When former SAS troop commander Mark Wales cradled his baby boy Harry in his arms for the first time, he wondered how anyone could harm a child.
WARNING: This article deals with child sexual abuse and depictions of war.
They were so innocent, trusting and helpless.
His mind drifted back to when he was an ankle-biting youth growing up in a red dust cul-de-sac at the pinnacle of Western Australia’s Pilbara region.
But what should have been happy childhood memories were overshadowed by the sexual abuse he and his older brother Steven suffered at the hands of a family member on a WA dairy farm in the years eighty
Mark is arguably best known for winning the TV series Survivor.
Others may remember that he served in Afghanistan as part of the Australian Army’s Special Air Service Regiment.
But he has never spoken publicly about the abuse he has suffered until now.
Mark decided to report the abuse after having his own son, Harry. (Instagram: Mark Wales)
Mark described walking into Northbridge police station in 2019 to report crimes as the hardest thing he had ever had to do.
He told the ABC it took more courage than walking through minefields in the Middle East.
After four decades, the Richard Ernest Jackson brothers’ abuser was convicted this month of indecent dealings with children under the age of 14 and jailed for two years and four months.
Mark and Steven said that while the process was challenging, they were grateful to finally have closure.
Growing on the dusty plains of the Pilbara
Steven and Mark were both born in Newman, an iron ore town 1,100 kilometers north-east of Perth.
With their parents working in the mines, the brothers spent their days meandering barefoot through the interior.
Steven Wales says he and his brother now have closure after their abuser was jailed. (ABC News: Briana Fiore)
They said that the people of the country were generally friendly and kind.
Mark was about six years old when he was sexually abused for the first time. (Instagram: Mark Wales) Steven Wales around the age he was abused. (Supplied)
They were passengers in a four-wheel drive when it broke down in the middle of the desert.
The sun had set so the boys walked to the freeway and luckily managed to get a lift back into town with a stranger.
His confidence was still intact.
“Growing up back then was a simpler time, Australia was a totally different country back then,” Mark said.
“We were kind of kids on the loose. We always had bikes. It was good.”
Mark was outdoorsy and academic. Steven would build karts by hand.
“[Mark] he was scared of Hulk, he used to run and hide behind the couch,” Steven joked.
Mark dreamed of becoming an astronaut and Steven had aspirations of being a fighter pilot.
They moved around a bit as children, but they had normal childhoods before the abuse started.
Sexual abuse: “As clear as a high-definition video”
Steven and Mark often ventured to the south-west town of Cookernup, north of Harvey, about 130km south of Perth, to visit their grandparents.
The area was and still is an agricultural powerhouse, where milk and meat production took place, as well as a thriving citrus industry.
Her abuser was her mother’s cousin who operated a dairy farm. The assaults occurred when the boys were visiting the farm.
Mark remembers Jackson trying to separate him from his brother.
Richard Jackson sexually abused young children on his farm in Cookernup. (Supplied)
“I remember in one case he put me on a quad bike and he was riding with me and he started touching my genitals,” said Mark.
“And then he took me to the milk and did the same thing, but more… more physically that time.”
Mark was only six years old.
Mark has opened up about sexual abuse for the first time. (ABC News: Briana Fiore)
“It was super confronting. When you’re a kid you trust adults, you don’t think they’re going to do anything wrong.”
Steven was only eight years old when he was abused for the first time.
“One of the times I was alone with him in the milk and that’s when it happened to me,” Steven said.
“I remember being very confused, it’s very kind of… um… the words just don’t come… it’s a kind of feeling I’ve never felt since or before.”
Steven found the abuse “very confusing”. (ABC News: Briana Fiore)
The 44-year-old said the ordeal was burned into his brain.
Support lines for sexual assault and family violence:
“Now I can imagine…him [Jackson] was at the bottom of the pit [of the dairy] when he pulled down my pants and [abused me] and I can imagine it. It’s like a high definition video, it’s so clear in my mind.
“I actually fought harder than I thought I would. I thought it would be okay, but it was tough.
“It affected my sleep. I started withdrawing a lot.”
Mark described Jackson as manipulative.
“He was smart, he put people at ease [by saying], ‘Yes, I will take the children’. Humorous guy, a bit charismatic, but he knew exactly what he was doing,” said Mark.
