‘It wrecks a person’: Former Vernon man sexually abused in care settles with province

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Labelled a problem kid by his parents, Vernon resident Stephen Gunning was sent off to a residential care facility in the hope of improving his attitude.

But the 10 months that Gunning spent at Mara House residential school had the opposite effect.

It was 1979, Gunning was eight years old and he was subjected to horrific sexual abuse by the group home’s director.

“It made me hate everybody and everything,” Gunning told iNFOnews.ca. “It wrecks a person.”

In 2021, more than 40 years later, Gunning launched a legal case against the province, suing them for neglect and sexual exploitation.

The court documents aren’t easy reading, and Gunning uses the word “rape” when skirting over the grotesque things that happened to him.

“Everything that you can imagine and then some,” he said.

He recently settled out of court with the province, which paid him $210,000.

“There’s no amount of money that’s going to change what happened. It’ll always be with me, and it’ll die with me,” he said. “You give me a million dollars. It’s not gonna change what this piece of shit did.”

The man he’s referring to is Douglas Warren Murray, the director of Mara House at the time.

Along with the province, Gunning also named Murray as a defendant in the suit.

However, the former Mara House director died last month, so Gunning won’t get his day in court.

“Good… riddance,” he says.

Murray was never convicted of any child abuse, but in 1988 he was criminally charged.

Gunning and two other victims testified at the trial in Vernon, but charges were ultimately dismissed. 

Murray died Jan. 23 in Port Alberni. He was 78 years old.

The effect the abuse had on Gunning was profound and shaped his entire life.

After about a year at Mara House, he went back to his parents, then bounced around in foster care, smoked dope every day and got in with the wrong people.

“I hated authority, and I let everybody know how much I hated authority,” he says.

At 16, he was given a chance and persevered.

“I put myself through school. I put myself through college, through a career… got married, had kids, got divorced, got remarried again,” he said.

He’s now in Edmonton running a successful construction company, but it hasn’t been easy.

“I used the internal pain of everything that I went through, so I never had to deal with it ever again,” he said. “I’ve always worked for myself because I could never do what I was told to do.”

Gunning is gruff and forthright as he tells his story. He doesn’t elaborate but says he has a checkered past.

“I’m traumatized because of (the sexual abuse), I’ve done stupid things because of it,” he says.

The ramifications of child abuse are well documented, and anyone who has ever spent time with the criminal justice system will have seen how sexual abuse can lead to a pattern of criminal behaviour.

Now 55 years old, Gunning turned his life around decades ago, but still says it’s hard.

“When you get abused the way (I did)… I don’t fear punishment,” he said. “I don’t care about punishment. It doesn’t mean anything to me… I have to really, really think about what I’m doing and how I do it.”

He says it took him years to realize that.

As a young man, he tried to block it all out.

He equates it to having a strained wrist. It feels OK for 90% of its movement, so just don’t turn it to the extra 10% where it’s extremely painful.

“I basically blocked it all out and just… made money,” he said.

He bought a house, fixed it up and sold it. He bought a couple more.

“I was quite the entrepreneur,” he says.

Gunning says he still dislikes authority.

Even getting a parking ticket pushes him over the edge.

“Not so much because of the ticket, just because of what they represent,” he said.

Murray’s death means he won’t get to take him to trial, and the government money hasn’t offered solace, but he’s putting his face out there because he thinks people should know what went on. 

“The rampant abuse in the British Columbia foster care system, I think it has to be exposed,” he says.

He’s lived with it for almost 50 years.

“You just put a mental barrier over it. And you know what? It still dictates and controls everything in what you do.”

NOTE TO READERS: To connect with a victim service program or violence against women program call VictimLink BC at 1-800-563-0808. VictimLink BC provides information and referrals to all victims, as well as immediate crisis response to victims of sexual and family violence.