and four charges of sexual connection with a 15-year-old girl between August 1 and September 30.
Although most of their offending took place after the operatic society's feature production for the year - The Sound of Music - and away from the St James Theatre where the show was rehearsed and performed, the court heard the men groomed the girls while spending time with them during the show, in which Harvey played the leading role and Rountree was the stage manager.
But a spokesman for the family of one of the victims said it was through the show that the two men got access to the victims they would not otherwise have had - and he was not confident it would not happen again.
When that man approached the Otago Daily Times several weeks ago, it was a hard decision, a move made out of desperation, he said.
After several unsuccessful attempts to talk to someone from the operatic society about what had happened, it was a flyer for a fundraising project for the society that goaded him into action.
The flyer pronounced the operatic society "a safe environment for children". Everyone now knew otherwise, the family spokesman said.
Chief among his concerns was the society's apparent lack of procedures to ensure children's safety. He alleged:
* The family had not been asked to sign consent forms for their child to take a role in the show.
* During rehearsals and performances the children had not been appropriately chaperoned.
* Adults were allowed to roam freely around children's dressing rooms.
* Children were allowed to socialise with adults at after-functions.
All these things, he had since learned, were tightly controlled at the Dunedin and Invercargill Operatic Societies.
Talking to Gore people, it seems there has long been an energetic social scene around the Gore Operatic Society's musical shows - its after-show parties, talk of wife-swapping and extra-marital affairs are the stuff of Gore legend.
But Hugh Armour, operatic society president, said "to be honest" he had never seen any of that and nobody expected paedophiles to be at work, let alone men almost everyone had known, on a personal and professional level, for years.
When they found out about Harvey and Rountree, members were "gobsmacked", Mr Armour said.
Many had been friends with the men and their first reaction was to think what they were hearing could not be right. Later they were outraged.
Now, there was a lingering feeling of disappointment.
He was aware the town's rumour mill had been in full swing, not all of it complimentary to the girls who had been involved.
But the fault was entirely that of the two men.
"There is absolutely no justification for the men's behaviour. I don't care what the girls did or didn't do; that is not the point, it was wrong. That point is it's wrong. Forget what people think might have happened. This is the law. The line's been crossed. To me it's quite simple."
Speaking publicly for the first time since the society became aware charges had been laid against two of its members nearly three months ago, Mr Armour said the society had let down the two girls in its care. There were things that could have been done better to protect the girls.
Rountree and Harvey had both joined the society about three years ago.
Harvey, he said, was like a teenager.
"People often said it was difficult to have an adult conversation with him, and it was."
But Rountree had been a presence in the society since he joined. He was a member of the committee and most recently was in charge of a major fundraising project for a new fly-tower at the St James Theatre.
The computer technician was rumoured to have been a "ladies' man", but Mr Armour denied the society knew anything of that reputation.
No one involved in the show noticed anything inappropriate about either man's behaviour.
"Even looking back at what was happening during the show ... Harvey was a school teacher. At the end of the night he, a few adults and some of the older kids would stay for an hour or two and play cards and that was it.
"Nobody brought up any concerns or said, 'I think something's happening here'; it would have been damn good if somebody did. But obviously no one mentioned it."
Rountree had not appeared to be acting out of the ordinary, either.
"I never noticed anything inappropriate. Even in hindsight I couldn't see anything.
"Most people around town are quite clear that in their opinion it is not the operatic's fault, it's the individuals'. What they did is morally indefensible."
The society believed it had responded appropriately, he said. Rountree had resigned and the society would be discussing new policies for protecting children in its care.
The new policy was likely to include all of those procedures already carried out by neighbouring societies as well as a register for under-18s and signing children in and out of rehearsals and performances.
But there is at least one person involved with The Sound of Music who is not convinced.
The person, who does not want to be identified, believes the developing relationships were very obvious.
"I was aware of what I felt to be inappropriate behaviour from the men, both of them, on different occasions.
"They were very flirtatious - there was lots of innuendo and silly flirting. I would have thought it was very obvious to a lot of people."
Those sentiments were shared by the family spokesman.
"What concerns us is the sweep-it-under-the-carpet attitude to what's happened."
Mr Armour's admission that the girls had been failed was welcomed, but was not satisfactory.
"I hope they don't just think they are going to do a few things cosmetically at the fringes and it is all just going to go away; that's a recipe for future disaster."
He said the family did not want to be seen as targeting the society as they believed it served a community function.
The main concern was that everything possible was done to ensure the safety of children in future.
They had many regrets as they had no idea of the society's reputation and believed their daughter was with responsible adults while she was away at rehearsals and performances.
Her parents also had no idea how emotionally involved their daughter would become in the show, he said.
"It's quite clear to us now that she has got caught up in the part and that he has targeted her and taken advantage of her. He knew what he was doing."
But it is not only the families of the victims who are dealing with the fallout of the scandal.
The parent organisation of musical societies throughout the country, Musical Theatre New Zealand, wrote to all 85 societies reminding them of the need to have a solid child protection policy in place.
Detective Sergeant Cynthia Fairly of Gore was involved in both investigations.
The offending, she said, was a timely reminder that technical subterfuge had made life easier for sexual predators.
Cellphones and the internet had made it a lot simpler for people to be in contact with each other without anyone else knowing what was going on.
She wrote to the society expressing her concerns about issues that arose during the investigation and outlining some suggestions for the future involvement of young people.
She has not had any response.
The past few months had been a difficult time for the young people and their families having such private matters brought into the public arena, Ms Fairly said.
What the girls and their families had done, assisting police to stop this kind of offending, had taken a lot of courage.
"The offending has had a ripple effect on the community, but now the young people need our support and we as a community need not judge others, but learn from what has occurred."
A spokesman for the family of the other victim said the family were working their way through what had been an exceptionally tough experience for them all.
They were grateful the offender was brought to justice and held accountable for what he had done.
"This has been a trying time for our family, we're glad it is over and we can now move on."
The family wanted to acknowledge the people who helped and supported them over the past few months, the spokesman said.
At Gore High School, where Harvey had been teaching for seven years, the effects of what has happened are still being felt.
Rector Eion Crosbie said things had been settling down before Wednesday's sentencing and he suspected a policy of dealing with the matter as transparently as possible had helped people deal with their feelings about it.
Harvey, a popular music teacher, had been under a cloud of suspicion before for "minor breaches of conduct", but there had never been any suggestion of anything as serious as sexual misconduct, Mr Crosbie said.
Harvey's relationship with pupils had been questioned several times over the past three years after reports that he sat too close to a pupil at a concert and in a classroom, making other pupils feel uneasy.
OTAGO DAILY TIMES
