Call to expand scope of Tasmanian inquiry into historic sexual abuse

What should have been the first step on a road to recovery instead led to a traumatic sexual assault that Peter Lawler has rarely discussed in the past 30 years.

Suffering from suicidal ideation in his early 20s, Mr Lawler sought support at the Royal Hobart Hospital.

He was handed a taxi voucher and sent instead to the Royal Derwent Hospital — a notorious mental health facility about 40 minutes from the city, which has since closed.

“I spent five, six days on what I can only assume was a maximum security ward,” Mr Lawler said.

“It was barbed wire, moats, locked in your room and all this other stuff. Even at the time I thought it was over the top.”

It wasn’t what happened inside the facility that has…