Steven says he can still imagine the abuse 40 years later. (ABC News: Briana Fiore)
The boys discussed the incidents with each other, but never told any adults until they were teenagers.
They tried to suppress the pain hoping it would come out. He never did.
Why did Mark join the army?
Mark joined the army at the age of 17. She still wonders if she joined because of the abuse.
“I think it had something to do with me being in the military and trying to control my environment, never to find myself in that situation again,” Mark said.
Mark was a teenager when he joined the army. (Instagram: Mark Wales)
“I think if you’ve ever been in a situation where you’re helpless … I remember that [being] Totally helpless against this guy because he was bigger, stronger, could do whatever he wanted.
“It definitely created that sense of, ‘I’m never going to be vulnerable again, I’m going to make sure that no matter what happens in my life, I’m going to be able to take care of myself.’
Mark joined the army to “avoid becoming vulnerable” again. (Instagram: Mark Wales)
Like Mark, Steven also worked to become physically strong. He became a bodybuilder and competed professionally.
He later said it wasn’t very funny.
Steven was a bodybuilder for a while. (Supplied)
Mark joined the SAS in 2004. It is a highly selective special operations branch of the Army.
Troops are responsible for strategic hostage rescue, hand-to-hand combat, and covert surveillance.
He served his first combat tour in the Middle East in 2007.
He said he found purpose in serving his country, but soon realized the mission in Afghanistan was full of holes.
Mark was a SAS Troop Commander in the Australian Army. (Instagram: Mark Wales)
If you or someone you know needs help:
“The more I got into it, the more I was getting burned out and people were overexposing themselves to trauma and combat and you can take it to a point, but at some point you start to run out of reserves.”
Mark said he experienced combat-related depression and PTSD after losing comrades in the war.
“There are probably seven or eight guys I knew reasonably well [who died] and I even killed a mate in training at the start, the Black Hawk crash in Fiji – he was in the helicopter and ended up drowning,” he said.
“You’d put a Band-Aid together and then you’d come back and you’d come back and you’d Band-Aid it again, you’re constantly in that cycle.”
Behind the smile, Mark experienced depression and PTSD after losing comrades in the war. (Supplied)
Mark said he was afraid he would die too.
“On my first trip, a car in front of me hit a roadside bomb and then a bomb went off not far from my house in the middle of Kabul.
“There was danger all around… when you’re in minefields… it’s a lot of stress.”
Mark struggled with his identity when he finally left the army.
He recalled that he signed up for the TV show Survivor in 2017 because it was similar to his wartime experience.
It requires contestants to work strategically and face challenges to survive on a remote island.
Mark on the TV show Survivor. (Instagram: Mark Wales)
During the show, Mark fell in love with and later married contestant Sam Gash.
They now have a four-year-old son named Harry.
Deciding to report abuse after having a child of your own
Mark said he decided to speak out about child abuse after his son was born.
“When you have your own child, that’s when I started to think about it more… I can’t believe someone would take advantage of a helpless child,” Mark said.
“It’s this blatant breach of everything, trust, decency, a young life.
“Then you realize it probably affected you more than you realize.”
Mark decided to report the abuse after the birth of his son Harry. (Instagram: Mark Wales)
Mark and Steven met with a detective working in Perth’s historic child sex unit to report the crimes for the first time in 2019.
“She believed us right away,” Mark said.
“I was expecting a lot of obstacles, but it was kind of the opposite, they went and did all the research around it and found out a lot.”
Steven said the reporting process “wasn’t as hard” as he expected.
Jackson had abused more children
After lengthy delays amid the COVID pandemic, the matter went to trial, forcing Steven and Mark to be questioned before a jury in court.
Steven said it was difficult to see Jackson for the first time since he was a child (aside from his grandfather’s funeral).
Mark described the trial as emotionally difficult.
Mark (left) and Steven were questioned in court. (ABC News: Briana Fiore)
“We’ve waited a long time for it to be in the public light,” Mark said.
He said the abuse had a bigger impact on him than the war.
“It’s kind of relative, because if you’re a trained soldier and you go to war, you’re actually trained to survive that, but when you’re a kid, you don’t have the mechanisms to cope or understand what’s happened.
“It wasn’t until we went through this ordeal that I realized this had a huge effect on my life and I never took the time to process it.”
The court revealed that Jackson, now 71,…