Report of Case Study No. 6

By Gerard Byrnes
Royal Commissiinto Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse
February 15, 2015

http://www.childabuseroyalcommission.gov.au/getattachment/8196990f-2646-49e9-95dc-304a85a036ad/Report-of-Case-Study-no-6

 The response of a primary school and the Toowoomba Catholic Education Office to the conduct of Gerard Byrnes

On 4 October 2010, Gerard Vincent Byrnes was sentenced to 10 years’ imprisonment, including a non-parole period of eight years, after he pleaded guilty to 44 child sexual abuse offences against 13 girls who were then aged between eight and 10 years. Mr Byrnes was a teacher and the girls he offended against were all students in his classes. The primary school at which the offences occurred cannot be named in this report because section 10 of the Criminal Law (Sexual Offences) Act 1987 (Qld) prevents its publication.

Many of the offences committed by Mr Byrnes involved touching and fondling of various parts of the girls’ bodies, both on the outside of and underneath their school clothing. Ten of the offences were particularly serious and involved digital vaginal and anal rape. With the exception of two counts of indecent treatment that involved Mr Byrnes licking girls’ vaginas, all of the offences – including the digital rape offences – were committed during class time while the girls were either standing beside Mr Byrnes’s desk near the blackboard or sitting on Mr Byrnes’s lap behind his desk.

The school was a non-State school, and was one of 32 primary and secondary schools administered by the Catholic Education Office, Diocese of Toowoomba (TCEO).

In 2007, Mr Byrnes was one of two staff members at the school who had been appointed as student protection contacts by the principal, Mr Terence Hayes. Mr Hayes was principal at the time of Mr Byrnes’s offending. Student protection contacts had responsibility for assisting the principal to ensure that suspicions or disclosures of harm, including sexual abuse, were reported to police in accordance with the school’s applicable policies and procedures for student protection (set out in the school’s Student Protection and Risk Management Kit (student protection kit). The other person appointed as a student protection contact was Learning Support Teacher, Ms Catherine Long.1