AUSTRALIA/UNITED KINGDOM
The Conversation
Judy Courtin
With the year’s end tantalisingly close, Australia awaits the announcement of the Federal government’s terms of reference for the national Royal Commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse.
The nature and breadth of these sex crimes and their alleged concealment is expected to be profound. As Australia prepares for its national inquiry, England is reeling from sexual abuse allegations “on an unprecedented scale”. A joint report, due early 2013, by the Metropolitan Police and the children’s charity, NSPCC, will reveal the findings of their ten-week investigation into the former BBC celebrity, Jimmy Savile. Savile faced multiple allegations of child sex offences before his death, but no prosecutions.
The head of this investigation, Commander Peter Spindler, revealed an astonishing 450 people have made sexual abuse allegations against Savile. Although this “scoping exercise”, named Operation Yewtree, into the alleged assaults by Savile has been completed, police continue investigations into the allegations of another 139 victims of alleged sexual assaults committed by other high profile celebrities in the UK.
What do the Australian Royal Commission into religious institutions and the English investigations into high profile celebrities have in common?
First, the majority of the crimes being dealt with are historic in that, broadly, they were committed between the 1960s and the 1990s.
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