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Situated in north-west Sydney, Daruk Boys’ Home or Daruk Training School was established as a government training school teaching young offenders new skills.

Daruk boasted a corrective military-style discipline, and thousands of boys – some as young as 12 – were sent there with the hope of gaining an education and the skills needed to improve their livelihoods.

However, once inside the gates of Daruk, these troubled teens were preyed upon by those responsible for their care, subject to abuse that included verbal intimidation, sexual assault and an illegally performed botched circumcision.

The victims tell Coulthart they each complained directly to the superintendent in charge of their care. Yet he allegedly treated their complaints with contempt and punished them for coming forward.

Their punishment would be a dreaded isolation cell nick-named ‘The Boob’, where the children would sometimes get “stripped and bashed” before being locked inside for days at a time.

As Coulthart reveals, these horrific crimes remained secret for decades.

The superintendent vaulted into a federal seat on the back of his job in welfare and was in federal politics for nearly a decade.

He also received an Order of Australia Medal for his services to politics and education.

The victims of Daruk Boys’ Home share their haunting tales tonight to not only expose the abuse suffered in institutions by young men, but to finally seek justice from their alleged abusers and the man they accuse of letting that abuse take place.

80 victims have come forward about historical child sex abuse at the Daruk Training School in Penrith in the late 1970s. Most of the men were aged between 10 and 14 at the time of the alleged abuse.

Glenn Cooper was sent to Daruk in 1969 as a 13-year-old and said he saw a lot of sexual and physical abuse at the facility.

"The things you experience are unbelievable," he said.

"You are like little tin soldiers … it was survival mode."

Mr Cooper said on one occasion two men attempted to rape him.

"A certain guy stepped in, he dropped these two blokes, then he took me behind a shed and dropped me a couple of times.

"He told me if you don't learn how to fight they are going to rape you and you are going to be used as one of their little toy boys."

In another instance, he was put into a small concrete room, stripped, and told to clean the walls and floors with a toothbrush.

He saw other boys being "used" by the wardens who would gang up and "rape the weaker ones".

"They would make them give oral sex."

Mr Cooper said the facility was supposed to be an institute for rehabilitation but as a result of the treatment by wardens, all of the boys grew into criminals.

"None of us were rehabilitated … what was thrown at us was insecurity and rejection so we became a bunch of violent guys."

The government of the time needs to be held accountable, the now 61-year-old said.

"All government departments that were involved with wards of the states in those days knew exactly what was going on in Daruk.

"Just throw them in there, we'll forget about them, what happens to them it doesn't matter."