AUSTRALIA
lewisblayse.net
All six commissioners were present for the opening of public hearings for the Australian Royal Commission into institutional response to child sexual abuse, at its Sydney headquarters today. They heard evidence from Counsel Assisting, Gail “Snow White” Furness (see previous postings), a whistleblower, two victims and lawyers for the Scouts Australia organisation.
Formally, the hearing, which is expected to last up to two weeks, is to question why and how convicted paedophile and former scouts leader and Indigenous child protection official, Steven “Skip” Larkins, was able to get away with his crimes for so long, despite many warnings of his tendencies.
Larkins was so trusted that the Children’s Court even referred young people to him as the head of the foster care organisation. In 2010 he was caught out when he sent a text to one of those young people reading “Hey I love you but you should go home tonight so we don’t get caught.”
Many people have questioned the chief commissioner’s decision to begin with the Boy Scouts, rather than the Catholic Church. The Catholic Church will not be the subject of a hearing, in any form, until the end of the year. That hearing will not cover individual abuse cases by Catholic clergy, but rather will focus on the discredited “Towards Healing” process (see previous postings), which purportedly was established to help victims.
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