Sex abuse royal commission in Adelaide

Australian Teacher Magazine
March 17, 2014

http://www.ozteacher.com.au/news/sa/sex-abuse-royal-commission-in-adelaide/27064

ADELAIDE, March 17 – The royal commission into child sexual abuse is holding its first sitting in Adelaide to examine church and police responses to claims children were sexually abused at St Ann’s Special School.

The school’s former bus driver, Brian Perkins, was arrested in 2001 on charges of sexually abusing profoundly disabled children at the school.

He pleaded guilty to five offences involving three students, although as many as 30 children were understood to have been abused by him.

Perkins was sentenced to 10 years in jail, where he died in 2009.

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse will consider the responses by the Catholic Archdiocese of Adelaide and the South Australian police to the original allegations involving Perkins.

The commission will begin a hearing which will consider the circumstances in which Perkins was employed, and the monitoring and supervision of his activities.

Other issues will include the response of the principal and the school’s board to allegations the driver sexually abused children and the circumstances around payments by the Archdiocese to parents of those allegedly abused.