Actually, Clark was something like 16 or 17 when this was happening, which makes it early 1980s - 1982 or 83. Certainly recent enough for this kind of thing to be seen in law as sexual abuse/paedophilia. However, it's certainly by no means clear that people at the time would have seen it that way, and this contributes to Clark's own guilt about it, I guess.
As to whether the abuse issue is important to the story, I suppose Shayne will let us know in future instalments...
Wendy
