Children not 'responsibility' of worker

Sky News
September 24, 2014

http://www.skynews.com.au/news/top-stories/2014/09/24/children-not--responsibility--for-house-parent.html

A house parent at Retta Dixon House while sexual abuse of children was allegedly taking place said it wasn't her 'responsibility' what was happening to children not in her care.

Meanwhile former Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner Tom Calma has provided a statement to the Royal Commission, denying allegations he knew of the abuse and did nothing.

Lola Wall told the Royal Commission in to Institutional Responses in to a Child Sexual Abuse in Darwin that she knew about the serious allegations of rape and sexual assault allegedly carried out by fellow house-parent Don Henderson.

But she didn't think she had to speak out.

Mrs Wall did however, stop the children in her care, as well as her own three children from spending any time alone with Henderson.

'We wouldn't let our children go to that cottage,' she told the commission.

But Mrs Wall conceded she didn't speak up about the 'little children' who continued to be in his care.

Nor did she address the allegations with Henderson.

'I don't think that would have been an appropriate thing to do.'

She said she 'maybe' would have called the police if it were her children who were allegedly raped and sodomised by Henderson.

Meanwhile, former Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner Tom Calma provided a statement to the commission after it was alleged yesterday that he was. Welfare officer in the 70s who was told about abuse allegations and did nothing.

'I have never visited Retta Dixon Home, either as part of my employment or informally,' his statement read.

'To the best of my recollection, I do not believe I have ever been directly informed of any allegations of abuse occurring at the Retta Dixon Home in the 1960s or 1970s by any victims of the alleged abuse.'

Hearings continue at the Darwin Supreme Court.