A self-styled children's rights campaigner known as the 'Scouse megaphone man' opened up about his own experience of abuse.
Toxteth native Jack Barnes, now 47, has spent years campaigning against failings in social care after his daughter was wrongfully taken by social workers in 2012.
Mr Barnes, who later moved to Essex, and his partner of 18 years, Cheryl Rich, lost their daughter Misty for nine months after Thurrock Council wrongly accused him of being a "terrorist" and an armed robber.
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Misty was eventually returned to her parents and their story made national headlines.
Mr Barnes, a scaffolder by trade, campaigned for a full public enquiry, but he was given a criminal conviction after he was found guilty of harassing the Thurrock MP in 2020 and handed community service.
He had approached her on various occasions as part of his campaigns, which magistrates concluded amounted to harassment.
He spoke to the ECHO about his haunting past at one of the most notorious boarding schools in Merseyside history - Lower Lee School.
In 1999 the former head teacher, Peter Amundsen, was jailed for 12 years for a monstrous campaign of sexual and physical abuse.
Mr Barnes said: "It was in the ECHO at the time, it said he was a 'sexual monster'."
He added: "I suffered all forms of abuse at that school and it left me with behavioural problems and a nervous disorder.
"I was there from six to 14, and I went from there into a secure unit in the care system.
"It was physical assault, mental abuse. I was made to stand in a corridor for hours, they would throw you in a cold shower, your head was put down the toilet, kids were whipped with a wet towel, that was by the teachers."
Mr Barnes described one child being thrown down a flight of stairs, and witnessing regular beatings.
He said: "I didn't talk about it for most of my life... I have post-traumatic stress disorder and borderline personality disorder."
When Amundsen was sentenced in 1999 a judge at Liverpool Crown Court blasted the way the school was run.
The court was told Amundsen had been given the job despite having no qualifications and little experience and having been mentally ill.
Judge Denis Clark said: "I ask myself where were we as a nation?
"I think we all bear some degree of collective responsibility for putting young children behind closed doors in homes and establishments and then effectively forgetting about them.
"It seems to me there was no adequate system of monitoring, scrutiny and checks on the backgrounds of people like you, paedophiles, who should never have been in that position.
"This was deliberate, systematic and very extensive sexual abuse of children who were vulnerable and powerless."
Mr Barnes says he will continue to campaign for justice for the victims of Lower Lee.
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