Sex abuse victims have lost faith in justice, inquiry told

By Amos Aikman
Australian
November 18, 2014

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/in-depth/sex-abuse-victims-have-lost-faith-in-justice-inquiry-told/story-fngburq5-1227126219347

MORE victims of a convicted sex offender who allegedly abused Stolen Generation and other children at a Darwin missionary home in the 1960s and 70s are afraid to come forward ­because they have lost faith in the legal system, former residents say.

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse has heard evidence a series of failures by police and the Northern Territory ­Director of Public Prosecutions led to cases against pedophile ­Donald Henderson being dropped.

Henderson, convicted of abusing two boys at a Darwin swimming pool in the 80s, was never prosecuted for sex crimes he ­allegedly committed while working as a “house parent” at Retta Dixon Home, despite at one stage facing more than 80 charges.

Legal representatives of former Retta Dixon children told the commission — which yesterday heard submissions on what it should find — that children in Henderson’s care had suffered a “horror show” of abuse.

Sue Roman, a former resident who has worked to support many of those giving evidence, said “heaps” of new claimants had emerged, but that “nobody is ­willing and able to go through the process” of giving evidence, in part because many were too ­fragile.

“To think Donald Henderson still walks free is probably the thing that grates me the most,” Ms Roman said. “It’s not just the victims, but the community at large that has had a huge ­injustice done to it.”

In September, Ms Roman led a march on a Darwin police station demanding that Henderson be charged in light of evidence ­before the commission. She was sad this had not happened, but was encouraged the current head of the sex crimes unit had promised to devote special attention if new claimants came forward.

The home was operated by Australian Indigenous Ministries, formerly Aborigines Inland Mission, inside Darwin’s Bagot Aboriginal reserve between 1946 and 1980.

At yesterday’s hearing, it emerged AIM’s general director, Trevor Leggott, had visited Henderson last month to try to persuade him to confess. “I put to him directly whether he had ever ­sexually abused, molested or ­inappropriately touched children while he was at Retta Dixon,” Mr Leggott said in a statement tendered to the commission.

He said Henderson had avoided answering direct questions. AIM has offered an apology to former residents, but has refused to sell assets to pay compensation.

John Lawrence QC, acting for several of the victims, described the apology as “at best abject and cloying”, and urged the commission to “condemn AIM in the strongest possible terms”.

All parties have two weeks to respond in writing to yesterday’s submissions, before the commission retires.